Martin Partington: Spotlight on the Justice System

In the book, I talk about some of the problems of knowing how to interpret official statistics on crime. In particular I discuss in outline the differences between Police Recorded Crime Statistics and the British Crime Survey.

In recent months there have been a number of technical changes in the way statistics on crime are published.

1 From April 2012, statistics on crime are published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), not the Home Office. The opening website is available at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Crime+in+England+and+Wales

2 The British Crime Survey is no more. It has been replaced by the somewhat less catchy but more accurate Crime Survey for England and Wales. There is a separate survey of crime in Scotland, called the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey.

3. On 19 July 2012, under the rather inviting title Trends in crime: a short story 2011/12 the ONS has recently a rather helpful table, summarising the principal differences between the Crime Survey for England and Wales and the Criminal Statistics. See http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-march-2012/trends-in-crime–a-short-story.html