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User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics

1. 58 9 5 Composite drug use measures on the BCS eennnnnnnn nn 59 UW Crime Statistics conia a a a E E 61 10 1 Crime Statistics for Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland 61 BCS additional tables on sample sizes and confidence intervals 63 Recorded CrimelliSt rr 71 ai 77 1 Introduction The Home Office publishes figures on the levels and trends of crime in England and Wales based on two sets of crime statistics the British Crime Survey BCS and police recorded crime data Each source has different strengths and weaknesses but together they provide a more comprehensive picture of crime than could be obtained from either series alone These statistics inform public debate about crime and support the development and monitoring of policy Currently these crime statistics are published four times a year a main annual volume with extensive headline figures and commentary and three quarterly updates which provide a summary of latest BCS and recorded crime statistics Additionally a number of supplementary volumes are produced containing in depth analysis of issues such as homicide violent crime and perceptions of crime and anti social behaviour The publication schedule will be reviewed in the context of the UK Statistics Authority report on Overcoming Barriers to Trust in Crime Statistics UK Statistics Authority 2010 http www statisticsauthority gov uk reports correspondence reports overcomin
2. WER ED ASSN ERE VENEREA d Home Office The Research Development N User Guide to Home Office o improve policy making decision taking and practice C St t t in support of 2 Hoke Office rime a IS ICS purpose and aims to provide the public and Parliament with information necessary for informed debate and to publish information for future use ees Crown Copyright 2010 ISBN 978 1 84987 238 6 Last Updated August 2010 Contents Section 1 Section 2 Section 3 Section 4 Section 5 Page Introduction lt lt lt 1 British Crime Survey BOS 3 2 1 Description of the survey esesnnsennnennnnnssnnnnnnnnennnnnnnennnnnnnnnnn nn 3 2 2 BCS methodology adult survey oooococococcccccnccccconononnncnnnnccnannnnn nn ncnnnno 3 2 3 BCS methodology children s survey ooooooccccncccccccccconccccnnccnnnnnannncnnnnnos 5 2 4 BCS interviewing oooocccccccccnoocooncccnnnncnnnnnononccnnnnco naar nn nn cnn cnn ran nnnn rr nccnnnn 6 2 5 Time periods COVErEC cccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaeeeeeeeeeeseaaaeeeeeeees 7 2 6 BCS measures Of crime cuusssssssnnnnnnnnennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 8 2 7 BCS coding structure uuussssssssnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 10 Policeirecorded CIMA cia 13 3 1 Introduction to police recorded CriMe oooooccccconoocccccccncccnnnnnnnccnnnnncnnnnnnos 13 3 2 Recording practice
3. analysis are provided where appropriate The BCS is able to provide trends over time as the survey has included a comparable self report module of questions on illicit drug use since 1996 Unless otherwise specified any reported changes over time in BCS drug use estimates are statistically significant see Section 8 1 Figures are published on an annual basis and estimates are based on interviews conducted on a financial year basis for example between April 2009 and March 2010 Hence the reference period for last year drug use when respondents are asked about their drug use in the 12 months prior to interview will range from April 2008 for the earliest interviews to March 20010 for the latest interviews Development of the BCS questionnaire takes place on an annual basis and aims to reflect emerging issues For example respondents were asked about methamphetamine use for the first time in the 2008 09 survey Questions about frequent drug use previously only asked of 16 to 24 year olds use of skunk the stronger form of cannabis and the age at which cannabis cocaine and ecstasy were first taken were added to the 2009 10 BCS Developments for the 2010 11 BCS include asking respondents about the availability and acceptability of taking illicit drugs at which age they last took cannabis powder cocaine or ecstasy and which drugs were taken together the last time any drugs were taken Findings from the new questions introduced in the 2010
4. 11 BCS will be published in 2011 19 In the 2009 10 BCS there was an achieved sample of 44 559 adults 26 516 adults aged 16 to 59 completed the drugs self completion module 53 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Limitations of the BCS as a survey of drug use As a household survey the BCS provides an effective measure of the more commonly used drugs for which the majority of users are contained within the household population However the BCS does not cover some small groups potentially important given that they may have relatively high rates of drug use notably the homeless and those living in certain institutions such as prisons Nor in practice will any household survey necessarily reach those problematic drug users whose lives are so busy or chaotic that they are hardly ever at home or are unable to take part in an interview As a result the BCS is likely to underestimate the overall use of drugs such as opiates and crack cocaine and possibly also frequent cocaine powder users where the majority of users are concentrated within small sub sections of the population not covered or reached by the survey However this is likely to have only a marginal impact on overall estimates of drug use within the household population Issues exist around willingness to report illicit drug use even in a confidential manner An unknown proportion of respondents may not report their behaviour honestly hence estimates of prevalence in
5. 115 Personal acquisitive crime 3 5 33 37 ALL HOUSEHOLD CRIME 16 4 15 9 16 8 ALL PERSONAL CRIME 5 7 54 60 ALL BCS CRIME 21 5 20 9 220 Unweighted base 44 559 High level of worry about crime Burglary 10 1 9 4 10 8 Car crime 10 2 93 11 1 Violent crime 12 9 121 138 Unweighted base 11 167 High level of perceived anti social behaviour 14 4 13 7 15 0 Unweighted base 42 148 CJS effective 40 7 40 0 41 4 CJS fair 59 4 58 8 60 1 Unweighted base 43 128 Rating of local police 56 3 55 7 57 0 Police and local councils dealing with issues 51 3 50 6 52 1 Unweighted base 43 686 1 Risks for vandalism domestic burglary vehicle related theft bicycle theft and other household theft are based on households Risks for theft from the person snatch theft stealth theft other theft of personal property all BCS violence wounding assault with minor injury assault with no injury and robbery are based on adults 2 The range given for these estimates is based on a 95 per cent confidence interval see Section 8 Estimates based on subsamples for example age group will have larger confidence intervals see Table 8 04 3 All violence includes wounding assault with minor injury assault with no injury and robbery See Section 5 for more information 4 Unweighted base refers to high level of worry about burglary Base size for car crime will be lower as based on vehicle owning households only 5 Unweighted b
6. 2 3 21 24 Burglary 2 2 21 24 With entry 1 4 13 16 Attempts 0 9 08 10 With loss 1 0 09 12 No loss including attempts 1 3 11 14 Vehicle related theft 4 4 41 46 Theft from vehicles 3 1 29 33 Theft of vehicles 0 5 04 05 Attempts of and from 0 9 08 10 Bicycle theft 1 8 16 19 Other household theft 3 8 36 40 Unweighted base household crimes 44 610 Percentage of vehicle owning householas victims once or more Vehicle related theft 5 6 53 59 Theft from vehicles 4 0 37 42 Theft of vehicles 0 6 05 07 Attempts of and from 12 11 13 Vehicle vandalism 6 0 57 63 Unweighted base vehicle crimes owners 35 618 Percentage of bicycle owning households victims once or more Bicycle theft 3 9 36 43 Unweighted base bicycle theft owners 20 129 Percentage of adults 16 victims once or more Theft from the person 1 1 10 1 2 Snatch theft from person 0 1 0 1 02 Stealth theft from person 1 0 09 1 1 Other thefts of personal property 2 0 18 22 All violence 3 0 28 32 Wounding 0 8 06 09 Assault with minor injury 0 7 0 6 08 Assault without injury 1 2 11 13 Robbery 0 6 05 07 Violence with injury 1 6 14 17 Violence without injury 1 6 14 17 Domestic violence 0 3 0 2 03 Acquaintance 0 9 08 10 Stranger 1 4 12 15 Mugging robbery snatch theft 0 7 0 6 08 Unweighted base personal crimes 44 559 Household acquisitive crime 41 1 10 7
7. 2007 there are now only two ways in which a non sanction detection may be claimed Firstly where the offender dies before proceedings could be initiated or completed and secondly where the Crown Prosecution Service decides not to prosecute by virtue of their powers under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 Their use is now restricted to indictable only offences those offences which must be tried in a Crown Court A special arrangement has been made in 2009 10 to allow eight forces piloting youth restorative disposals YRDs to record their disposals under this category see section 3 5 3 5 CHANGES TO DETECTION RATES There have been a number of changes to recording practices and the sanctions available that have affected the recorded detection rates Home Office Counting Rules and the National Crime Recording Standard The Home Office Counting Rules for recorded crime changed from April 1998 These brought new offences into the series with varying detection rates It is estimated that the effect of the changes was to increase the overall detection rate from 28 to 29 per cent Additional changes were implemented with effect from April 1999 Any detection recorded required sufficient evidence to charge an interview with the offender and notification to the victim In addition detections obtained by the interview of a convicted prisoner ceased to 16 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics count The overall effect of t
8. CASI computer assisted self interviewing and when finished their answers are hidden Children also have the option of Audio CASI which allows them to listen to questions via headphones which can help those with literacy problems The use of self completion on laptops allows respondents to feel more at ease when answering questions on sensitive issues due to increased confidence in the privacy and confidentiality of the survey Self completion modules were first included in the 1996 and 2001 BCS to improve estimates of domestic violence Mirrlees Black 1999 Walby and Allen 2004 and a similar module has been included since the 2004 05 BCS The self completion module on illicit drug use was introduced in 1996 and comparable questions have been asked since then These questions are not currently asked of children 2 5 TIME PERIODS COVERED Prior to 2001 02 BCS respondents were asked about their crime related experiences in the previous calendar year but when the BCS changed to a continuous survey respondents were asked about crime in the 12 months prior to interview Since becoming a continuous survey BCS estimates are published based on interviews carried out over a 12 month period for example for the annual publication of the 2009 10 BCS estimates are derived from interviews carried out between April 2009 and March 2010 BCS year ending March 2010 As respondents are now interviewed on a rolling basis over the course of a year the time
9. Sz a as id 13 3 3 Recording of most serious violence offences nennen 14 SADOT S GOGO GOGO OOG 14 3 5 Changes to detection rates ennnennenennnennn nennen nennen 16 3 6 Sanction detections and offences brought to justice 17 Comparison between the BCS and police recorded crime 19 4 1 Comparable subset of CTiM oocccccccccccconnnccnnnnnccnononnnnnnnnnoconononononnns 19 4 2 Weighting method used for figure 2 6 of crime in England and Wales 2009 10 44444sssnnnsnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 20 Crime types and drug offences uus 2u0n0000000nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 23 5 1 Violent crime nn nnn nn nnn nnn 23 5 2 Acquisitive CFIMC 0 ln nnn nn nn nn nn noe 27 5 3 Vandalism and criminal damage ee 30 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Section 6 Section 7 Section 8 Section 9 5 4 Fraud and forgery c ccccccccconococcccnnnccnnnnnnnnncnnnnncnnnnn AARRE TRR Aa 31 5 5 Racially or religiously aggravated O eNCeS oooooooocooocococooonnnononononnnnos 32 9 6 Dr g ffenGes sonaba 33 PereeplioNs ns 35 6 1 Likelihood of victimisation and worry about crime nn 35 6 2 Anti social behaviour nssnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 35 6 3 Confidence in the police and local partners ccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 36 6 4 Ratings
10. about how they are dealing with anti social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area 6 4 RATINGS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE LOCAL POLICE The BCS measures perceptions of the local police both in general terms and in specific aspects of their work Since April 2003 the BCS has measured the proportion of those who believe the local police are doing a good or excellent job In addition people s perceptions of specific aspects of police work have been measured since October 2004 These questions ask how much people agree or disagree with the following statements e the police in this area can be relied on to be there when you need them e the police in this area would treat you with respect if you had contact with them for any reason e the police in this area treat everyone fairly regardless of who they are e the police in this area can be relied on to deal with minor crimes e the police in this area understand the issues that affect this community e the police in this area are dealing with the things that matter to people in this community and e taking everything into account have confidence in the police in this area Questions were introduced in April 2009 about the Policing Pledge Questions are asked separately of victims of crime and for those who have had contact with the police for other reasons For both the questions ask 15 An 43 police forces signed up to the Policing Pledge in December 2008 It set ou
11. all of the agencies within the criminal justice system the police the Crown Prosecution Service the courts prisons and the probation service How confident are you that the criminal justice system as a whole is fair 6 6 PERCEPTIONS OF THE CRIME RATE Questions on the perception of change in national and local crime have been included in the survey since 1996 Additional questions have been included in the 2008 09 and 2009 10 surveys relating to perceptions of change in the national and local rate of individual crime types and a comparison of perceived level of crime in the local area with the average for England and Wales Perceptions of local crime levels used to be asked of the whole sample who had lived at their address for three or more years but since April 2008 the question has been asked of a quarter of the sample irrespective of how long they have lived at their address For trend comparisons respondents who have lived at their address for less than three years have been excluded from the 2008 09 and 2009 10 figures 37 38 7 Classifications 7 1 GEOGRAPHICAL ACORN A Classification of Residential Neighbourhoods ACORN was developed by CACI Ltd http www caci co uk acorn and classifies households into one of 56 types according to demographic employment and housing characteristics of the surrounding neighbourhood ACORN is useful in determining the social environment in which households are located The main five
12. and feasibility of a new survey to measure commercial victimisation Ipsos MORI Research Report 33 http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 horr33c pdf Statistics Commission 2006 Crime statistics User perspectives Statistics Commission Report No 30 London Statistics Commission http www statscom org uk uploads files reports Crime_ Statistics Review final pdf UK Statistics Authority 2010 Overcoming Barriers to Trust in Crime Statistics London UK Statistics Authority http www statisticsauthority gov uk reports correspondence reports overcoming barriers to trust in crime statistics england and wales pdf UK Statistics Authority 2009 Code of practice for official statistics London UK Statistics Authority http www statisticsauthority gov uk assessment code of practice code of practice for official statistics pdf Walby S and Allen J 2004 Domestic violence sexual assault and stalking findings from the British Crime Survey Home Office Reseach Study 276 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs04 hors276 pdf Wilson D Patterson A Powell G and Hembury R 2006 Fraud and technology crimes Findings from the 2003 04 British Crime Survey the 2004 Offending Crime and Justice Survey and administrative sources Home Office Online Report 09 06 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs06 rdsoIr0906 pdf Copies of recent Home Office publications based on the British
13. and perceptions of the local police nen 36 6 5 Confidence in the criminal justice system nennen 37 6 6 Perceptions of the crime rate nsssssssssnsnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 37 Classifications iisa naar Ras inns E A sA SS abuse 39 7 1 Geographical rsisi aA AEAEE EEEE AAEE AEE 39 7 2 Household ll ln nn nnn nnn nn nnn n nennen nennen 42 7 3 Personal 0000 ll lll ll nn nn I nn nn nn I nn 44 Statistical conventions and methods ur222440000nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 47 8 1 Confidence intervals and statistical significance 47 8 2 Weighting dala isss 48 8 3 POpulatlONESTIMA ES PERRRREFREBRBREFFRUREFEFFEBEEEFFREREFEFEEEREERFERREREFUPEKERUFFREFEFERGFR 48 8 4 LOGISTIC regression cocorccasarnrararancnacpacpat coat 49 8 5 Conventions used in figures and tables ooooonnicccccccnnnccconccoonnccnnncnnannns 51 Drug use as measured by the British Crime Survey uuuussunnnnnnnnnnnen 53 9 1 The BCS as a survey of drug USB ooooccococcccccccconanonnncnnnnccnnnnnnnnnncnnnnnnnnnns 53 9 2 Reliability of illicit drug use estimates oooooonnnncnnocccnnnnnonccooncccnnnccnnnnns 54 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Section 10 Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Bibliography 9 3 Revisions to drug use estimates based on reweighted population figures antenne 56 9 4 Classification of drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971
14. annual crime bulletin Instead figures from the monthly aggregated recorded crime return are presented as a provisional homicide estimate with full analysis published in a supplementary bulletin approximately six months later Care should therefore be taken when using the provisional figures for homicide as these are subject to change e Death by driving offences includes by dangerous driving careless or inconsiderate driving driving under the influence of drink or drugs and while being an unlicensed or uninsured driver e Corporate manslaughter where an organisation is deemed responsible for a person s death e Grievous bodily harm GBH includes injury resulting in permanent disability more than minor permanent disfigurement broken bones fractured skull compound fractures substantial loss of blood lengthy treatment or serious psychiatric injury based on expert evidence GBH with intent occurs when there is clear evidence of a deliberate attempt to inflict serious bodily harm regardless of level of injury sustained GBH without intent occurs when serious bodily harm results but there is no evidence of a deliberate intent to inflict such an injury Prior to April 2008 GBH without intent was not separated out from a much broader category of less serious wounding that mostly consisted of Actual Bodily Harm ABH The definition of GBH with intent rests upon whether the actions of the offender clearly show a deliberate att
15. called theft in a dwelling and includes thefts committed inside a home by someone who is entitled to be there e g party guests workmen The police record an offence of burglary if a person enters any building as a trespasser and with intent to commit an offence of theft GBH or unlawful damage Aggravated burglary occurs when the burglar is carrying a firearm imitation firearm offensive weapon or explosive Recorded crime figures are provided separately for burglaries that occur in domestic properties and those which occur in commercial or other properties e Domestic burglaries include burglaries in all inhabited dwellings including inhabited caravans houseboats and holiday homes as well as sheds and garages connected to the main dwelling for example by a connecting door e Non domestic burglaries include burglaries to businesses including hotels and similar accommodation and also some burglaries of sheds and outhouses where these are not clearly connected to the inhabited property Using the BCS it is possible to differentiate between burglaries with entry and attempted burglaries and also between burglary with loss and burglary with no loss including attempts Burglary with entry plus attempted burglary add up to total burglary Burglary with loss plus burglary with no loss including attempts also add up to total burglary These are defined below An attempted burglary is recorded by the police and in the BCS if there is clea
16. fear alarm or distress 8M Racially or religiously aggravated harassment 9B Racially or religiously aggravated public fear alarm or distress 11 Cruelty to and neglect of children 12 Abandoning a child under the age of two years 13 Child abduction 14 Procuring illegal abortion 104 Assault without injury on a constable Summary offences closely associated with actual bodily harm see classification 8G 105A Assault without injury Summary offences closely associated with actual bodily harm see classification 8G Includes amongst other offences common assault and battery Section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 From 1 April 2002 only includes assaults involving no injury 105B Racially or religiously aggravated assault without injury see classification 105A SEXUAL OFFENCES Most serious sexual crime 17A 17B 19C 19D 19E 19F 19G 19H 20A 20B 21 22A 22B 70 71 72 Other 23 24 Sexual assault on a male aged 13 and over Sexual assault on a male child under 13 Rape of a female aged 16 and over Rape of a female child under 16 Rape of a female child under 13 Rape of a male aged 16 and over Rape of a male child under 16 Rape of a male child under 13 Sexual assault on a female aged 13 and over Sexual assault on a female child under 13 Sexual activity involving a child under 13 Causing sexual activity without consent Sexual activity involving a child under 16 Sexual acti
