Discuss the accuracy of Crime Statistics in The Uk

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Officially recorded crime statistics by the Home Office suggest that there were approximately 5.4 million crimes in Britain in 2006/07. This decreased by 10% in 2007/08. However, the British Crime Survey (BCS) suggests that there were in fact 11.3 million crimes in 2006/07, decreasing by 10% as well. This therefore poses the question: why is one survey telling us that the amount of crime recorded is in reality under half of what is actually happening?

A main reason behind the difference in these statistics is the way that they are both recorded. Police record statistics only when, according to official guidelines, ‘the circumstances as reported amount to a crime defined by law’ and there is no credible evidence to the contrary of the reported circumstances. There are problems with this method of recording crimes. For example, it also states in the official guidelines that ‘Apparent or possible criminal activity, such as damage to bus shelters, telephone kiosks, forensic items (blood) etc, which does not in itself amount to evidence of a crime, coming to the attention of the police after the incident either personally or via third parties, would not initially be recorded as a crime but as a crime related incident’. This therefore distorts statistics as in most people’s eyes, this would be evidence enough that a crime has been committed, and these are the types of incidents that the BCS takes into consideration and records as a crime. The BCS is a large survey of a representative sample of households of people over 16 years of ages in England and Wales. It discovers people’s perceptions and experiences of crime, people’s attitudes towards crime, and includes people’s experience of illicit drugs. This can then determine on a national level the approximate amount of crime happening, and the approximate number of types of crime as the sample is large and representative, and therefore provides the most reliable picture of crime and victimisation over periods of time. So these statistics are in some ways given greater authority when people look at crime data as it records more types of crime.

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Thefts and criminal damage make up 44% of police recorded crime, whilst the BCS records vandalism and thefts as 57% of all crime committed. This can give us a valuable insight into how people treat the survey and the police differently. Despite the slightly different categorisation, the crimes still amount to the same thing. However, these statistics do show that people are more comfortable reporting to an organisation that they are not in risk of retribution from. It is common in some societies not to trust the police, and in some cases, people do not report to the police ...

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