There are a number of points that it is useful to bear in mind when obtaining and analysing information.
It is likely that information systems will under-estimate the extent of repeat victimization. It is well known, for example, that police data tend to under-estimate the extent of crime – not all incidents are reported and of those reported not all are recorded.
A further problem is the inconsistent way in which information is entered onto recording systems. Information about the victim or target may be missing, may be misspelt, or may simply be input in a different way (e.g. in capitals rather than lower case). All this creates serious difficulties for computers when asked to recall previous records relating to a particular address or victim
Under-counting repeat victimisation
St John’s School suffered from four burglaries in three months. The following show the information held on the police computer system.
St John’s primary Redland Road
St John’s
Primary School Redland Road
ST JOHN SCHOOL
The computer would read these as four different victims, with the effect that repeat victims would be under-counted and single victims over-counted. It is only by checking the records manually that they can be recognised as the same victim.
Victims can tell you whether they have been previously victimized and this information can help to shape the response. For example, if the victim reports a burglary they could be treated as a first time victim. However asking them about any unreported incidents may elicit information about, for example, slight damage to the car, damage around a house window, the garden shed door being forced open – none of which was deemed serious enough to report, but which indicate a higher level of risk.
There may be concerns within agencies about sharing information. At an individual level this is not easy to resolve and needs to be dealt with on a case by case basis. However, at the initial stage when trying to assess the scale and nature of a problem then information can anonymised. This would be an important early task for any partnership. The importance of having a full picture cannot be under-estimated, especially for those crimes where under-reporting is a problem. Failure to gain as comprehensive a picture as possible may lead to the development of an inappropriate response.