17. force involves being kicked hit bitten choked strangled threatened with a weapon threats to kill use of a weapon or some other kind of force e Sexual assault indecent exposure sexual threats and unwanted touching less serious rape or assault by penetration including attempts serious by any person including a partner or family member e Rape is the legal category of rape introduced in legislation in 2003 It is the penetration of the vagina anus or mouth by a penis without consent e Assault by penetration is a legal offence introduced in 2003 It is the penetration of the vagina or anus with an object or other body part without consent e Stalking two or more incidents causing distress fear or alarm of obscene or threatening unwanted letters or phone calls waiting or loitering around home or workplace following or watching or interfering with or damaging personal property by any person including a partner or family member The police recorded crime category of most serious sexual crime encompasses rape sexual assault and sexual activity with children The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced in May 2004 altered the definitions of all three categories so comparisons around this time should be made with caution The group of other sexual offences recorded by the police covers unlawful sexual activity mostly involving consenting adults and is therefore particularly influenced by police activity in investigat
18. group breakdowns are characterised as follows e Wealthy Achievers wealthy executives affluent older people and well off families e Urban Prosperity prosperous professionals young urban professionals and students living in town and city areas e Comfortably Off young couples secure families older couples living in the suburbs and pensioners e Moderate Means Asian communities post industrial families and skilled manual workers e Hard Pressed low income families residents in council areas people living in high rise and inner city estates The ACORN classification is currently still available on the British Crime Survey BCS dataset but the National Statistics Output Area Classification see OAC below is now used in demographic tables in the annual crime statistics publication Basic Command Units BCUs These equate to police divisions and are also referred to as Operational Command Units in some forces As at 1 April 2009 and therefore for the reporting year 2009 10 there were 190 BCUs in England and Wales Recorded crime figures for seven key offences for each BCU are published on the Home Office website Community Safety Partnerships CSPs Set up under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and are in nearly all cases coterminous with local authority areas They include representatives from police health probation and other local agencies and provide strategies for reducing crime in the area As at 1 Ap
19. have been two major changes to the recording of crimes in recent years in April 1998 the Home Office Counting Rules for Recorded Crime were expanded to include certain additional summary offences and counts became more victim based the number of victims was counted rather than the number of offences in April 2002 the NCRS was introduced across England and Wales although some forces adopted key elements of the standard earlier and compliance with the standard continued to improve in the years following its formal introduction The NCRS was devised by the Association of Chief Police Officers ACPO in collaboration with Home Office statisticians It was designed to ensure greater consistency between forces in recording crime and to take a more victim oriented approach to crime recording with the police being required to record any allegation of crime unless there was credible evidence to the contrary Simmons et al 2003 Both these changes resulted in an increase in the number of crimes recorded Certain offences such as the more minor violent crimes were more affected by these changes than others All of these factors need to be considered when looking at the trends in recorded crime Ongoing consultation on the formulation and development of the policy on crime recording is provided through working groups of the National Crime Recording Steering Group NCRSG comprising members of the Home Office police force regional representatives and re
20. is completed at the end of the face to face interview which mainly covers questions on experiences of crime victimisation and perceptions of crime related issues see Sections 2 5 and 6 Respondents generally complete the drugs module on the interviewer s laptop by themselves CASI computer assisted self interviewing and when complete their answers are encrypted and cannot be retrieved by the interviewer BCS estimates are based on a sample of the population which is considered large for a government survey The survey has a high response rate 76 for the main survey and 93 of those who were eligible for the self completion module and is weighted to ensure figures are as representative of the population under study as possible see Section 8 2 The self completion module is restricted to those respondents aged 16 to 59 years the decision to exclude those aged 60 and over was largely an economy measure reflecting their very low prevalence rates for the use of prohibited drugs Between April and September 2009 the self completion module on the BCS was extended to 69 year olds Based only on these six months data any last year illicit drug use among adults aged 60 to 69 was 0 9 cent confirming the low prevalence within this subgroup data not previously published Although illicit drug use estimates from the BCS may be based on a small number of users published figures and comparisons are considered to be robust and caveats on subgroup
21. not at all common For each very and fairly common is scored as 1 and not very and not at all as 0 A scale is then constructed by summing the scores for each case The scale ranges from O to 3 with high disorder areas being those with a score of 2 or 3 The measurement of respondents own perceptions of disorder in the local area is described under anti social behaviour see Section 6 Rural and urban areas The analysis of crime in urban and rural areas is based on the Government Statistics recommended method for categorising the level of rurality There are two approaches The Rural Urban Definition and the Local Authority LA Classification were both developed to produce a rural urban view from Government Statistics Where data are below the LA level the definition must be used to produce rural and urban totals Where LA level data are the lowest available then the LA Classification should be used More detail is given below For British Crime Survey analysis the Definition has been used as BCS data are collected below the Local Authority level For police recorded crime analysis the Classification has been used as police recorded crime data are not collected below the Local Authority level Rural Urban Definition England and Wales The Rural Urban Definition an official National Statistic was introduced in 2004 and defines the rurality of very small 2001 Census based geographies Categories used to aggregate to rural or urban ar
22. of two years Child abduction Procuring illegal abortion Concealment of birth All sexual offences Non domestic burglary Proceeds of crime Theft in a dwelling Theft by an employee Theft of mail Abstracting electricity Theft from shops Theft from automatic machine or meter Handling stolen goods Other theft All Fraud and forgery Threat etc to commit criminal damage All Drug offences and All Other offences BCS Other household theft and Other thefts of personal property Reporting rates findings from the BCS The BCS asks a series of questions regarding whether incidents were reported or otherwise came to the attention of the police These findings reveal considerable differences in reporting rates between different types of offences and some variability in reporting rates over time Analysis of reasons given for not reporting crime to the police are also available 4 2 WEIGHTING METHOD USED FOR FIGURE 2 6 OF CRIME IN ENGLAND AND WALES 2009 10 For comparison of BCS and police recorded crime recorded crime data is weighted to take into account the distribution of crimes within BCS interview periods At the BCS interview respondents are asked about crimes experienced in the previous 12 months For example for BCS interviews in the period from April 2009 to March 2010 this corresponds to crime experienced between April 2008 and March 2010 The distribution of recorded crime over this interval is weighted as many BCS interv
23. offence codes came into being on 1 April 2007 31 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics company director false accounting cheque and credit card fraud other frauds bankruptcy and insolvency offences forgery or use of false drug prescription other forgery and vehicle driver document fraud Under the Fraud Act 2006 fraud is defined as dishonestly making a false representation to obtain property or money for themselves or another Recorded crime statistics are collected for fraud by company director false accounting other frauds failing to disclose information abuse of position obtaining services dishonestly making or supplying articles for use in fraud possession of articles for use in fraud bankruptcy and insolvency offences forgery or use of false drug prescription other forgery and vehicle driver document fraud The Counting Rules changes in January 2007 also changed recording of fraud so that in most cases cheque and plastic card fraud is counted on a per account rather than per transaction basis If an account is defrauded only one offence is recorded rather than one offence per fraudulent transaction on each account as was the practice prior to January 2007 For example previously if a person had their credit card stolen and it was subsequently used on ten separate occasions to buy goods fraudulently from ten different shops there would be a requirement for one crime record for theft and ten for decepti
24. or passing moment of pain is experienced by the victim The other violent offences recorded by the police include attempted murder conspiracy to murder poisoning or female genital mutilation cruelty or neglect to children abandoning a child under two years and child abduction Recorded crime statistics do not specifically identify offences of domestic violence since it is not a legal definition Such offences would be recorded in accordance with the intent of the offence and any injuries sustained e g GBH with intent Police recorded crime figures for violence against the person quoted in the text and charts also include assault on a constable and racially or religiously aggravated assault which are both separate categories within recorded crime Such incidents are not treated separately in the BCS and would fall within the BCS assault with minor injury or without injury categories Sexual offences Due to the small numbers of sexual offences identified by face to face BCS interviews results from the main BCS are too unreliable to report these data are not included within the overall count of violence except for the categories of serious wounding with sexual motive and other wounding with sexual motive which are included in the offence type of wounding Respondents may not wish to disclose sensitive information face to face and so interviews since 2004 05 and prior to this in 1996 and 2001 have included self completion modules on int
25. or robbery the burglary or robbery codes take precedence over the damage codes in offence coding The BCS produces estimates both for vandalism to the home and other property and against vehicles Vandalism to the home and other property involves intentional or malicious damage to doors windows fences plants and shrubs for example Vandalism to other 30 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics property also includes arson where there is any deliberate damage to property belonging to the respondent or their household including vehicles caused by fire The BCS defines vandalism of vehicles as any intentional and malicious damage to a vehicle such as scratching a coin down the side of a car or denting a car roof It does not however include causing deliberate damage to a car by fire These incidents are recorded as arson and therefore included in vandalism to other property The BCS only covers vandalism against private households that is vehicles owned by any member of the household and company cars which count as belonging to the respondent Recorded crime includes all vehicle vandalism under the offence classification of criminal damage to a motor vehicle Police recorded criminal damage results from any person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged Damage
26. period covered by the data is not directly comparable with any calendar year Therefore tables and figures including trends over time refer to the year in which the crime took place for interviews prior to 2001 02 so interviews conducted in 1996 relate to victimisation in 1995 and will be labelled as 1995 in tables and figures and the year in which the survey interviews took place for interviews since 2001 02 Other questions on the BCS e g attitudes to policing confidence in the CJS ask the respondent their current views or attitudes and thus the data are referenced as the year in which the respondent was interviewed Since respondents are interviewed at different times within each month they are asked about experiences of crime in the current month plus the 12 months prior Crimes experienced in the interview month are excluded from the 12 month reference period used for analysis Hence for the 2009 10 BCS the reference period includes incidents experienced by respondents between April 2008 and February 2010 The centre point of the period for reporting crime is March 2009 the only month to be included in all respondents reference periods Figure 2 Averaging over the moving reference period of the BCS generates estimates that are most closely comparable with annual police recorded crime figures to the end of the September six months earlier For example BCS figures from the 2009 10 survey are most closely comparable with police record
27. the relationship between experiences of crime and deprivation the local areas are ranked according to their scores on the employment deprivation domain The 20 per cent of areas with the highest deprivation scores are identified as the most deprived areas on the employment deprivation domain and the 20 per cent of areas with the lowest deprivation scores are identified as the least deprived An Index of Multiple Deprivation is also available which combines all seven separate domains into one index The Indices of Deprivation 2004 are the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government further information is available at www communities gov uk Further information on the Welsh Index of Deprivation 2005 is available at www wales gov uk Local Authority areas These areas are a combination of metropolitan and non metropolitan districts unitary authorities and London boroughs As at 1 April 2009 there were 348 local authorities in England and Wales These areas provide the basis for Community Safety Partnerships although since their formation a number of partnerships have merged to cover multiple local authority areas see also Community Safety Partnerships In some cases figures are reported for local authority areas that applied in 2002 03 for the sake of continuity even where there have been amalgamations Output Area Output Areas OAs are used across the UK as the base unit of census output In 2001 they were introdu
28. theft offences covers thefts that are not covered by other property crime offence groups i e thefts from vehicles is included in offences against vehicles Offences included are theft from a person thefts of bicycles shoplifting and other theft or unauthorised taking Bicycle theft The BCS covers thefts of bicycles belonging to the respondent or any other member of the household Police recorded crime also includes offences where a pedal cycle is stolen or taken without authorisation within the other theft offences category This category does not include every bicycle theft as some may be stolen during the course of another offence e g burglary and are therefore classified as such by the police and in the BCS e Burglary if anything else was stolen or an attempt was made to steal something else from the household s dwelling e Theft from a dwelling when a bicycle is stolen from inside a house by someone who was not trespassing e Theft from a vehicle if the bicycle is one of a number of things stolen 5 3 VANDALISM AND CRIMINAL DAMAGE In the BCS criminal damage is referred to as vandalism and is defined as the intentional and malicious damage to either the home other property and vehicles Vandalism shown in the BCS ranges from arson to graffiti Cases where there is nuisance only e g letting down car tyres or where the damage is accidental are not included Where vandalism occurs in combination with burglary
29. this report by classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act however developing a new composite group Any stimulant drug that includes drugs across the legal classification provides an additional useful measure These types of drugs are used for their stimulant properties and are more likely to be used interchangeably by the same people at similar times and in similar settings Amphetamines and all forms of cocaine are well known for their stimulant properties ecstasy is used by clubbers and amyl nitrite poppers deliver a short sharp high again often used in clubs Note that interpretation of the composite category trends should be made with caution Taking Class A drug use as an example of the people who took Class A drugs in the last year there will be many cases of poly drug use Some people may have taken all of the Class A drugs others a combination and some just one Therefore if there is an increase in the use of cocaine powder for instance there may not necessarily be an increase in the use of Class A drugs The increase in the use of cocaine powder could just be users switching from one drug to another It is only when there is a significant increase in new Class A drug users that a change in use of Class A drugs overall will occur 60 10 UK crime statistics 10 1 CRIME STATISTICS FOR WALES SCOTLAND AND NORTHERN IRELAND The British Crime Survey and police recorded crime data used in this publication cov
30. which is repairable without cost or which is accidental is not included in police recorded crime statistics Separate recorded crime figures exist for criminal damage to a dwelling to a building other than a dwelling to a vehicle and other criminal damage Figures are also published for racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage Arson is the act of deliberately setting fire to property including buildings and vehicles In the BCS this is any deliberate damage to property belonging to the respondent or their household caused by fire regardless of the type of property involved The only exception is where the item that is set on fire was stolen first this is coded as theft Arson is included in vandalism to other property and includes arson to vehicles For vehicle crime if a vehicle is stolen and later found deliberately burnt out by the same offender one crime of theft of a vehicle is recorded by the police and in the BCS If there is evidence that someone unconnected with the theft committed the arson then an offence of arson is recorded by the police in addition to the theft For the BCS only an offence of theft of a vehicle would be recorded as in practice it would often not be possible to establish that the arson was committed by someone unconnected with the theft 5 4 FRAUD AND FORGERY The measurement of fraud is challenging as fraud is known to be very substantially under reported to the police Better information can be de
31. 0 3 9 0 2 0 0 0 3 7 Ecstasy 4 4 3 8 5 1 242 4 7 3 8 5 5 169 Hallucinogens 1 7 1 3 2 1 105 1 9 1 3 2 4 70 LSD 0 8 0 5 1 1 47 0 9 0 5 1 3 33 Magic mushrooms 1 5 1 1 1 8 88 1 6 1 1 2 1 58 Opiates 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 Heroin 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 Methadone 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 Class A B Any amphetamine 2T 2 2 3 2 160 2 7 2 1 3 4 116 Amphetamines 2 6 2 1 3 2 157 2 7 2 1 3 3 115 Methamphetamine 0 2 0 1 0 3 12 0 3 0 1 0 5 9 Class B Cannabis 18 7 17 5 20 0 1 005 18 8 17 3 20 3 687 Class B C Tranquillisers 1 0 0 7 1 3 53 1 0 0 7 1 4 39 Class C Anabolic steroids 0 3 0 2 0 5 21 0 3 0 1 0 5 10 Ketamine 1 9 1 5 2 3 84 2 0 14 25 59 Not Classified Amyl Nitrite 4 4 3 8 5 1 216 4 3 3 5 5 1 151 Glues 0 7 0 4 0 9 40 0 6 0 3 0 9 24 Frequent drug use 7 6 6 7 8 5 415 7 6 6 6 8 7 287 Any Class A drug 8 1 7 2 8 9 460 8 0 7 0 9 1 307 Any stimulant drug 10 0 9 1 11 0 552 9 9 88 11 1 375 Any drug 22 6 21 3 23 9 1 217 22 6 21 0 24 3 827 Unweighted base i 5 295 3 533 1 Base numbers relate to any drug use Bases for other drug measures will be similar 9 3 REVISIONS TO DRUG USE ESTIMATES BASED ON REWEIGHTED POPULATION FIGURES Revisions to previously published estimates of general population drug use have been made as revisions have been applied to the population figures used in BCS weighting see Sections 8 2 and 8 3 The effect of the revisions carried out is minimal a
32. 10 to 15 Overall 70 per cent of children within households responding to the main BCS participated The true response rate taking into account first stage non response to the main BCS is in the region of 51 per cent Adjustment is made for possible non response bias through weighting The BCS children s questionnaire was modelled on the personal victimisation module of the adult questionnaire with the intention of being able to classify incidents to offences on a broadly comparable basis However methodological differences between the adult and children s survey mean that direct comparisons cannot be made between the adult and child data for example development and testing work showed it was necessary to adapt the existing questions asked of adults to make them suitable for children Extending the BCS to encompass the experiences of children raises some difficult issues with regard to classifying incidents reported by children For example minor incidents that are normal within the context of childhood behaviour and development can be categorised as criminal when existing legal definitions of offences are applied First estimates from the BCS extension to children were published as experimental statistics in June 2010 in conjunction with a user consultation about the future presentation and different approaches to producing estimates based on incidents reported by children see Millard and Flatley 2010 http rds homeoffice gov uk rds
