Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

The British Crime Survey (BCS) measures the level of crime using interviews with individual members of the public, in preference to the traditional technique of analysing crime recorded by the police. This approach of using interviews rather than official records is generally considered to give a more accurate picture of the level of crime in the country, as some people will be a victim of crime but not want, or bother, to report the incident to the police.

Some of the main findings from interviews conducted in the financial year 2001/02:

• The figures from BCS interviews in 2001/02 show crime to have been stable over the last year, following a period of consistent decline

• Between 1999 and interviews in 2001/02, all BCS crime fell by 14%,

• This includes statistically significant falls in domestic burglary (down 23%), vehicle thefts (down 14%) and common assaults (down 28%)

• The proportion of people who reported being a victim of at least one crime fell from 31% n 1999 to 28% in 2001/02

• The risk of being a victim of violent crime for those interviewed in 2001/02 was 4%. Young men aged 16 to 24 were the most at risk group, with 16% experiencing violent crime of some kind

• Household crime was highest in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber and London regions and lowest in Wales, South West and Eastern regions

• Looking at those crimes that are comparable between the BCS and recorded crime, the proportion of crimes that were estimated to be reported to the police was 42%, and of those 60% were recorded by the police

• Despite the overall fall in crime levels, one third of respondents believed that crime had risen ‘a lot’ and a further third felt that crime had risen ‘a little’ in the previous two years

There have been some significant changes to the way that the BCS has operated since 2000. Following a methodological review in that year, the survey is now designed to achieve 40,000 interviews each year in order to produce more accurate statistics on an annual basis and about less common crimes. Fieldwork is now carried out throughout the year and the main reporting period is now financial year.

As a result of the transition to this new approach, the report from the 2001 BCS was based on a sample of only around 10,000 interviews. This makes the estimates for that period less reliable than those from the 2000 BCS (which was based on 20,000 interviews), and the analysis presented here therefore compares data from interviews in 2001/02 (based on 33,000 interviews) with those from the 2000 BCS (which covered crime in 1999).

To see the report in full, download The British Crime Survey 2001 PDF 1.2Mb, from the Home Office Website

More recent figures can be found in full (alongside figures for recorded crime) in Crime in England and Wales 2001/02