This is the beginning of a solid article by Stephen Pollard about the unreliability of crime statistics. It has some good points but I feel that there is likely to some other factor that has not yet been identified which leads to crime figures that appear so unlikely.

It was claimed that the figures published yesterday showed that there were five million recorded crimes in England and Wales - a fall of 9 per cent in the 12 months to March.

The phrase 'lies, damned lies and statistics' is never more apposite than when dealing with crime figures. Indeed, there were two sets of 'official' figures: first, the number of crimes recorded by the police and, second, crimes counted by the British Crime Survey. The police figures say there were five million crimes last year while the British Crime Survey figures say there were 10.1 million.

And if you think that's confusing, it gets worse: both sets of figures are wrong.

The figures for crime recorded by the police are very misleading because they only take into account, as is clear from their name, those crimes which are actually reported to the police.

On the other hand, the British Crime Survey is based on 47,000 people who are asked about their experience of crime. So, in theory, it's a better guide to the true level of crime than the police's figures. But it, too, is still deeply flawed.

For one thing, the British Crime Survey is hamstrung because its researchers only interview people who are prepared to discuss the problem - and they are hard to find in high-crime, inner-city areas.

Worse, the survey doesn't count repeat violent crimes against a victim. So, if someone is repeatedly mugged, not only might the crimes never be recorded because the victim was never included in the survey, but even if he was, the number of crimes would be counted as one.

Thus one university criminologist has calculated that the total number of violent crimes committed against adults is likely to be 80 per cent higher than the figure recorded by the British Crime Survey.

I am not sure about the British Crime Survey not reporting crimes committed against those under 16 (which Stephen makes further on). I think I remember reading recently that that policy has been changed but I am not sure.

The full article is here.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Behaviour & Crime

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