33. 2007 08 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 02 09 http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs09 hosb0209 pdf Povey D Ed Coleman K Kaiza P Hoare J and Jansson K 2008 Homicides Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2006 07 Supplementary Volume 2 to Crime in England and Wales 2006 07 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 03 08 http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs08 hosb0308 pdf 78 Bibliography Simmons J Legg C and Hosking R 2003 National Crime Recording Standard NCRS an Analysis of the Impact on Recorded Crime Companion Volume to Crime in England and Wales 2002 2003 Home Office Online Report 31 03 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs2 rdsolr3103 pdf Sivarajasingam V Shepherd J P and Matthews K 2003 Effect of urban closed circuit television on assault injury and violence detection Injury Prevention 9 312 316 Smith A 2006 Crime statistics An independent review Independent Report London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs06 crime statistics independent review 06 pdf Smith K Ed Flatley J Ed Coleman K Kaiza P and Roe S 2010 Homicide Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2008 09 Supplementary Volume 2 to Crime in England and Wales 2008 09 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 01 10 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 hosb0110 pdf Smith P and Harvey P 2010 Methodological work to consider the scope
34. 3 3 669 Personal acquisitive crime 1 895 1 764 2 027 ALL HOUSEHOLD CRIME 5 939 5 747 6 132 ALL PERSONAL CRIME 3 648 3 439 3 856 ALL BCS CRIME 9 587 9 278 9 895 Unweighted base 44 559 1 For household crimes vandalism domestic burglary vehicle related theft bicycle theft and other household theft the 2009 10 numbers are derived by multiplying offence rates incidence rates by 23 848 680 households in England and Wales For personal crimes theft from the person snatch theft stealth theft other theft of personal property all BCS violence wounding assault with minor injury assault with no injury and robbery the 2009 10 numbers are derived by multiplying incidence rates by 44 265 687 adults in England and Wales 2 The range given for these estimates is based on a 95 per cent confidence interval see Section 8 for more information Estimates based on subsamples for example age group will have larger confidence intervals 3 Comparable crime includes a set of offences that are covered by both the BCS and police recorded crime and is used to compare trends in police recorded and BCS figures 65 Table A 03 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of victimisation rates prevalence risk and key perception measures Percentages England and Wales 2009 10 BCS Estimate Range PROPERTY CRIME Percentage of households victims once or more Vandalism 6 7 64 7 0 Vehicle vandalism 4 7 45 5 0 Other vandalism
35. 6 0 6 6 6 4 6 1 6 7 All BCS crime 23 4 22 8 24 0 23 5 22 9 24 1 Percentage High level of perceived anti social behaviour 16 8 16 2 17 5 16 9 16 3 17 5 Percentage saying very fairly big problem in their area Abandoned or burnt out cars 7 6 7 2 8 1 7 7 7 2 8 1 Noisy neighbours or loud parties 10 3 9 8 10 7 10 3 9 9 10 7 People being drunk or rowdy in public places 25 2 24 5 25 9 25 3 24 6 26 0 People using or dealing drugs 27 0 26 2 27 8 27 1 26 3 27 9 Teenagers hanging around on the streets 32 1 31 4 32 9 32 2 31 4 32 9 Rubbish or litter lying around 30 4 30 0 31 1 30 5 29 7 31 2 Vandalism graffiti and other deliberate damage to property 27 8 27 1 28 5 27 9 27 1 28 6 Percentage with high level of worry about Burglary 12 1 11 6 12 5 12 0 11 6 12 5 Car crime 12 6 12 1 13 0 12 6 12 1 13 1 Violent crime 16 0 15 4 16 6 16 0 15 4 16 5 1 Figures are presented for year to September 2007 as this is the first time revisions were applied to previously published figures the reweighted LFS figures were first introduced into BCS analysis for year to September 2008 2 Labour Force Survey population estimates used in the weighting process are 2003 based 3 Labour Force Survey population estimates used in the weighting process are 2007 based 4 Risk for All vehicle related theft is based only on households owning or with regular use of a vehicle It includes theft of vehicles theft fro
36. 600 700 32 issued per PSU per PFA 16 in high density areas 01 02 37 000 32 824 Moved to a continuous Whole postcode sectors fieldwork period 32 issued per PSU Disproportionate sampling by 16 in high density areas PFAs to get a min of 600 700 per PFA The small users PAF has been the sampling frame for the BCS since 1992 it lists all postal delivery points in England and Wales almost all households have one delivery point or letterbox User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics 2000 20 000 19 411 Disproportionate sampling by Quarter postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of 300 per 32 issued per PSU PFA 1998 15 000 14 947 Inner city areas sampled at Quarter postcode sectors twice the rate of other areas 36 issued in inner city areas 32 in other areas 1996 15 000 16 348 Inner city areas sampled at Quarter postcode sectors twice the rate of other areas 30 issued in inner city areas 27 in other areas As well as stratifying disproportionately by PFA the sample is stratified by other socio demographic variables in order to ensure a representative sample The stratifiers used in 2009 10 as for previous surveys were PFA population density deprivation and household characteristics For further details of sample stratification and clustering see Bolling et al 2009 At each sampled address the interviewer is required to establish that the address is eligible ineligible add
37. 64 in England 21 The first results relating to victimisation were published in June 2010 2 Cannabis use questions were included as analytical variables to contribute to the understanding of the links between risky behaviour and criminal victimisation among children rather than as drug use prevalence measures 54 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics percentage of people who have taken one or more drugs in their lifetime however it says little about the patterns of current drug use Some respondents will have taken these drugs ten or 20 years ago others in the last month Use in the last month is a good indicator of very recent drug use but it is more subject to variation due to the small number of last month users For these reasons use of drugs in the last year is deemed to be the best indicator available to measure trends of recent drug use Year on year prevalence changes are presented using the last year drug use measure the best available measure of recent drug use but these need to be interpreted with care and a consideration of the following issues e Large sample sizes increase the reliability of estimates for rare acts such as consumption of Class A drugs however the range of variability will still be quite large for very rare acts such as heroin use hence figures will be liable to fluctuation from year to year e Comparisons have been made with 1996 figures the start of the BCS self report drug use col
38. Attempted burglary in a dwelling 28C Distraction burglary in a dwelling 28D Attempted distraction burglary in a dwelling 29 Aggravated burglary in a dwelling 30A Burglary in a building other than a dwelling 30B Attempted burglary in a building other than a dwelling 31 Aggravated burglary in a building other than a dwelling OFFENCES AGAINST VEHICLES 37 2 Aggravated vehicle taking Part of Section 1 of the Aggravated Vehicle Taking Act 1992 Applies to offences of unauthorised vehicle taking see classification 48 below with additional aggravating factors of dangerous driving or causing an accident involving injury or damage 45 Theft from a vehicle 48 Theft or unauthorised taking of motor vehicle Unauthorised taking of motor vehicle part of Section 12 of the Theft Act 1968 also known as taking without consent or TWOC is a summary offence It is closely associated with theft of a motor vehicle because at the time of recording it may not be known whether the intention is to permanently deprive the owner 126 Interfering with a motor vehicle 73 Summary offences closely associated with theft of or from vehicles The Home Office website see above contains detailed guidance for forces on distinguishing between these offences and criminal damage where a vehicle is reported damaged Thefts of and from vehicles Comprises aggravated vehicle taking theft from a vehicle and theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle OTH
39. Crime Survey including reports that report jointly on the BCS and police recorded crime can be downloaded from http www homeoffice gov uk rds bcs1 html ISBN 978 1 84987 238 6 79
40. ER THEFT OFFENCES All the offences listed here unless shown otherwise form the legal offence of theft Section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 which is defined as a person dishonestly appropriating property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 46 47 49 54 Profiting from or concealing knowledge of the proceeds of crime Theft from the person Includes snatch theft but if this involves the use or threat of force e g if the victim resists then it is recorded as robbery Theft in a dwelling other than from automatic machine or meter Theft by an employee Theft of mail Dishonest use of electricity Theft or unauthorised taking of a pedal cycle Includes taking a pedal cycle without consent Section 12 5 of the Theft Act 1968 Shoplifting Theft from automatic machine or meter Other theft or unauthorised taking Includes amongst other offences unauthorised taking of conveyance other than a motor vehicle or pedal cycle Handling stolen goods Section 22 of the Theft Act 1968 Dishonestly receiving etc goods knowing them to have been stolen FRAUD AND FORGERY 51 52 53A 53B 53C 53D 53E 53F 53G 53H 53J 55 60 61 Fraud by company director False accounting Cheque and credit card fraud pre Fraud Act 2006 Preserved other fraud and repealed fraud offences pre Fraud Act 2006 Fraud by false representation cheq
41. ETHODOLOGY ADULT SURVEY The BCS was first conducted in 1982 covering crime in 1981 and ran at mostly two year intervals until 2001 when it became a continuous survey Although there have been changes to the survey over time the wording of the questions that are asked to elicit victimisation experiences have been held constant throughout the life of the BCS Prior to 2001 British Crime Surveys were carried out in 1982 1984 1988 1992 1994 1996 1998 and 2000 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics The sample is designed to be representative of the population of households in England and Wales and adults aged 16 or over living in those households As such it is possible to use the small users Postcode Address File PAF which is widely accepted as the best general population sampling frame in England and Wales As mentioned earlier the BCS does not cover the population living in group residences or other institutions although excluding the minority of the population that lives in such establishments is thought to have little effect on BCS estimates see Pickering et al 2008 Over the whole year the aim is to achieve 46 000 interviews with adults aged 16 or over as part of the core sample Since January 2009 the survey was extended to include a nationally representative sample of children aged 10 to 15 see next section for further details In 2004 05 the sample was re designed to achieve 1 000 interviews in e
42. Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range Unweighted base Respondent sex Male 0 2 0 1 0 2 1 3 11 15 2 2 20 24 0 9 0 8 1 1 20 079 Female 0 4 03 05 0 6 04 0 7 0 6 04 0 7 0 5 0 4 06 24 480 Respondent age 16 24 0 5 0 2 08 3 0 23 3 7 4 0 3 2 4 7 2 2 16 2 8 3 666 25 34 0 4 0 2 06 1 0 0 7 1 3 2 1 17 26 0 9 0 6 1 2 5 998 35 44 0 5 03 06 0 6 04 09 1 0 0 8 1 3 0 6 0 4 0 7 8 007 45 54 0 3 0 1 04 0 7 04 09 0 8 05 1 0 0 3 0 1 04 7 312 55 64 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 4 0 2 0 5 0 6 0 4 0 8 0 2 0 1 0 4 7 627 65 74 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 3 0 2 0 0 0 3 0 3 0 1 04 6 321 75 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 4 5 628 1 The range given for these estimates is based on a 95 per cent confidence interval see Section 8 for more information 67 Table A 05 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of household victimisation rates prevalence risk by household reference person age and tenure Percentages England and Wales 2009 10 BCS All household crime Vandalism Burglary Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range HRP age 16 24 22 0 19 5 24 5 5 7 43 7 1 7 0 54 85 25 34 23 0 216 244 9 6 8 7 10 6 3 0 25 36 35 44 20 9 19 9 22 0 8 5 78 9 2 2 7 23 3 2 45 54 19 3 18 3 20 3 8 4 7 7 9 1 2 3 2 0 27 55 64 14 4 13 5 15 3 6 5 59 74 1 7 13 2 0 65 74 8 8 80 96 3 4 29 3 9 0 9 0 7 1 2 75 6 0 53 6 7 2 2 17 26 0 9 06 1 2 Tenure Own
43. Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Theft Theft from the person covers theft including attempts of a handbag wallet cash etc directly from the victim but without the use of physical force against the victim or the threat of it This BCS category breaks into two components e snatch theft where there may be an element of force involved but this is just enough to snatch the property away and e stealth theft where no force is used and the victim is unaware of the incident pick pocketing Stealth theft makes up the larger share over 80 of the total For recorded crime theft from the person offences are those where there is no use of threat or force Stealth theft is included as part of this recorded crime category and cannot be separately identified from snatch theft Other theft of personal property covers thefts away from the home where no force is used there was no direct contact between the offender and victim and the victim is not holding or carrying the items when they are stolen i e thefts of unattended property Other household theft cover a number of theft types Theft in a dwelling includes thefts that occurred in the victim s dwelling by someone who was entitled to be there theft from outside a dwelling covers incidents where items are stolen from outside the victim s home and the category also includes burglaries to non connected buildings for example garden sheds The recorded crime offence group of other
44. However odds ratios can be hard to interpret as they do not give any indication of the actual probabilities of certain outcomes for separate groups Therefore it is sometimes useful to translate the odds that are provided by the logistic regression model into probabilities The probability of an event can then be compared between groups Within BCS analysis the ratio between two groups can be described as relative risk e g risk of burglary victimisation relative prevalence e g prevalence of illicit drug use or relative likelihood e g likelinood of worry about crime Probabilities can be calculated from the B coefficients in the appendix tables using the following formula Probability EXP Beonstant B1 B2 Bs 1 EXP Beonstant Ba Ba B3 anana In this formula Bconstant is the B coefficient of the Constant and B1 2 3 etc are the B coefficients of individual characteristics Where a reference category is chosen it has a B coefficient of 0 and therefore does not need to be included in the calculation Where a model contains an interaction term the values for the two characteristics in the interaction term are multiplied together to find the B coefficient to add to the formula As an example the relative risk of being a victim of violence between two individuals is expressed in Box 3 2 of Flatley et al 2010 In this example the characteristics that are varied are age sex and marital status while all othe
45. T CRIME Respondents to the British Crime Survey BCS are asked about their perceived likelihood of being a victim of burglary vehicle crime or violent crime The perceived likelihood of being a victim of burglary is based on those who say they are very or fairly likely to have their home burgled in the next year The perceived likelihood of being a victim of violent crime is a composite measure of anyone who thinks they are very or fairly likely to be either mugged robbed or physically attacked by a stranger in the next year or both The perceived likelinood of being a victim of vehicle crime is a composite measure of vehicle owners who think they are very or fairly likely to either have a car van stolen or have something stolen from a car van in the next year or both These questions are asked of all respondents irrespective of whether they have been a victim of crime in the previous 12 months The worry about crime indicator on the BCS has three components worry about burglary car crime and violent crime The measure for worry about burglary is the percentage of respondents who say they are very worried about having their home broken into and something stolen The measure for worry about car crime is based on two questions on worry about having your car stolen and having things stolen from your car It uses a scale which scores answers to the questions as follows very worried 2 fairly worried 1 not very wor
46. The primary objective of extending the survey was to provide estimates of the levels of crime experienced by children and their risk of victimisation In addition to questions about experience of crime the survey also gathers information on a limited number of crime related topics such as perceptions and attitudes to the police anti social behaviour crime prevention and personal security The children s sample is designed to be representative of children aged 10 to 15 resident in households in England and Wales The sample is obtained from within those households already participating in the main survey and over the year the aim is to achieve around 4 000 interviews with children aged 10 to 15 Due to the size of the sample the survey provides analysis on an annual basis only at national level 3 Stratification essentially means dividing the sampling frame into groups strata before sampling The process reduces the risk of drawing an extreme sample unrepresentative of the population and hence maximises the precision of survey estimates User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Like the main survey the children s survey excludes crimes often termed as victimless e g possession of drugs sexual offences and threats except those involving a weapon As a survey that asks people about their own personal experience of victimisation murders are not included In 2009 a total of 3 661 interviews were conducted with children aged
47. Y 84 Criminal damage to the home over 20 Y 85 Other criminal damage 20 or under Y 86 Other criminal damage over 20 Y 87 Possibly criminal possibly accidental damage nuisance with no damage 88 Attempted criminal damage no damage actually achieved 89 Other criminal damage outside survey s coverage Threats 91 Threat to kill assault made against but not Y necessarily to respondent 92 Sexual threat made against but not necessarily to Y respondent 93 Other threat or intimidation made against but not Y necessarily to respondent 94 Threats against others made to the respondent v 97 Other threats intimidation outside survey s coverage 11 12 3 Police recorded crime 3 1 INTRODUCTION TO POLICE RECORDED CRIME The Home Office collates and publishes recorded crime data supplied by the 43 police forces of England and Wales plus the British Transport Police These data are supplied on a monthly basis in an aggregated return for each crime within the notifiable offence list see Appendix 2 Notifiable offences include all offences that could possibly be tried by jury these include some less serious offences such as minor theft that would not usually be dealt with this way plus a few additional closely related offences such as assault without injury Information on recorded crimes that are detected is collected in the same way Currently annual data are published on a financial year basis and provisional re
48. ach Police Force Area PFA involving substantial over sampling in less populous PFAs The impact of changes in the BCS sample design over time has been examined see Hales et al forthcoming The main changes in the BCS sample design over time are summarised in Table 2a Table 2a Main features of the BCS core sample design since 1996 Year Core target Achieved Main design features Clusters sample sample size size 08 09 46 000 46 289 Disproportionate sampling by Unclustered in areas of PFAs to get a min of 1 000 per high population density PFA highly clustered in rural areas 07 08 46 000 46 983 Disproportionate sampling by Whole postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of 1 000 per 32 issued addresses per PSU PFA 06 07 46 000 47 023 Disproportionate sampling by Whole postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of 1 000 per 32 issued per PSU PFA 16 in high density areas 05 06 46 000 47 796 Disproportionate sampling by Whole postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of 1 000 per 32 issued per PSU PFA 16 in high density areas 04 05 46 000 45 120 Disproportionate sampling by Whole postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of 1 000 per 32 issued per PSU PFA 16 in high density areas 03 04 37 000 37 931 Disproportionate sampling by Whole postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of 600 700 32 issued per PSU per PFA 16 in high density areas 02 03 37 000 39 249 Disproportionate sampling by Whole postcode sectors PFAs to get a min of
49. acially and religiously aggravated offences are 32 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics categorised together in police recorded crime and cannot be separately identified BCS respondents are asked whether they thought the incident was racially motivated and from 2005 06 whether they thought the incident was religiously motivated Figures on racially and religiously motivated crimes from the 2005 06 and 2006 07 BCS are reported in Jansson et al 2007 5 6 DRUG OFFENCES Recorded crime figures for drugs offences are published in Table 2 04 of the annual crime statistics publication With effect from April 2004 ACPO issued guidance to forces over the recording of warnings for cannabis possession these were termed formal warnings for cannabis possession prior to January 2007 These were incorporated into the Home Office Counting Rules see Section 3 for more information From January 2009 it has also been possible to issue a Penalty Notice for Disorder for cannabis possession this detection method was not separated from Cannabis Warnings in statistics for the period to the end of March 2009 In addition the Home Office produces a separate National Statistics bulletin on Drug Seizures for England and Wales covering seizures made by the police HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Border Agency For the latest figures see Hand and Rishiraj 2009 33 34 6 Perceptions 6 1 LIKELIHOOD OF VICTIMISATION AND WORRY ABOU
50. al crime statistics publication are equivalent to the offence class formerly referred to as vehicle interference and tampering The BCS cannot separately identify this category In comparisons with the BCS it is included in the attempted vehicle theft category but in some instances could be viewed as criminal damage or even a nuisance The taking of vehicles during robberies often termed car jacking are included within the robbery offence group Robbery A robbery is an incident or offence in which force or the threat of force is used either during or immediately prior to a theft or attempted theft As with violence against the person police recorded robberies cover a wide range of seriousness from armed bank robberies to muggings for mobile phones or small amounts of money Recorded crime offences also distinguish between robbery of personal property personal robbery and business property business robbery Robbery of business property is a recorded crime classification where goods stolen belong to a business or other corporate body such as a bank or a shop regardless of the location of the robbery The taking of vehicles during robberies often termed car jacking are also included as robbery Supplementary data on this offence have been collected in a supplementary collection by the Home Office since 2007 08 The BCS covers robberies against adults resident in households these are included in the violent crime count 29 User
51. are presented the individual drug use variables that they include are outlined below Table 9e 59 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Table 9e Composite drug use variables 2009 10 BCS Composite variable Individual drug use variables included Any cocaine Powder cocaine Crack cocaine Hallucinogens LSD Magic mushrooms Opiates Heroin Methadone Any amphetamine Amphetamine Methamphetamine Any Class A drug Cocaine powder Crack cocaine Ecstasy Heroin LSD Magic mushrooms Methadone Methamphetamine Any stimulant drug Powder cocaine Crack cocaine Ecstasy Amphetamine Amyl A nitrite Methamphetamine Any drug Amphetamines Amyl nitrite Anabolic steroids Cannabis Powder cocaine Crack cocaine Ecstasy Glues Heroin Ketamine LSD Magic mushrooms Methadone Methamphetamine Tranquillisers unknown pills or powders something unknown smoked any other drug Individual types of drugs which are specifically asked about in the BCS are presented in all tables in the substantive part of the report In addition to these named drugs respondents are also asked whether they have taken something else in the same time period that is pills or powders not prescribed by a doctor when you didn t know what they were smoked something excluding tobacco when you didn t know what it was and taken anything else that you knew or thought was a drug not prescribed by a doctor Drugs are mainly presented in
52. ase refers to effectiveness of CJS 6 Unweighted base refers to ratings of local police 66 Table A 04 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of personal victimisation rates prevalence risk by respondent sex and age Percentages England and Wales 2009 10 BCS All BCS crime All personal crime Theft from the person Other theft of personal All violence i _______________Property ______________ Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range Respondent sex Male 22 8 22 1 23 5 6 5 6 1 7 0 0 8 0 7 0 9 2 0 18 22 4 3 40 4 7 Female 20 2 19 6 20 8 4 9 46 52 1 4 12 16 2 0 18 22 1 9 1 7 2 2 Respondent age 16 24 31 9 30 1 33 7 13 8 124 15 1 1 9 14 24 4 2 34 49 9 1 80 10 2 25 34 28 1 26 7 29 4 7 2 64 8 0 1 4 11 1 8 2 3 18 28 4 2 3 6 4 8 35 44 24 3 23 2 25 5 5 3 47 59 0 9 0 7 1 2 2 3 19 26 2 6 21 3 0 45 54 21 7 20 6 22 8 4 2 36 4 7 0 8 05 1 0 1 8 14 22 1 9 15 2 3 55 64 15 8 14 8 16 8 3 0 25 3 4 0 6 0 4 0 9 1 1 0 8 1 4 1 3 10 1 6 65 74 11 1 10 2 12 0 2 3 18 2 7 1 0 0 7 1 3 0 7 0 4 0 9 0 7 05 0 9 75 7 6 68 84 1 8 14 22 1 0 0 7 1 3 0 6 04 09 0 3 0 1 0 4 Table A 04 cont Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of personal victimisation rates prevalence risk by respondent sex and age Percentages England and Wales 2009 10 BCS Domestic violence Acquaintance violence Stranger violence Mugging robbery snatch theft
53. ates that the BCS question was not applicable or not asked in that particular year o indicates that for recorded crime percentage changes are not reported because the base number of offences is less than 50 and for the BCS indicates that data are not reported because the unweighted base is less than 50 indicates for police recorded crime that data are not available indicates for BCS that the change is statistically significant at the five per cent level Where an apparent change over time is not statistically significant this is noted in the text Unweighted base All BCS percentages and rates presented in the tables are based on data weighted to compensate for differential non response Tables show the unweighted base which represents the number of people households interviewed in the specified group Percentages Row or column percentages may not add to 100 per cent due to rounding Most BCS tables present cell percentages where the figures refer to the percentage of people households who have the attribute being discussed and the complementary percentage to add to 100 per cent is not shown A percentage may be quoted in the text for a single category that is identifiable in the tables only by summing two or more component percentages In order to avoid rounding errors the percentage has been recalculated for the single category and therefore may differ by one percentage point from the sum of the percentages derived from the ta
54. ats of a survey under the same conditions one would expect that the confidence interval would contain the true population value in 95 times out of 100 Because of this variation changes in estimates between survey years or between population subgroups may occur by chance In other words the change may simply be due to which adults were randomly selected for interview We are able to measure whether this is likely to be the case using standard statistical tests and conclude whether differences are likely to be due to chance or represent a real difference Only increases or decreases that are statistically significant at the five per cent level and are therefore likely to be real are described as changes within the main bulletin and in the tables and figures these are identified by asterisks Confidence intervals on the BCS are based on complex standard errors CSEs around estimates which reflect the stratified and semi clustered design of the survey and are calculated using the SPSS Complex Sample Module www spss com Where standard errors are calculated without the complex element a design effect of 1 2 is applied to the confidence interval and significance testing to allow for the fact that the survey design is not a simple random sample Statistical significance for change in BCS estimates for overall crime cannot be calculated in the same way as for other BCS estimates This is because there is an extra stage of sampling used in the pers
55. bles Year labels on BCS figures and tables Prior to 2001 02 BCS respondents were asked about their experience of crime in the previous calendar year so year labels identify the year in which the crime took place Following the change to continuous interviewing in 2001 02 respondents experience of crime relates to the 12 full months prior to interview see Section 2 and year labels identify the BCS year of interview 18 The relative risk presented here is calculated using unrounded figures 51 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Other questions on the BCS e g attitudes to policing confidence in the criminal justice system ask the respondent their current views or attitudes and thus the data are referenced as the year in which the respondent was interviewed e g 1996 2008 09 No answers missing values All BCS analysis excludes don t know refusals unless otherwise specified 52 9 Drug use as measured by the British Crime Survey Since 1996 the British Crime Survey BCS has included a self completion module of questions on illicit drug use see Section 2 Prevalence and trends are published annually within an existing series Drug Misuse Declared Findings from the British Crime Survey for example Hoare 2009 and Hoare and Moon 2010 forthcoming 9 1 THE BCS AS A SURVEY OF DRUG USE The BCS drug misuse estimates are produced from responses to a self completion module of the survey that
56. cation of small area statistics They are used on the Neighbourhood Statistics website and it is intended that they will eventually have wider application across National Statistics To support a range of potential requirements there are three layers of SOA e Lower Layer Minimum population 1 000 mean 1 500 Built from groups of Output Areas typically four to six and constrained by the boundaries of the Standard Table ST wards used for 2001 Census outputs e Middle Layer Minimum population 5 000 mean 7 200 Built from groups of Lower Layer SOAs and constrained by the 2003 local authority boundaries used for 2001 Census outputs e Upper Layer Yet to be determined minimum size c 25 000 7 2 HOUSEHOLD Household accommodation type The BCS uses this definition of the household s accommodation based on the National Statistics harmonised classification e House or bungalow detached semi detached terraced 42 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics e Flat or maisonette includes purpose built block non purpose built including bedsits and all flats and maisonettes e Other accommodation types includes caravans and mobile homes for example Household reference person HRP For some topics it is necessary to select one person in the household to indicate the characteristics of the household more generally Following the National Statistics harmonised classifications the BCS replaced head of household with hou
57. ced in England and Wales based on postcodes at Census Day The minimum Output Area size is 40 resident households and 100 resident persons but the recommended size was rather larger at 125 households In total there are 175 434 Output Areas in England 165 665 and Wales 9 769 Output Area Classification OAC The 2001 Area Classification of Output Areas is used to group together geographic areas according to key characteristics common to the population in that grouping These groupings are called clusters and are derived using 2001 population census data The Output Area Classification OAC is a classification created in collaboration between the Office for National Statistics ONS and the University of Leeds The classification is freely available from ONS and other sources for all to use and complements commercially available classifications Further information and details about OAC can be found on the ONS website at http www statistics gov uk about methodology by theme area_classification default asp 40 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Physical disorder This term is used to describe a measure based on the interviewer s assessment of the level of a vandalism graffiti and deliberate damage to property b rubbish and litter and c homes in poor condition in the area Using guidance the interviewer has to make an assessment as to whether each of these problems is very common fairly common not very common or
58. corded crime data are published each quarter on a rolling 12 month basis Recorded crime figures are an important indicator of police workload and can be used for local crime pattern analysis and provide a good measure of trends in well reported crimes in particular homicide which is not covered by the British Crime Survey BCS There are also some categories of crime such as drug possession offences where the volume of offences recorded are heavily influenced by police activities and priorities in such cases recorded crime figures may not provide an accurate picture of the true extent of criminality Unlike the BCS recorded crime figures do not include crimes that have not been reported to the police or incidents that the police decide not to record It is estimated in 2009 10 that around 43 per cent of BCS comparable crime is reported to the police although this varies considerably for individual offence types 3 2 RECORDING PRACTICES Recorded crime statistics are affected by changes in reporting and recording practices To ensure consistency police recording practice is governed by Home Office Counting Rules and the National Crime Recording Standard NCRS These rules provide a national standard for the recording and classifying of notifiable offences by police forces in England and Wales The latest version of the Counting Rules and more detailed information is available at http rds homeoffice gov uk rds countrules html There
59. d by the police including conditional cautions or given a reprimand or warning under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 A caution may be given by or on the instructions of a senior police officer when an offender admits guilt where there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and where the offender consents to the caution being issued Guidance on administering cautions was published in 2005 and later revised in 2008 The guidance can be found at http www homeoffice gov uk about us home office circulars circulars 2008 016 2008 e Had an offence taken into consideration An offence is deemed to be detected if the offender admits the crime and asks for it to be taken into consideration by the court and where there is additional verifiable information linking that offender to the crime e Received a Penalty Notice for Disorder An offence is deemed to be detected if the police issue a penalty notice for disorder PND Such a notice must be issued in accordance with any operational guidance to the police e g Police Operational Guidance on PNDs issued by the Home Office in 15 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics March 2005 A detection is counted if the penalty notice is not contested is contested but the CPS proceeds with the case or in discontinued cases the dedicated decision maker reviews the case and stands by the original decision With effect from 26 January 2009 it became possible for a PND t
60. ded crime data are subject to changes in the levels of public reporting of incidents The proportion of violent crimes estimated to be reported to the police has increased from the first BCS results in 1981 but has been reasonably stable since 2002 03 see Chapter 2 of the annual crime statistics publication Local policing activity and priorities affect the levels of reported and recorded violent crime Where the police are proactive in addressing low level violence and anti social behaviour this can lead to more of these crimes being brought to their attention and being recorded For example research by the Cardiff Violence Research Group showed an association between the introduction of CCTV surveillance and increased police detection of violence Sivarajasingam et al 2003 Police recorded crime data are subject to changes in police recording practices The 1998 changes to the Home Office Counting Rules had a very significant impact on the recording of violent and sexual crime the number of violence against the person offences recorded by the police increased by 118 per cent as a result of the 1998 changes Povey and Prime 1999 Much of this increase resulted from a widening of the offence coverage to include assaults with little or no physical injury and offences of harassment again with no injury The National Crime Recording Standard NCRS introduced in April 2002 again resulted in increased recording of violent and sexual crimes pa
61. e as follows Rural areas are those classified as Town and fringe sparse Village sparse Hamlet and isolated dwellings sparse Town and fringe less sparse Village less sparse Hamlet and isolated dwellings less sparse Urban areas are those classified as e Urban sparse e Urban less sparse Rural Urban Local Authority LA Classification England The revised LA Classification introduced in 2009 differentiates between rural and urban for those statistics that are only available at LA level In this report the three way classification at the similar Community Safety Partnership level and Police Force Area level has been applied At the Community Safety Partnership level the classification is as follows Predominantly Rural areas are those classified as e Rural 80 districts with at least 80 per cent of their population in rural settlements and larger market towns e Rural 50 districts with at least 50 per cent but less than 80 per cent of their population in rural settlements and larger market towns 41 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Significant Rural areas are those classified as e Significant Rural districts with more than 37 000 people or more than 26 per cent of their population in rural settlements and larger market towns Predominantly Urban areas are those classified as e Major Urban districts with either 100 000 people or 50 per cent of their population in
62. e offender s intention If parts or contents are stolen as well as the vehicle being moved the incident is classified as theft of a motor vehicle The police recorded crime category of offences against vehicles covers private and commercial vehicles although does not distinguish between the two and comprises e Thefts and attempted thefts of vehicles where the intent is to permanently deprive the owner e Unauthorised taking of a vehicle where intent to permanently deprive the owner is not evident this would typically include joyriding where the car is later recovered e Aggravated vehicle taking where a vehicle once taken is known to have been driven dangerously damaged or caused an accident e Thefts and attempted thefts from a vehicle targeting property in or on the vehicle e Interfering with a motor vehicle which includes attempts to drive away without apparent intent to permanently deprive the owner This mostly includes recorded crime offences where there is evidence of intent to commit either theft of or from a vehicle or taking without consent TWOC but there is either i No evidence of intent to commit one of these three offences specifically or ii There is evidence of intent to commit TWOC TWOC is a summary offence but under the provisions of the Criminal Attempts Act 1981 it is not legally valid to have an attempted summary offence Interfering with a motor vehicle offences as presented in the annu
63. e risk of being a victim of crime Since the BCS also collects demographic information about households it is possible to determine prevalence rates for different subgroups such as vehicle and bicycle owners Risk among these groups is higher than for the population in general of course as the household population includes those who do not own vehicles or bicycles Multiple and repeat victimisation Multiple victimisation is defined as the experience of being a victim of more than one crime in a year of the same or different type This includes those who have been victims of more than one crime of the same type within the last 12 months repeat victimisation and also those who have been victims of more than one BCS crime of any type within the last 12 months So people who have experienced multiple victimisation include those who have been a victim of more than one personal crime or have been resident in a household that was a victim of more than one household crime or have been a victim of both types of crime Repeat victimisation a subset of multiple victimisation is defined as being a victim of the same type of crime e g vandalism more than once in the last 12 months Levels of repeat victimisation account for differences between incidence rates and prevalence rates For 7 For the 2009 20 BCS figures are mid 2006 based projections for the 2009 adult population in England and Wales from ONS household figures are forecast from the
64. e to the police recording of crime In order to compare the crime rates measured by the BCS and police recorded crime a comparable subset of crimes has been created for a set of offences that are covered by both measures Various adjustments are made to the recorded crime categories to maximise comparability with the BCS but they are not adjusted to exclude victims of commercial offences and offences committed against those under 16 Over three quarters of BCS offences reported via interviews in recent years fall into categories that can be compared with crimes recorded by the police Table 4a Table 4a Comparable subset of crimes BCS category Recorded crime offence included Vehicle thefts 37 2 Aggravated vehicle taking 48 Theft and unauthorised taking of motor vehicle 45 Theft from a vehicle 126 Vehicle interference and tampering Burglary 28A Burglary in a dwelling 28B Attempted burglary in a dwelling 28C Distraction burglary in a dwelling 28D Attempted distraction burglary in a dwelling 29 Aggravated burglary in a dwelling Bicycle theft 44 Theft or unauthorised taking of pedal cycle Theft from person 39 Theftfrom the person Vandalism 56 Arson 56A Arson endangering life 56B Arson not endangering life 58A Criminal damage to a dwelling 58B Criminal damage to building other than a dwelling 58C Criminal damage to a vehicle 58D Other criminal damage 58E Racially religiously aggravated criminal damage to a dwelling 58F Racially rel
65. ed crime statistics for the 12 months to the end of September 2009 The Home Office has recently commissioned some methodological work to consider the use of an alternative method of presenting the data based on crimes experienced in a particular year see Hales et al forthcoming User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Figure 2 The reference period in one year of BCS interviews Apr Mar Month of interview Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar 12 month reference period Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Interview year a EZ RE RE T T me A A TO eT T 37 Mid point for survey estimates Time period most closely comparable with recorded crime 2 6 BCS MEASURES OF CRIME The BCS provides estimates of the levels of household and personal crimes experienced by respondents Household crimes are considered to be all vehicle and property related crimes and respondents are asked whether anyone currently residing in the household has experienced any incidents within the reference period An example of a household crime would be criminal damage to a car the owner could be anyone in the household Personal crimes relate to all crimes against the individual and only relate to the respondent s own personal experience not that of other people in the household An example of a personal cr
66. ed for injection or Class B in powdered form Since BCS questions do not distinguish between the forms of the drug taken amphetamine use has not been included in estimates of overall Class A drug use in this report The BCS included a question on methamphetamine which is classified as Class A for the first time in 2008 09 Similarly tranquillisers can either be classified as Class B such as barbiturates or Class C such as benzodiazepines Consequently Class B and Class C drugs cannot be aggregated reliably because the survey does not identify which specific tranquilliser respondents used Cannabis was reclassified from a Class B to a Class C drug in January 2004 However the Government recently decided to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act with effect from January 2009 Reclassification does not affect BCS estimates but cannabis is presented as a Class B drug with BCS reports The category not classified indicates that possession of these substances amyl nitrite and glues is not illegal but it is an offence to supply these substances if it is likely that the product is intended for abuse The 2006 07 BCS was the first year that questions on ketamine were included in the survey ketamine use is reported according to its classification Class C 9 5 COMPOSITE DRUG USE MEASURES ON THE BCS Within Home Office drug misuse publications composite variables which amalgamate use of individual drugs
67. empt to inflict serious bodily harm The clarification to the rules from 25 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics April 2008 makes this clear and that the gravity of the injury resulting is not necessarily the determining factor The rules were clarified as there had previously been some confusion as to whether the degree of injury sustained rather than intent should be the sole determining factor in the recording of these offences see Section 3 e Actual Bodily Harm ABH relates to any assault with injury which is not GBH with or without intent and includes internal injury and shock when accompanied by expert psychological evidence e Threats to kill where an individual fears that the offender s threat is real and may be carried out e Possession of weapons offences include possession of firearms with intent possession of other weapons and possession or article with blade or point If a weapon is used then the police will normally record a more serious notifiable offence Possession of firearms with no intent offences are recorded under other miscellaneous offences e Harassment offences are those incidents where no other substantive notifiable offence exists but when looked at as a course of conduct are likely to cause fear alarm or distress Public fear alarm or distress offences are where a course of conduct is not present e Assault without injury offences are those where at the most a feeling of touch
68. empted burglary to non connected domestic v dwelling garage outhouse 51 Burglary in a dwelling nothing taken Y 52 Burglary in a dwelling something taken v 53 Attempted burglary in a dwelling Y 54 Possible attempted burglary insufficient evidence to be sure 55 Theft in a dwelling Y 56 Theft from a meter Y 57 Burglary from non connected domestic Y garage outhouse nothing taken 10 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics 58 Burglary from non connected domestic Y garage outhouse something taken 59 Other burglary attempted burglary or theft in a dwelling falling outside the survey s coverage Theft 60 Theft of car van Y 61 Theft from car van Y 62 Theft of motorbike motorscooter or moped v 63 Theft from motorbike motorscooter or moped Y 64 Theft of pedal cycle v 65 Theft from outside dwelling excluding theft of milk Y bottles 66 Theft of milk bottles from outside dwelling 67 Other theft v 68 Possible theft possible lost property 69 Other theft attempted theft falling outside survey s coverage Attempted theft 71 Attempted theft of from car van v 72 Attempted theft of from motorcycle motorscooter or v moped 73 Other attempted theft Y Vandalism 80 Arson Y 81 Criminal damage to a motor vehicle 20 or under Y 82 Criminal damage to a motor vehicle over 20 Y 83 Criminal damage to the home 20 or under
69. ends on the prevalence and nature of drug use among 11 to 15 year olds which is based on the smoking drinking and drug use survey among young people in England Latest figures for 2009 are published simultaneously with this bulletin to provide an overall picture of drug use see Fuller and Sanchez 2010 9 2 RELIABILITY OF ILLICIT DRUG USE ESTIMATES Collecting information by self completion increases the reliability of estimates of a sensitive nature such as illicit drug use since it allows respondents to feel more at ease due to increased confidence in the privacy and confidentiality of the survey As a validity check the survey asks about use of Semeron a fictional drug which identifies those who may not be honest about their experiences of using illicit drugs and the small number of respondents 16 who reported use of it were excluded from analyses The BCS provides estimates of the prevalence of use of an illicit drug ever that is at least once in a lifetime at least once in the last year that is the year prior to interview and at least once in the last month the month prior to interview Use of a drug ever indicates the 20 The Home Office has published work to provide local estimates of problematic drug users using statistical techniques involving indirect estimation from a number of different data sources Hay et al 2006 2007 2008 In 2006 07 problematic drug users accounted for one per cent of the population aged 15
70. er crimes in England and Wales only A separate Welsh factsheet is produced which highlights the key crime statistics for Wales This is available online at http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 wales10 pdf English language version http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 walescymru 10 pdf Welsh language version Crime statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland are collected and published separately The latest annual police recorded crime sources for Scotland and Northern Ireland can be downloaded from Scotland http www scotland gov uk Topics Statistics Browse Crime Justice Northern Ireland http www psni police uk index updates updates statistics htm 61 62 Appendix 1 British Crime Survey additional tables Table A 01 BCS sample sizes for household and personal characteristics police force areas and regions zusenden anna ran nn nenne ne 64 Table A 02 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of incidents of crime 65 Table A 03 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of victimisation rates prevalence risk and key perception measures uussnsnneeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn nassen nnsnnnnn 66 Table A 04 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of personal victimisation rates prevalence risk by respondent sex and age 244444440nennnne nennen nenn 67 Table A 05 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of household victimisation rates prevalence risk by house
71. er occupiers 15 5 15 1 16 0 6 8 64 74 1 6 15 18 Social renters 17 3 16 2 18 3 6 5 58 7 1 3 6 31 41 Private renters 18 7 175 19 8 6 6 59 74 3 2 2 7 3 7 Table A 05 cont Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of household victimisation rates prevalence risk by household reference person age and tenure Percentages England and Wales 2009 10 BCS Other household theft Vehicle related theft Bicycle theft Estimate Range Estimate Range Estimate Range Unweighted base HRP age 16 24 4 4 31 56 10 6 8 1 13 2 9 5 6 5 12 5 1 492 25 34 4 2 36 48 8 3 73 93 5 9 49 69 5 354 35 44 4 6 41 5 1 6 9 6 2 7 6 4 4 3 7 50 8 488 45 54 4 2 3 7 4 7 6 1 55 6 8 3 6 29 42 8 585 55 64 3 9 34 44 4 1 36 4 7 2 2 16 28 8 145 65 74 2 9 24 34 2 5 20 3 1 1 4 0 7 2 1 6 543 75 2 2 17 26 1 9 13 24 0 8 0 1 1 7 5 896 Tenure Owner occupiers 3 7 35 4 0 5 0 47 53 2 6 23 29 30 659 Social renters 4 6 40 5 1 7 0 6 0 8 0 8 0 6 7 94 7 445 Private renters 3 3 28 3 8 7 3 64 82 7 0 59 82 6 343 1 The range given for these estimates is based on a 95 per cent confidence interval see Section 8 for more information 2 Based on vehicle owning households unweighted base will be slightly lower than that given 3 Based on bicycle owning households unweighted base will be slightly lower than that given 68 Table A 06 Previously published and revised estimates with confidence intervals for BCS interviews i
72. es such as personal household area or behavioural characteristics associated with a BCS respondent The dependent variable must have only two possible outcomes for example logistic regression can model the risk of a person becoming a victim of a crime or not The technique allows the assessment of which of the independent variables are statistically related to the dependent variable when the influence of all other variables in the model is taken into account The approach using BCS data is based on an iterative process which relies on a theoretical rationale of how the independent variables might affect the outcome This process enables evaluation of the impact of certain types of variables on the outcome for example if the risk of being a victim of crime is due to personal characteristics rather than area based factors Each of the iterations are based on logistic regressions using the Enter method the final model is also run using a Forward stepwise regression to evaluate the strength of the contribution that each variable makes to that model The 2 log likelihood statistic minus two times the log of the likelinood also known as the scaled deviance of each model is 17 This table has been previously published in the Crime in England and Wales Quarterly update to September 2008 http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs09 hosb0109 pdf 49 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics presented as a measure ind
73. evel than is possible using the BCS Police statistics also provide more reliable information on less common crimes such as robbery and are currently the only source of data on homicides and offences against those not resident in households BCS violence BCS violent crime is categorised in two other ways by offence type and according to the victim offender relationship BCS offence types are as follows estimates for wounding assault with minor injury assault without injury and robbery add up to overall violence e Wounding the incident results in severe or less serious injury e g cuts severe bruising chipped teeth bruising or scratches requiring medical attention or any more serious injuries e Assault with minor injury an incident where the victim was punched kicked pushed or jostled and the incident resulted in minor injury to the victim e g scratches or bruises e Assault without injury an incident or attempt where the victim was punched kicked pushed or jostled but resulted in no injury e Robbery an incident in which force or threat of force is used in a theft or attempted theft The categories of BCS violence according to the offender victim relationship are as follows 23 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics e Domestic violence comprises wounding and assaults which involves partners ex partners other relatives or household members e Stranger violence includes wounding and assaults in w
74. g barriers to trust in crime statistics england and wales pdf The User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics is designed to be a useful reference guide with explanatory notes regarding the issues and classifications which are key to the production and presentation of the crime statistics The dates of forthcoming crime statistics publications are pre announced and can be found via the UK National Statistics Publication Hub http www statistics gov uk hub index html Copies of Home Office statistical bulletins are available from the Research Development Statistics Internet site http www homeoffice gov uk rds index html For further information about the British Crime Survey and police recorded crime statistics please email crimestats rds homeoffice gsi gov uk or write to Home Office Statistics 5 Floor Peel Building 2 Marsham Street London SW1P 4DF 2 British Crime Survey BCS 2 1 DESCRIPTION OF THE SURVEY The British Crime Survey BCS is a face to face victimisation survey in which people resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of a range of crimes in the 12 months prior to the interview Respondents to the survey are also asked about their attitudes towards different crime related issues such as the police and criminal justice system and perceptions of crime and anti social behaviour Until recently the BCS did not cover crime against children but since January 2009 those aged 10 to 15
75. ged and these are included every year the precise set of modules asked in each survey year varies The question set for children aged 10 to 15 was specifically designed for this age range while retaining broad comparability with the adult questionnaire in terms of the classification of offences The adult survey collects information about sexual offences in a separate self completion section which is not currently asked of children under 16 This probably understates the actual true response rate since it assumes that households with eligible children have the same level of response as for all households lt is likely that such households form a relatively smaller proportion of the non responding sample than in the responding sample The Code of Practice for Official Statistics defines experimental statistics as new official statistics undergoing evaluation and published to involve users and stakeholders in their development as a means to build in quality at an early stage see UK Statistics Authority 2009 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics The self completion modules are at the end of the face to face interview and for adults cover topics such as illicit drug use domestic violence and sexual assault Child respondents are also asked a limited set of questions by self completion on issues such as bullying truancy and use of alcohol or cannabis Respondents can complete these modules on the interviewer s laptop by themselves
76. have been included in the survey The first results for this age group were published in June 2010 as experimental statistics together with a user consultation on their future use and presentation Millard and Flatley 2010 see section 2 3 for more detail Figures in the 2009 10 annual crime volume are based on adults aged 16 or over The key aim of the BCS is to provide robust trends for the crime types and population it covers the survey does not aim to provide an absolute count of crime and has notable exclusions The BCS excludes fraud see below and those crimes often termed as victimless e g possession of drugs As a survey that asks people whether they have experienced victimisation murders cannot be included The BCS does not cover the population living in group residences e g care homes or halls of residence or other institutions nor does it cover crime against commercial or public sector bodies Work has been completed to look at the scope and feasibility of a possible new survey on commercial victimisation The report of the work has been published Smith and Harvey 2010 http rds homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 horr33c pdf For the crime types and population it covers the BCS provides a better reflection of the true extent of household and personal crime than police recorded statistics because the survey includes crimes that are not reported to or recorded by the police The primary purpose of the BCS is to provide national le
77. he April 1999 change is estimated as a single percentage point decrease in detection rates although the effect varied between crime types The implementation of the NCRS in April 2002 is thought to have had an inflationary effect on recorded crime and the assumption is that it has depressed detection rates since additional recorded crimes are generally less serious and possibly harder to detect As mentioned above from April 2007 some of the methods allowed for claiming non sanction detections were discontinued This had only a very small impact on overall detection rates Youth restorative disposals Youth restorative disposals YRDs allow operational officers to dispose of low level crime and neighbourhood disorder where it is not considered to be in the public interest to prosecute The process involves a meeting between the offender and the victim an apology and may also include additional action to right the wrong caused e g a form of community payback From 2008 09 this disposal has been offered to young people aged 10 to 17 years inclusive by eight police forces who are taking part on a pilot basis and this approach continued through 2009 10 Figures for YRDs in this pilot exercise have been submitted to the Home Office and are included as non sanction detections in figures in the annual crime statistics bulletin 3 6 SANCTION DETECTIONS AND OFFENCES BROUGHT TO JUSTICE Figures on offences brought to justice OBTJ are now publi
78. her ways economically active Full time students are recognised as such within the occupational coding Occupation NS SEC The National Statistics Socio economic Classification NS SEC is an occupationally based classification but provides coverage of the whole adult population The NS SEC aims to differentiate positions within labour markets and production units in terms of their typical employment relations More information about NS SEC can be found on the National Statistics website see http www statistics gov uk methods quality ns sec default asp BCS analysis is based on the three analytic classes provided within NS SEC htto www statistics gov uk methods quality ns sec downloads NS SEC User pdf but also describes full time students in a separate category usually included within the Not classified category Base sizes for the student categories differ in NS SEC from those in the economic classification see Employment status as economically inactive students exclude those who are in employment or in other ways economically active but full time students are recognised as such within the occupational coding of NS SEC 44 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Witnessing and experiencing crime The BCS asks respondents whether they have witnessed any of a number of crimes in the previous 12 months used in the composite measure of witnessing crime and also the previous five years The crimes are vandalis
79. hich the victim did not have any information about the offender s or did not know and had never seen the offender s before e Acquaintance violence comprises wounding and assaults in which the victim knew one or more of the offenders at least by sight It does not include domestic violence Figures are also presented for mugging which is a popular rather than a legal term and is the total number of robbery attempted robbery and snatch theft incidents combined Snatch theft is excluded from all BCS violence since it includes no violence or minimal threat of force e g just enough to pull a bag away from someone In the BCS the previously used common assault or attempted assault category which had been inconsistent with the police recorded offence category was replaced with assault with minor injury and assault without injury categories in 2006 07 This change was made to align BCS categories more closely with those used by the police Police recorded violence against the person Violence against the person offences contain the full spectrum of assaults from pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm to murder Even within the same offence classification the degree of violence varies considerably between incidents Trends in police recorded violent crime can be very difficult to interpret as they are influenced by a number of factors It is important to consider the following issues when interpreting trends Police recor
80. hold reference person age and tenure 68 Table A 06 Previously published and revised estimates with confidence intervals for BCS interviews in the year to September 2007 uuusrsnneeennneneennnnnnennnnnnnn cnn 69 63 Table A 01 BCS sample sizes for household and personal characteristics police force areas and regions England and Wales 2009 10 BCS Household characteristic Unweighted Personal characteristic Unweighted Police force area and region Unweighted base base base ALL HOUSEHOLDS 44 610 ALL ADULTS 44 559 ENGLAND AND WALES 44 610 Age of household reference person Men 20 079 Cleveland 951 16 24 1 492 16 24 1 708 Durham 1 025 25 34 5 354 25 34 2 572 Northumbria 1 020 35 44 8 488 35 44 3 539 North East Region 2 996 45 54 8585 45 54 3 468 55 64 8 145 55 64 3 654 Cheshire 951 65 74 6 543 65 74 2 921 Cumbria 977 75 5 896 75 2 217 Greater Manchester 1 374 Lancashire 981 Structure of household Women 24 480 Merseyside 918 Single adult amp child ren 2 254 16 24 1 958 North West Region 5 201 Adults amp child ren 9 694 25 34 3 426 Adult s amp no children 32 662 35 44 4 468 Humberside 913 45 54 3 844 North Yorkshire 998 Total household income 55 64 3 973 South Yorkshire 949 Less than 10 000 6 227 65 74 3 400 West Yorkshire 1 164 10 000 less than 20 000 8 829 75 3 411 Yorkshire and the Humber Region 4 024 20 000 less than 30 000 6 123 30 000 less than 40 000 4543 Ethnic gr
81. hosb1210 pdf Fuller E and Sanchez M Eds 2010 Smoking drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2009 The Health and Social Care Information Centre Leeds http www ic nhs uk pubs sdd09fullreport Hales J Tipping S Hussey D and Wood M Forthcoming British Crime Survey Methods Review 2009 Hand T and Rishiraj A 2009 Seizures of drugs in England and Wales 2008 09 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 16 09 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs09 hosb1609 pdf Hay G Gannon M MacDougall J Millar T Williams K Eastwood C and McKeganey N 2008 National and regional estimates of the prevalence of opiate use and or crack cocaine use 2006 07 a summary of key findings Home Office Research Report 9 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs08 horr09 pdf Hay G Gannon M MacDougall J Millar T Eastwood C and McKeganey N 2007 National and regional estimates of the prevalence of opiate use and or crack cocaine use 2005 06 a summary of key findings Home Office Online Report 21 07 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs07 rdsolr2107 pdf Hay G Gannon M MacDougall J Millar T Eastwood C and McKeganey N 2006 Local and national estimates of the prevalence of opiate use and or crack cocaine use 2004 05 in Singleton N Murray R and Tinsley L Eds Measuring different aspects of problem drug use
82. ible for committing that crime and what the full implications of this are and e one of the methods of detection listed below applies The police may use one of several methods to count a crime as detected They fall into two broad categories sanction and non sanction detections Once a detection has been claimed any identifiable victim must be informed that the crime has been detected or in the case of a child their parent or guardian The detection or clear up rate is the number of detections recorded in a given year as a percentage of the total number of crimes recorded in the same period Further information on counting detections can be found in section H of the general Counting Rules found at http rds homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 countgeneral10 pdf Sanction detections Sanction detections include offences which are cleared up through a formal sanction to the offender Not all sanction detections will necessarily result in a subsequent conviction In cases detected by charge summons the CPS may not take forward proceedings or the offender might be found not guilty A sanction detection can be claimed when an offender has e Been charged or summonsed An offence is deemed to be detected if a person has been charged or summonsed for the crime irrespective of any subsequent acquittal at Court e Been cautioned reprimanded or given a final warning An offence is deemed to be detected if an offender has been cautione
83. icating how much of the outcome remains unexplained by the independent variables The fit of each model is compared using a likelihood ratio test to see if the subsequent iteration predicts the outcome significantly better this is the case when the difference of the 2 log likelihoods of both models exceeds a critical value The Nagelkerke R square statistic is presented as a measure indicating how much the independent variables predict the dependent variable The model which has the highest value is the model that is considered to have the best fit It can only be used to compare models predicting the same dependent variable in the same dataset The odds of an event e g victimisation or taking illicit drugs are calculated as the ratio of the probabilities of occurrence and non occurrence of the event Logistic regression describes the impact of independent variables by comparing the odds of a subgroup of interest with a fixed reference category set by the analyst within a variable all other categories are compared with this reference category The result is a measure describing the association between the two groups which is termed the odds ratio To explain further when the reference category within the variable sex is defined as women and the odds ratio within the model predicting risk of violence victimisation is 3 this means the odds for becoming a victim of violence are three times higher for men compared with women
84. iews in this period will include months at the centre of this interval for example April 2009 whilst fewer BCS interviews will cover months at the end of the interval for example April 2008 12 Offence codes 8F and 8H were previously included in assault with minor injury as recorded crimes were collected for ABH and GBH combined These offence categories are now recorded separately which has enabled more accurate comparisons 20 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics The weighting method used for the Crime in England and Wales 2009 10 publication is based on quarterly recorded crime data Figure 3 Figure 3 The weighted contribution of recorded crime to the BCS interview period April 2009 to March 2010 based on quarterly recorded crime data 0 1 0 08 4 0 06 4 0 04 4 oon oon en bd Jun us Sep Oct Nor Dee a Fo Mar May pon 2 us Sep oct Nov e oe rn 08 08 Contribution o Month 21 22 5 Crime types and drug offences 5 1 VIOLENT CRIME Violent crimes are those where the victim is intentionally stabbed punched kicked pushed jostled etc or threatened with violence whether or not there is any injury In published crime statistics violent crime both as measured by the British Crime Survey BCS and by recorded crime is grouped into two broad high level categories of violence with injury and violence without injury However these categories are not directly comparable bet
85. igiously aggravated criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling 58G Racially religiously aggravated criminal damage to a vehicle 58H Racially religiousiy aggravated other criminal damage 19 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Assault without injury 104 Assault without injury on a constable 105A Assault without injury 105B Racially religiously aggravated assault without injury Assault with minor injury 8A Less serious wounding 8D Racially religiously aggravated less serious wounding 8G Actual bodily harm ABH and other injury 8J Racially or religiously aggravated ABH or other injury 8K Poisoning or female genital mutilation Wounding 5 More serious wounding or other act endangering life 5A inflicting grievous bodily harm GBH with intent 5B Use of substance or object to endanger life 8F Inflicting grievous bodily harm GBH without intent 8H Racially or religiously aggravated inflicting GBH without intent Robbery 34B Robbery of personal property Note The mapping between police recorded offence codes and BCS categories is approximate and categories will not be directly equivalent in all cases Crimes excluded from comparable subset Recorded crimes The violent offences of Homicide Attempted murder Intentional destruction of an unborn child the five offences of causing death by driving Endangering life at sea Possession of weapons Harassment Cruelty to or neglect of children Abandoning a child under the age
86. imate violence see Section 2 3 These figures have previously been published separately from the annual volume Mirrlees Black 1999 Walby and Allen 2004 Finney 2006 Coleman et al 2007 Povey et al 2008 2009 Smith et al 2010 Headline figures are also presented in the annual crime statistics bulletin for 2009 10 Intimate violence is the collective term used to describe domestic violence sexual assault and stalking and the categories are defined as follows e Any domestic abuse non sexual emotional or financial abuse threats physical force sexual assault or stalking carried out by a current or former partner or other family member e Partner abuse non sexual non sexual emotional or financial abuse threats or physical force by a current or former partner 26 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics e Family abuse non sexual non sexual emotional or financial abuse threats or physical force by a family member other than a partner father mother step father mother or other relative e Emotional or financial abuse includes being prevented from having a fair share of household money stopped from seeing friends or relatives or repeatedly belittled e Threats are classified as an affirmative response to the statement frightened you by threatening to hurt you someone close e Minor force is classified as an affirmative response to the statement pushed you held you down or slapped you e Severe
87. ime would be an assault Published BCS data for all personal crime excludes sexual offences except for wounding with a sexual motive as the number of sexual offences picked up by the survey is too small to give reliable estimates See Section 5 for a full definition of crime types Respondents are asked about their experiences of crime in the 12 month reference period and up to six incidents can be recorded during the interview Details of experiences of crime are recorded on a victim form The first three victim forms include detailed questions relating to each incident the last three victim forms are shorter modules designed to be much quicker to complete to avoid respondent fatigue during the interview The order in which the victim forms are asked depends on the type of crime less common crimes are prioritised in order to collect as much detailed information as possible Most incidents reported are one off single occurrences but in a minority of cases respondents may have been victimised a number of times in succession In these cases respondents are asked whether they consider these incidents to be a series that is the same thing done under the same circumstances and probably by the same people Where incidents are determined to be in a series the number of incidents is recorded but with only one victim form being completed based on the most recent incident BCS estimates only include the first five incidents in th
88. ing such crime It includes among other offences exploitation of prostitution and soliciting but not prostitution itself which is not a notifiable offence The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced in May 2004 introduced certain offences such as sexual grooming which is included in this group Offences of indecent exposure have been retrospectively reclassified to sexual offences back to 2002 03 to aid comparisons over time 5 2 ACQUISITIVE CRIME BCS acquisitive crime covers all household and personal crime where items are stolen and can be split into household and personal acquisitive crimes Household acquisitive crime Personal acquisitive crime Burglary Snatch theft Theft from the person Attempted burglary in a dwelling Stealth theft Theft in a dwelling Attempted theft from the person Theft from outside a dwelling Other theft of personal property and other Theft and attempted theft of and from vehicles emplee OF personal propery Theft of pedal cycle Robbery and attempted robbery 27 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Burglary The BCS covers domestic burglary only which is an unauthorised entry into the victim s dwelling but does not necessarily involve forced entry it may be through an open window or by entering the property under false pretences e g impersonating an official BCS domestic burglary does not cover theft by a person who is entitled to be in the dwelling at the time of the offence this is
89. ions These issues affected how individual offences were classified under specific offence codes The overall counts for police recorded violence against the person and the subcategories of violence with and without injury were unaffected Refer to volume 2 of the 2008 09 Crime in England and Wales annual bulletin for a fuller discussion of issues around the recording of GBH offences Smith and Hoare 2009 http rds homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs09 hosb 1 109vol2 pdf 3 4 DETECTIONS Detected crimes are those that have been cleared up by the police Not every case where the police know or think they know who committed a crime can be counted as a detection and some crimes are counted as detected when the victim might view the case as far from Excludes the British Transport Police E http www hmic gov uk SiteCollectionDocuments Thematics THM_20091020 pdf 1 Tables from the 2008 09 annual bulletin were updated on 22 October 2009 alongside the publication of the Quarterly Update to June 2009 Updated tables are available at http rds homeoffice gov uk rds crimeew0809 html 14 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics solved For any crime to be counted as detected sufficient evidence must be available to claim a detection and all of the conditions below must be met e anotifiable offence has been committed and recorded e a suspect has been identified and has been made aware that they will be recorded as being respons
90. is series of victimisations in the count of crime The restriction to the first five incidents in a series has been applied since the BCS began in order to ensure that estimates are not affected by a very small number of respondents who report an extremely high number of incidents and which are highly variable between survey years The inclusion of such victims could undermine the ability to measure trends consistently This sort of capping is in line with other surveys of crime and other topics Prevalence rates are not affected by this procedure see Bolling et al 2009 for information on the measurement of series data User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Based on information collected and processed from the victim forms specially trained coders determine whether what has been reported constitutes a crime and if so what offence code should be assigned to the crime The full list of BCS offence codes is shown in Section 2 7 only those designated as valid are included in standard BCS analysis BCS crime statistics are produced from these data and presented as incidence or prevalence rates based on counts of incidents or victims Incidence rate The number of crimes experienced per household or adult The incidence rate takes account of the number of times respondents have been victimised The total number of incidents experienced by each respondent is calculated for each crime type by aggregating data from separate victim f
91. lection to provide trends but attention should also be paid to year on year changes in the intervening period in order to fully appreciate the patterns of drug use over time Between the 2001 02 and 2008 09 BCS the survey included a boost sample of young adults in order to be able to improve the accuracy of illicit drug use estimates among 16 to 24 year olds Estimates will continue to be produced using data from core sample only Statistical significance reported within this bulletin is at the 5 per cent level tests of statistical significance are related to the sample size and hence will be affected by the reduction in numbers without the young adult boost For information figures are presented in Table 9a for the 2008 09 estimates with and without the young adult boost 55 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Table 9a Previously published estimates including young adult boost of the proportion of 16 to 24 year olds reporting use of drugs in the last year with estimates excluding young adult boost Percentages and numbers England and Wales 2008 09 BCS 2008 09 estimates of last year drug use among 16 2008 09 estimates of last year drug use among 16 to 24 year olds including young adult boost to 24 year olds excluding young adult boost Estimate Range Number of Estimate Range Number of users users Class A Any cocaine 6 6 5 9 7 4 371 6 5 5 6 7 5 252 Powder cocaine 6 6 5 8 7 4 370 6 5 5 6 7 5 252 Crack cocaine 0 2 0 0
92. lice the full circumstances of the incident may not be known Furthermore the precise nature of an offence may only become clear once a suspect has been apprehended and appears at court The Home Office receives two sources of information on homicide from the police forces of England and Wales including the British Transport Police where the incident occurred within England and Wales These are e The monthly aggregated recorded crime return see Section 3 1 e A more detailed statistical return for each recorded homicide containing additional information including victim and suspect details and the circumstances of the offence This is used to populate a Home Office database called the Homicide Index The Homicide Index contains details about homicides recorded in England and Wales since 1977 In contrast to the aggregated recorded crime return the Homicide Index is continually being updated with revised information from the police as investigations continue and as cases are heard by the courts As the Homicide Index is continually updated and provides more detailed information Home Office Statisticians view the Index as a better source of data than the separate monthly aggregated recorded crime return However due to the time permitted for police forces to submit the individual returns within 30 days of recording an incident as homicide and the complexities in checking the data it is not possible to use the Homicide Index figures for the
93. m vehicles and attempted theft of and from vehicles 5 See Section 6 for more information on the definitions of level of perceived anti social behaviour and the worry about crime indicators 6 See Section 5 for more information about the crime types included in this table 69 70 Appendix 2 Recorded crime list The classifications defined in this Appendix are those used for crime recorded by the police and notifiable to the Home Office In general attempting conspiring aiding abetting causing or permitting a crime is classified under the heading of the crime itself though in certain cases it is shown separately Recorded crime covers all indictable and triable either way offences Additionally a few closely associated summary offences are included These offences are identified in the listing together with the reasons for their inclusion The crimes on this list are termed notifiable offences and their listing is referred to as the notifiable offences list NOL Most of the offences listed are defined in terms of legal offences i e sections of Acts A comprehensive list of these offences together with key legal definitions and explanatory notes appears on the Counting Rules for Recorded Crime pages on the Home Office website www homeoffice gov uk rds countrules html VIOLENCE AGAINST THE PERSON Violence against the person with injury 1 Murder 4 1 Manslaughter 4 2 Infanticide Applies to infants aged under 12 month
94. m of property or vehicle theft of or from a vehicle threats or violence including fights muggings or robberies burglary or attempted burglary and shoplifting In addition to the victimisation data collected this enables respondents to be classified as Not a victim or witness Witness only Victim only Both victim and witness 45 46 8 Statistical conventions and methods 8 1 CONFIDENCE INTERVALS AND STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE The main British Crime Survey BCS estimates are based on a representative sample of the population aged 16 or over each year A sample as used in the BCS is a small scale representation of the population from which it is drawn see Table A 01 for sample sizes within the BCS Any sample survey may produce estimates that differ from the figures that would have been obtained if the whole population had been interviewed The size of this difference depends on the sample size the size and variability of the estimate and the design of the survey It is however possible to calculate the range of values between which the population figures are estimated to lie Known as the confidence interval sometimes referred to as margin of error At the 95 per cent confidence level when assessing the results of a single survey it is assumed that there is a one in 20 chance that the true population value will fall outside the 95 per cent confidence interval calculated for the survey estimate Similarly over many repe
95. methodological developments Home Office Online Report 16 06 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs06 rdsolr1606 pdf 77 Bibliography HMIC 2009 Crime Counts A Review of Data Quality for Offences of the Most Serious Violence London Ministry of Justice http www hmic gov uk SiteCollectionDocuments Thematics THM 20091020 pdf Hoare J 2009 Drug Misuse Declared Findings from the 2008 09 British Crime Survey Home Office Statistical Bulletin 12 09 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs09 hosb1209 pdf Hoare J 2007 Deceptive Evidence Challenges in Measuring Fraud In Surveying Crime in the 21 Century Hough M and Maxfield M eds Crime Prevention Studies vol 22 2007 pp 263 279 Jansson K Budd S Lovbakke J Moley S and Thorpe K 2007 Attitudes perceptions and risks of crime Supplementary Volume 1 to Crime in England and Wales 2006 07 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 19 07 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs07 hosb1907 pdf Levi M Burrows J Fleming M H and Hopkins M with the assistance of Matthews K 2007 The Nature Extent and Economic Impact of Fraud in the UK Report for the Association of Chief Police Officers Economic Crime Portfolio http citeseerx ist psu edu viewdoc download doi 10 1 1 108 8217 amp rep rep1 amp type pdf Lynn P and Elliot D 2000 The British Crime Survey A review of meth
96. mmended that the calibration weighting method be adopted in the BCS Lynn and Elliot 2000 The weighting is designed to make adjustments for known differentials in response rates between different regions and different age by sex subgroups and also households with different age and sex composition For example a household containing a man aged 24 living alone may be less likely to respond to the survey than a household containing a man aged 24 living with a partner and a child The procedure therefore gives different weights to different household types based on their age sex composition in such a way that the weighted distribution of individuals in the responding households matches the known distribution in the population as a whole and also matches the known distribution of the regional population The weights are generated using an algorithm that minimises the differences between the weights implied by sampling and the final weights subject to the weighted data meeting the population controls They are based on calibrating on population figures provided by the Labour Force Survey LFS from ONS Calibration weights were applied from the 1996 BCS onwards using CALMAR a SAS based macro since 2006 07 the BCS has used g Calib within a new SPSS based data processing system the weights produced by g Calib are the same as those from CALMAR The effects of calibration weights are generally small for household crime but are more important for estimate
97. n BCS year to September 2007 data This was the first time period for which BCS estimates were revised when the last set of LFS microdata were released weighted to 2007 population estimates For the calculation of estimates of numbers of crimes see Section 2 population figures based on census revised mid year estimates have been used for figures up to and including 2003 04 and census revised population projections have been used since 2004 05 The latest available estimates were used for 2009 10 e national population figures are mid 2006 based projections for the 2009 population from ONS e regional population figures are mid 2006 based estimates from ONS e Welsh population figures are mid 2006 based estimates from the Welsh Assembly e national household figures are forecast from mid 2006 based projections for the 2009 population e regional household figures are mid 2006 based projections for 2009 from DCLG and e Welsh household figures are mid 2006 based projections for 2009 from the Welsh Assembly Some of the recorded crime tables in the annual crime statistics publication use population figures to calculate the number of crimes per 10 000 or 100 000 population The population figures used are mid 2008 based projections for the 2009 population from ONS 8 4 LOGISTIC REGRESSION Logistic regression is a multivariate statistical technique that predicts the outcome of a dependent variable from a set of independent variabl
98. n the year to September 2007 England and Wales BCS Interviews in October 2006 to Interviews in October 2006 to September 2007 September 2007 Original Original range Revised Revised range estimate estimate Number of incidents 000s Vandalism 2 810 2 672 2 949 2 816 2 676 2 955 Burglary 744 681 808 153 688 818 Vehicle related theft 1 640 1 555 1 726 1 653 1 566 1 740 Household acquisitive crime 3 984 3 826 4 142 4 006 3 847 4 166 All household crime 6 794 6 557 7 032 6 822 6 583 7 062 Theft from the person 560 495 625 563 498 629 All violence 2 328 2 139 2 517 2 367 2 174 2 560 with injury 1 176 1 049 1 302 1 199 1 070 1 328 without injury 1 152 1 020 1 284 1 168 1 034 1 302 Personal acquisitive crime 1 926 1 789 2 063 1 939 1 800 2 077 All personal crime 3 941 3 708 4 175 3 989 3 752 4 226 All BCS crime 10 736 N A N A 10 811 N A N A Percentage risk of being a victim once or more Vandalism 7 6 7 3 7 9 7 6 7 3 7 9 Burglary 2 5 2 3 2 7 2 5 2 4 2 7 Vehicle related theft 7 1 6 8 7 4 7 2 6 8 75 Household acquisitive crime 12 2 11 8 12 6 12 3 11 9 12 7 All household crime 18 1 17 6 18 5 18 1 17 6 18 6 Theft from the person 1 2 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 1 1 4 All violence 3 4 3 2 3 6 3 5 3 2 3 7 with injury 1 8 1 7 20 1 9 1 7 2 0 without injury 1 8 1 6 1 9 1 8 1 6 2 0 Personal acquisitive crime 3 7 3 4 3 9 3 7 3 5 3 9 All personal crime 6 3
99. nd estimates remain within the confidence intervals of the original estimates with no change to the overall picture 56 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Table 9b Previously published and revised last year drug misuse estimates for 16 to 59 year olds with confidence intervals 2007 08 BCS Percentages England and Wales 2007 08 BCS 2007 08 estimates using 2003 based LFS 2007 08 estimates using 2007 based LFS estimates estimates Original estimate Original range Revised estimate Revised range Class A Any cocaine 2 3 2 1 2 5 2 4 2 2 2 6 Powder cocaine 2 3 2 1 2 5 2 4 2 1 2 6 Crack cocaine 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 Ecstasy 1 5 1 3 1 6 1 5 1 3 1 7 Hallucinogens 0 6 0 5 0 7 0 6 0 5 0 7 LSD 0 3 0 2 0 3 0 3 0 2 0 4 Magic mushrooms 0 5 0 4 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 6 Opiates 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 2 Heroin 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 Methadone 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 Class A B Amphetamines 1 0 0 9 1 2 1 0 0 9 1 2 Class B Cannabis 7 4 71 78 7 6 7 2 8 0 Class B C Tranquillisers 0 5 0 4 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 6 Class C Anabolic steroids 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 Ketamine 0 4 0 3 0 4 0 4 0 3 0 4 Not Classified Amyl Nitrite 1 5 1 3 1 6 1 5 1 3 1 7 Glues 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 Any Class A drug 3 0 2 7 3 2 3 0 2 8 3 3 Any drug 9 3 8 9 9 7 9 6 9 1 10 0 57 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Table 9c Previously published and revised ast year drug misuse es
100. ng definition of tenure is used by the BCS based on the National Statistics harmonised classification e Owners households who own their homes outright or are buying with a mortgage includes shared owners who own part of the equity and pay part of the mortgage rent e Social rented sector tenants households renting from a council housing association or other social rented sector e Rented privately households privately renting unfurnished or furnished property This includes tenants whose accommodation comes with their job even if their landlord is a housing association or local authority Level of home security This measure is based on the type of security measures fitted to the respondents home Households are divided into the following categories e Enhanced security households with window locks and double or deadlocks on outside doors as well as additional security measures 43 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics e Basic security households with window locks and double or deadlocks on outside doors e No or less than basic security households with no home security measures or households with some security devices but without both window locks and double or deadlocks on outside doors 7 3 PERSONAL Black and Minority Ethnic groups Ethnicity BCS respondents are asked to make a choice from a card to identify their ethnic background using the standard 2001 Census classification Due to small sample
101. ns etc and protected sexual material Protection from eviction Adulteration of food Other knives offences Public health offences Planning laws Disclosure obstruction false or misleading statements etc Other indictable or triable either way offences Dangerous driving 76 Bibliography Where annual updates are provided the most recent are referenced here Audit Commission 2007 Police Data Quality 2006 07 London Audit Commission http www audit commission gov uk SiteCollectionDocuments AnnualReports 2007 policedataquality2006_07 REP pdf Bolling K Grant C and Donovan J L 2009 2008 09 British Crime Survey England and Wales Technical Report Volume 1 London BMRB http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs09 bcs0809tech1 pdf Coleman K Jansson K Kaiza P and Reed E 2007 Homicides Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2005 06 Supplementary Volume 1 to Crime in England and Wales 2005 06 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 02 07 http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs07 hosb0207 pdf Finney A 2006 Domestic violence sexual assault and stalking findings from the 2004 05 British Crime Survey Home Office Online Report 12 06 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs06 rdsolr1206 pdf Flatley J Kershaw C Smith K Chaplin R and Moon D 2010 Crime in England and Wales 2009 10 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 12 10 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10
102. o be given for an offence of cannabis possession For central reporting purposes any such PNDs were counted as cannabis warnings for the period January to March 2009 from April 2009 a system was put in place to correctly record them as PNDs for the relevant offence e Received a warning for cannabis possession Prior to January 2007 this detection method was known as a Formal warning for cannabis possession From April 2004 information on police formal warnings for cannabis possession started to be collected centrally prior to this a pilot scheme was run in parts of London Those aged 18 and over who are caught in simple possession of cannabis can be eligible for a police cannabis warning which would not involve an arrest An offence is deemed to be cleared up if a cannabis warning has been issued in accordance with guidance from ACPO Non sanction detections Non sanction detections comprise those where the offence is counted as cleared up but no further action was taken against the offender Prior to April 2007 various reasons were allowed for claiming non sanction detections including where the e offender victim or essential witness is dead or too ill e victim refuses or is unable to give evidence e Offender is under the age of criminal responsibility e police or the CPS decide that it would not be in the public interest to proceed and e time limit of six months for commencing prosecution has been exceeded From April
103. odology London National Centre for Social Research http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs08 bcs methodology review 2000 pdf Millard B and Flatley J 2010 Experimental statistics on victimisation of children aged 10 to 15 Findings from the British Crime Survey for the year ending December 2009 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 11 10 http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs10 hosb1110 pdf Ministry of Justice 2008 Criminal Statistics England and Wales 2007 London Ministry of Justice http www justice gov uk publications docs crim stats 2007 tag pdf Mirrlees Black C 1999 Domestic violence findings from a new British Crime Survey self completion questionnaire Home Office Research Study 191 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs hors191 pdf Pickering K Smith P Bryson C and Farmer C 2008 British Crime Survey options for extending the coverage to children and people living in communal establishments Home Office Research Report 06 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs08 horr06c pdf Povey D and Prime J 1999 Recorded Crime Statistics England and Wales April 1998 to March 1999 Home Office Statistical Bulletin 18 99 London Home Office http www homeoffice gov uk rds pdfs hosb1899 pdf Povey D Ed Coleman K Kaiza P and Roe S 2009 Homicides Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2007 08 Supplementary Volume 2 to Crime in England and Wales
104. of the crime detection figures for crime detected as taken into consideration by the court and cannabis warnings but otherwise relies on figures collected by court systems and separate returns for PNDs and cautions These above factors should be borne in mind when the two series are being compared For more information see Criminal Statistics 2008 England and Wales Ministry of Justice htto www justice gov uk publications criminalannual htm 11 Avon amp Somerset Cumbria Greater Manchester Lancashire Metropolitan Norfolk North Wales and Nottinghamshire 17 18 4 Comparison between the British Crime Survey and police recorded crime 4 1 COMPARABLE SUBSET OF CRIME The British Crime Survey BCS provides a measure of the level of crime committed against the population resident in households in England and Wales whereas recorded crime is a measure of those crimes reported to the police estimated by the BCS to be only 43 of comparable crime in 2009 10 and then recorded by them The BCS includes crimes that are not reported to or recorded by the police but is limited to crimes against adults resident in households and also does not cover all crime types see Section 2 By adjusting each series comparisons can be made between police recorded crime and the BCS allowing a better interpretation of overall crime trends The need for this comparison has been particularly important during periods when various changes have been mad
105. on Now there is a requirement to record one theft and one fraud by false representation The result of this change means that fewer crimes of plastic card and cheque fraud were recorded by the police during 2007 08 2008 09 and 2009 10 compared with previous years and recorded fraud and forgery figures prior to 2007 08 are not comparable with more recent figures This change was made to reduce significant bureaucracy in recording crime possibly involving several police forces and to reflect the fact that in the cases when this counting basis is used the financial loss is generally borne by the financial institution at which the account is held rather than by the merchants who process a transaction or by the account holder From April 2007 where a financial institution makes full financial recompense to an account holder the financial institution rather than the account holder can report the crime directly to a single point of contact within the police These changes have been supported by The UK Cards Association and ACPO as they have resulted in significant reductions in bureaucracy in relation to the reporting of cheque and plastic card fraud This has focused police effort on reports of fraud most likely to lead to a suspect being brought to justice and also introduced single points of contact within police forces for the financial institutions to report cases directly to As victims of fraud are mainly commercial organisations it is not co
106. onal crime rate selecting the adult respondent for interview compared with the household crime rate where the respondent represents the whole household so technically these are estimates from two different though obviously highly related surveys The Office for National Statistics ONS methodology group has provided an approximation method to use to overcome this problem The approach involves producing population weighted variances associated with two approximated estimates for overall crime The first approximation is derived by apportioning household crime equally among adults within the household in other words converting households into adults and second by apportioning personal crimes to all household members converting adults into households The variances are calculated in the same way as for the standard household or personal crime rates i e taking into account the complex sample design An average is then taken of the two estimates of the population weighted variances The resulting approximated variance is then used in the calculation of confidence intervals for the estimate of all BCS crime and in the calculation of the sampling error around changes in estimates of all BCS crime to calculate whether such differences are statistically significant 47 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics This method incorporates the effect of any covariance between household and personal crime By taking an average of the two app
107. ons as follows very big problem 3 fairly big problem 2 not a very big problem 1 and not a problem at all 0 The maximum score for the seven questions is 21 Respondents with a score of 11 or more on this scale are classified as having a high level of perceived anti social behaviour This scale can only be calculated for the 2001 BCS onwards as the question on people being drunk or rowdy was only introduced in 2001 35 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Measures of perceptions of each of the seven types or strands of ASB for example perceptions of drunk or rowdy behaviour are based on the proportion of BCS respondents who perceive that particular strand to be a very or fairly big problem in their local area 6 3 CONFIDENCE IN THE POLICE AND LOCAL PARTNERS A new set of questions relating to levels of confidence in the police working with local councils were added to the BCS in October 2007 specifically asking respondents how much they agree or disagree with the following statements e the police and local council seek people s views about the anti social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area and e the police and local council are dealing with the anti social behaviour and crime issues that matter in this area In April 2008 a further question was added asking respondents how much they agree or disagree with the statement e the police and local council keep people informed
108. or religiously aggravated criminal damage to a vehicle see classification 58C Racially or religiously aggravated other criminal damage see classification 58D Threat or possession with intent to commit criminal damage DRUG OFFENCES 92A 92C 92D 92E Trafficking in controlled drugs Other drug offences Various offences mostly under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 including permitting premises to be used for unlawful purposes failure to comply with notice requiring information relating to prescribing supply etc of drugs supply of intoxicating substance and supply etc of articles for administering or preparing controlled drugs Possession of controlled drugs excluding cannabis Possession of controlled drugs cannabis OTHER MISCELLANEOUS OFFENCES 10B 81 15 26 33 35 36 62 64 65 66 67 68 Possession of firearm Other firearms offences Concealing an infant death close to birth Bigamy Going equipped for stealing etc Blackmail Kidnapping Treason Riot Violent disorder Other offences against the State and public order Perjury Libel 75 75 76 78 79 80 82 83 84 85 86 87 89 90 91 94 95 99 802 Betting gaming and lotteries Aiding suicide Immigration offences Perverting the course of justice Absconding from lawful custody Customs and Revenue offences Bail offences Trade description offences Health and Safety offences Obscene publicatio
109. orms Respondents can complete up to six victim forms and each victim form will contain either a single incident or up to five incidents of the same offence in the case of series incidents series incidents which consist of more than five incidents are capped at five Aggregating these incidents and combining with household and personal data produces a number of incidents which can be presented as a rate per 10 000 households for household crimes or as a rate per 10 000 adults for personal crimes The overall number of incidents can be estimated for England and Wales based on the incidence rate and using population estimates for the household and adult populations In 2009 10 incidence rates for household crimes were multiplied by 23 525 137 households and for personal crimes by 44 647 810 adults to provide the number of incidents for each crime type Published estimates are rounded to the nearest 1 000 incidents Prevalence rate The proportion of the population who were victims of an offence once or more Unlike incidence rates prevalence rates only take account of whether a household or person was a victim of a specific crime once or more in the reference period not the number of times victimised Again these figures are based on information from the victim form where respondents and their households are designated either as victims or non victims The proportion that are victims provides the prevalence rate often described as th
110. oup Derbyshire 882 40 000 less than 50 000 2 983 White 41 226 Leicestershire 949 50 000 or more 6 076 Non White 3 255 Lincolnshire 1 028 Mixed 316 Northamptonshire 1 003 Tenure Asian or Asian British 1 482 Nottinghamshire 1 011 Owner occupiers 30 659 Black or Black British 877 East Midlands Region 4 873 Social renters 7 445 Chinese or other 580 Private renters 6 343 Staffordshire 965 Marital status Warwickshire 981 Household reference person s employment status Married 20 956 West Mercia 969 In employment 26 337 Cohabiting 3 957 West Midlands 1 350 Unemployed 1 054 Single 9 072 West Midlands Region 4 265 Economically inactive 17 113 Separated 1 415 Student 465 Divorced 4 061 Bedfordshire 956 Looking after family home 1 443 Widowed 5 087 Cambridgeshire 1 017 Long term temporarily sick ill 1 850 Essex 1 029 Retired 12 856 Respondent s employment status Hertfordshire 909 Other inactive 499 In employment 24 042 Norfolk 881 Unemployed 1 409 Suffolk 931 Household reference person s occupation Economically inactive 18 992 East of England Region 5 723 Managerial and professional occupations 16 496 Student 1 120 Intermediate occupations 8 668 Looking after family home 2 387 Metropolitan City of London 3 937 Routine and manual occupations 16 850 Long term temporarily sick ill 1 942 London Region 3 937 Never worked and long term unemployed 1 288 Retired 12 899 Full time students 770 Other inactive 644 Hampshire 993 Not classified 538 Kent 960 Respondent
111. pdfs10 hosb1110 pdf The extensive development and testing work carried out to extend the BCS to children is described in the forthcoming report Extending the British Crime Survey to children a report on the methodological and development Grant et al forthcoming 2 4 BCS INTERVIEWING BCS estimates are produced from face to face interviews carried out using computer assisted personal interviewing CAPI where interviewers record responses to the questionnaire on laptop computers The mode of interview changed in the 1994 BCS from a paper based questionnaire to CAPI CAPI allows logic and consistency checks to be incorporated into the survey to improve data quality For example the interviewer is unable to move on to the next question until a discrepancy or inconsistency has been resolved The BCS questionnaire has a complex structure consisting of a core set of modules asked of the whole sample a set of modules asked only of different sub samples and self completion modules asked of all respondents aged 16 to 59 Modules include for example victimisation performance of the Criminal Justice System CJS contact with and attitudes to the police and CJS mobile phone theft anti social behaviour plastic card and identity fraud and demographic characteristics of the respondent and household Survey development is carried out on an annual basis to reflect emerging policy issues While the wording of victimisation questions has not chan
112. presentatives of ACPO Her Majesty s Inspectorate of Constabulary HMIC and the Crown Prosecution Service CPS 13 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Police recorded crime statistics like any administrative data will be affected by the rules governing the recording of data systems in place and operational decisions in respect of the allocation of resources More proactive policing in a given area could lead to an increase in crimes recorded without any real change in underlying crime trends Therefore when examining trends in police recorded crime data presented in statistical bulletins it is important to pay attention to the commentary which will explain any caveats associated with the data The Audit Commission published its latest assessment of police data quality in September 2007 Audit Commission 2007 which commented that The police have continued to make significant improvements in crime recording performance and now have better quality crime data than ever before Thirty eight police authorities and forces 88 of the 43 forces were assessed as good or excellent for crime data quality which demonstrates a substantial improvement from 12 in 2003 04 28 The remaining five forces were judged fair No police authorities or forces were assessed as having poor crime data quality in the 2005 06 or 2006 07 audits Despite the cessation of the full national audit programme in 2007 08 ongoing wo
113. r characteristics remain constant The characteristics that remain constant are white no long standing illness or disability in employment managerial and professional occupations degree or diploma household income of 30 000 40 000 homeowner detached house urban prospering suburbs not high level of physical disorder 7 hours or longer out of the home on an average weekday visited a bar less than once a week in the last month didn t visit a nightclub in the last month The risk of being a victim of violent crime for a 23 year old single man with all the above characteristics is EXP 5 79 1 32 0 58 0 61 0 18 0 24 0 17 0 25 0 07 5 4 1 EXP 5 79 1 32 0 58 0 61 0 18 0 24 0 17 0 25 0 07 The risk of being a victim of violent crime for a 55 year old married woman with all the above characteristics is 50 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics EXP 5 79 2 82 0 21 5 0 58 0 18 0 24 0 17 0 25 0 07 0 4 1 EXP 5 79 2 82 0 21 5 0 58 0 18 0 24 0 17 0 25 0 07 The relative risk is Risk for a 23 year old single man 12 3 Risk for a 55 year old married woman 8 5 CONVENTIONS USED IN FIGURES AND TABLES The following conventions are used in the annual crime statistics publication and the user guide where applicable Table abbreviations indicates no response in that particular category or less than 0 5 per cent this does not apply when percentages are presented to one decimal point n a indic
114. r evidence that the offender made an actual physical attempt to gain entry to a building e g damage to locks or broken doors but was unsuccessful Burglary with entry is a term used in the BCS and comprises burglary where a building was successfully entered regardless of whether something was stolen or not Burglary with loss is a term used in the BCS and comprises burglary where a building was successfully entered and something was stolen In the BCS burglary with no loss includes attempted entry to a property and cases where a property was entered but nothing was stolen In making comparisons with police recorded crime BCS burglary with no loss including attempts is used as a proxy for attempted burglary though there will be some instances with no loss where entry has been gained Vehicle offences The BCS includes offences against private households only and includes cars vans motorbikes motor scooters or mopeds used for non commercial purposes It identifies three vehicle theft categories e Theft of vehicles where the vehicle is driven away illegally whether or not it is recovered e Theft from vehicles refers to both theft of parts and accessories of motor vehicles and to theft of contents 28 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics e Attempted thefts of and from vehicles No distinction is made between attempted thefts of and attempted thefts from motor vehicles as it is often very difficult to ascertain th
115. resses include vacant properties second homes non residential addresses and establishments where people are living in group residences e g care homes or halls of residence In the rare situations where one PAF address leads to two households the interviewer randomly selects which household to approach Once the household is determined to be eligible individuals aged 16 or over in the selected household are listed by alphabetical order of first name and then one is randomly selected for interview No substitutes are permitted 2 3 BCS METHODOLOGY CHILDREN S SURVEY One of the key recommendations of the crime statistics reviews carried out in 2006 was that the BCS should be extended to include populations currently not covered by the survey for example people aged under 16 Smith 2006 Statistics Commission 2006 The Home Office commissioned independent expert advice on the feasibility of extending the BCS to cover this groups Pickering et al 2008 This work concluded that extending the BCS to under 16s was feasible and should be done by interviewing children in households selected to take part in the main survey The Home Office therefore extended the survey to include children aged 10 to 15 from January 2009 following developmental work to e design a question set suitable for under 16s while retaining broad comparability with the adult interview and e test the feasibility of including the under 16s survey in the BCS
116. ried and not at all worried 0 Scores for individual respondents are calculated by summing the scores across each question resulting in an overall score ranging from 0 to 4 The percentage for this component is based on respondents residing in households owning or with regular use of a car who score 3 or 4 on this scale The measure for worry about violent crime is based on a scale constructed from questions on worry about mugging rape physical attack by a stranger and racially motivated assault The same coding system for question responses is used as for the vehicle crime questions Once results from the four questions are combined the scale for the overall score ranges from O i e all responses are either not very worried or not at all worried to 8 i e all responses are very worried The percentage for this component is based on respondents who score 4 or more on this scale 6 2 ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR The BCS measures high levels of perceived anti social behaviour ASB based on responses to seven individual questions relating to e noisy neighbours or loud parties e teenagers hanging around on the streets e rubbish or litter lying around e vandalism graffiti and other deliberate damage to property e people using or dealing drugs e people being drunk or rowdy in public places and e abandoned or burnt out cars Perceptions of ASB are measured using a scale based on answers to the seven questi
117. ril 2009 and therefore for the reporting year 2009 10 there were 334 CSPs in England and Wales In England they were previously termed Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships CDRPs Recorded crime figures for seven key offences for each CSP are published on the Home Office website together with equivalent figures for local authority areas Government Office Region GOR Government Offices for the Regions were established across England in 1994 The Government Office Regions are the primary classification for the presentation of regional statistics There are currently nine GORs in England North East North West Yorkshire and the Humber East Midlands West Midlands East of England London South East South West In this report analysis by region also includes separate analysis for Wales 39 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Indices of Deprivation Local area deprivation is measured in this report using the Indices of Deprivation 2004 There are seven domains of deprivation income employment health and disability education skills and training barriers to housing and services living environment and crime There are a number of indicators of deprivation in each of these domains such as level of unemployment and incapacity benefit claimants which are combined into a single deprivation score for each local area on that domain The analysis in this report uses the employment deprivation indicator In order to examine
118. rived from other sources For example figures for plastic credit debit or bank card fraud are obtained from The UK Cards Association which is the leading trade association for the cards industry in the UK For more information on the various sources of fraud including administrative data and on the nature extent and economic impact of fraud in the UK see Hoare 2007 Levi et al 2007 and Wilson et al 2006 Plastic card fraud among individuals resident in households in England and Wales is also covered in a module within the BCS Stolen plastic cards i e credit debit or bank cards are included in the main BCS crime count under the relevant offence such as burglary or theft from the person but incidents of fraud are not covered However the BCS has included questions on experience of plastic card fraud in a separate module of questions since 2005 06 Offences of fraud and forgery are recorded by the police but figures from 2007 08 onwards are not comparable with previous years due to the introduction of the Fraud Act 2006 which commenced in January 2007 and saw significant changes to offences in the fraud and forgery offence group For offences prior to January 2007 fraud is defined as dishonestly deceiving to obtain either property or a pecuniary advantage Recorded crime statistics were collected for fraud by 14 New offences that were introduced from 15 January 2007 were temporarily recorded as Other fraud until the new
119. rk on crime recording continues to consider data quality issues and the NCRSG acts to promote consistent recording practice between forces see for example section 3 3 Also a local crime audit manual has been developed for use by local Force Crime Registrars 3 3 RECORDING OF MOST SERIOUS VIOLENCE OFFENCES A recent example of where ongoing work on crime recording has raised an issue is for offences of grievous bodily harm GBH Following a clarification in the Home Office Counting Rules for GBH with intent issued in April 2008 and coinciding with the introduction of new offence codes to further disaggregate certain types of violent crime with injury it became clear that forces had not been consistent in their interpretation of previous guidance The Home Office then commissioned HMIC to conduct an independent inspection focusing on the recording of most serious violence in all forces in England and Wales which confirmed that there had been a level of misrecording of these types of offences The findings of this inspection were published in October 2009 Crime Counts A Review of Data Quality for Offences of the Most Serious Violence HMIC 2009y A great deal of work was undertaken in forces to implement the clarification and in response to the HMIC report This led to forces revising figures during 2008 09 and the reissuing of certain recorded crime tables from the 2008 09 annual crime statistics bulletin following receipt of further revis
120. roximations it also counteracts any possible effect on the estimates of differing response rates and therefore calibration rates by household size Tables A 02 to A 05 provide 95 per cent confidence intervals around estimates Table A 02 shows main estimates of incidents of crime Table A 03 shows main estimates of victimisation and key perception measures Table A 04 shows main estimates of personal victimisation by respondent sex and age and Table A 05 shows main estimates of household victimisation by household reference person age and tenure 8 2 WEIGHTING DATA Two types of weighting are used to ensure the representativeness of the BCS sample First the raw data are weighted to compensate for unequal probabilities of selection These include the individual s chance of participation being inversely proportional to the number of adults living in the household the over sampling of smaller police force areas and the selection of multi household addresses Second calibration weighting is used to adjust for differential non response All BCS percentages and rates presented in the figures and tables in the annual crime statistics publication are based on weighted data Tables show the unweighted base which represents the number of people households interviewed in the specified group Calibration weighting A review of the BCS by survey methodology experts at the Office for National Statistics and the National Centre for Social Research reco
121. rticularly for less serious offences as well as for some other offences There was an estimated NCRS effect of 23 per cent on violence against the person offences in the first 12 months of implementation although it was recognised that this effect was unlikely to be complete within the first 12 months Simmons et al 2003 13 Domestic violence figures that relate to incidents reported in face to face BCS interviews should be treated with caution Prevalence rates for domestic violence derived from the self completion module are around five times higher for adults than those obtained from the face to face interviews Walby and Allen 2004 Due to the small numbers of sexual offences identified by the main BCS findings are published solely from the self completion module 24 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Audits undertaken by the Audit Commission on behalf of the Home Office indicate substantial improvements in crime recording across forces in the two to three years following NCRS introduction which would particularly impact on violence against the person and result in increases in recorded crimes for this category Incidents of violence against the person recorded by the police include the following categories as described below e Homicide including murder manslaughter and infanticide The published figures do not separately identify between these individual offences as when a homicide is initially recorded by the po
122. s killed by the mother while of disturbed mind Homicide Comprises murder manslaughter and infanticide 2 Attempted murder 4 3 Intentional destruction of a viable unborn child Applies to the unborn child capable of being born alive 4 4 Causing death by dangerous driving Limited to causing death by reckless driving between 1977 and 1991 4 6 Causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs 4 8 Causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving 5A Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm GBH with intent 5B Use of substance or object to endanger life 5C Possession of items to endanger life 8F Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm GBH without intent 8H Racially or religiously aggravated inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm GBH without intent 37 1 Causing death by aggravated vehicle taking 4 7 Causing or allowing death of a child or vulnerable person 4 9 Causing death by driving unlicensed drivers etc 4 10 Corporate Manslaughter 8G Actual Bodily Harm ABH and other injury 8J Racially or religiously aggravated Actual Bodily Harm ABH or other injury 8K Poisoning or female genital mutilation 71 Violence against the person without injury 3A Conspiracy to murder 3B Threats to kill 6 Endangering railway passengers 7 Endangering life at sea 10A Possession of firearms with intent 10C Possession of other weapons 10D Possession of article with blade or point 8L Harassment 9A Public
123. s occupation Surrey 921 Accommodation type Managerial and professional occupations 14 731 Sussex 946 Houses 38 180 Intermediate occupations 9 016 Thames Valley 1 101 Detached 11 788 Routine and manual occupations 17 060 South East Region 4 921 Semi detached 14 152 Never worked and long term unemployed 1 685 Terraced 12 240 Full time students 1 732 Avon and Somerset 988 Flats maisonettes 5 606 Not classified 335 Devon and Cornwall 966 Other accommodation 132 Dorset 937 Highest qualification Gloucestershire 958 Output area classification Degree or diploma 14 403 Wiltshire 992 Blue collar communities 7 531 Apprenticeship or A AS level 7 463 South West Region 4 841 City living 2 033 O level GCSE 8 540 Countryside 6 892 Other 1 893 England Total 40 781 Prospering suburbs 10 737 None 12 170 Constrained by circumstances 4 504 Dyfed Powys 1 034 Typical traits 9 148 Long standing illness or disability Gwent 854 Multicultural 3 765 Long standing illness or disability 12 715 North Wales 983 Limits activities 9 052 South Wales 958 Area type Does not limit activities 3 657 Wales 3 829 Urban 33 027 No long standing illness or disability 31 761 Rural 11 583 Level of physical disorder High 2 389 Not high 41 800 1 Sample sizes are based on cases where a valid weight is assigned this is the household weight for household characteristics police force areas and regions and the individual weight for personal characteristics 2 Unweighted base sizes refer
124. s of personal crime where young respondents generally have much higher crime victimisation rates than average but also lower response rates to the survey However crime trends since the 1996 survey did not change to any great extent with the introduction of calibration weighting 8 3 POPULATION ESTIMATES The BCS uses population estimates for two purposes in calibration weighting see above and in calculating the estimates of numbers of crimes see Section 2 1 See Bolling et al 2009 for further details about how the weights are constructed to compensate for unequal selection probability 48 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Calibration weighting uses data from the LFS which is weighted according to the latest population estimates issued by ONS In March 2010 latest and back series of LFS microdata were published reweighted to the latest 2009 ONS population estimates and these microdata were used in calibration weighting of 2009 10 BCS data In addition to allow direct comparisons to be made BCS estimates from interviews in 2008 09 have been revised using the latest LFS microdata and will vary slightly from previously published estimates However the effect is minimal and key estimates remain within the confidence intervals of the original estimates with no change to the overall picture These updates are usual statistical practice and consistent with revision policies Table A 06 shows the effect of the revisions o
125. se mid 2006 based projections for the 2009 population User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics instance high levels of repeat victimisation will be reflected in relatively lower prevalence rates compared with incidence rates 2 7 BCS CODING STRUCTURE Table 2b shows a list of all of the BCS offence codes and an indication of whether they are considered to be valid thus included in the standard BCS analysis Table 2b Codes used in the classification of offences in the British Crime Survey Category Code Description Valid O Miscellaneous 01 Refer to Home Office 02 Duplicate victim form 96 Invalid victim form e g no information no offence 1 Assault 11 Serious wounding Y 12 Other wounding Y 13 Common assault Y 14 Other assault outside the survey s coverage 2 Attempted assault 21 Attempted assault Y 3 Sexual offences 31 Rape Y 32 Serious wounding with sexual motive Y 33 Other wounding with sexual motive Y 34 Attempted rape Y 35 Indecent assault Y 39 Sexual offence outside the survey s coverage 4 Personal theft 41 Robbery v 42 Attempted robbery Y 43 Snatch theft from the person Y 44 Other theft from the person Y 45 Attempted theft from the person Y 48 Possibly theft but could have been loss possibly attempted theft but not certain 49 Other robbery or theft from the person outside the survey s coverage 5 Burglary Theftina 50 Att
126. sehold reference person HRP in 2001 02 The HRP is the member of the household in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented or is otherwise responsible for the accommodation Where this responsibility is joint within the household the HRP is the person with the highest income If incomes are equal then the oldest person is the HRP Household structure The classification of households in the BCS is based on the number and combination of adults and children living within a household divided into those where there is e one adult and one or more children under 16 Note this does not necessarily denote a lone parent family as the adult may be a sibling or grandparent of the child e more than one adult with one or more children under 16 and e one or more adults with no children under 16 Household Income Total household income is the combined income of all members of the household It includes income from all sources including earnings from employment and self employment pensions both state and private benefits and tax credits interest from savings and investments maintenance student grants and rent payments received Due to the nature of the question over a fifth of respondents gave insufficient information to classify their household income or declined to answer the question Those cases with insufficient information may include respondents who did not know the income of other household members Tenure The followi
127. shed by the Ministry of Justice An offence is considered to have been brought to justice when an offender has been cautioned convicted or had the offence taken into consideration by the court In addition penalty notices for three notifiable disorder offences and cannabis warnings are included following their introduction nationally during 2004 see Section 3 4 for more information on cannabis warnings and PNDs Care should be taken when comparing detection data with conviction data as the latter count individual offenders where the former count crimes A single recorded crime can result in more than one conviction or caution and can therefore lead to more than one offence being counted as brought to justice For example if a crime is recorded and as a result three offenders are convicted each for two offences this counts as a single recorded crime and a single detection but as six offences brought to justice In addition for most offences there will be a delay between the offence being recorded and it being brought to justice this may result in it being included in the recorded crime figures for one period and the OBTJ figures for a later period For the OBTJ measure the offence also reflects that for which an offender is charged rather than that for which a crime has been originally recorded e g taking into account the relevant charging standards that apply and the different evidential standards The OBTJ measure only makes use
128. sizes it is necessary to collapse this classification into either a five fold classification i e White Black Asian Mixed and Chinese or Other or to a simpler two fold White and Non White classification based on the National Statistics harmonised classification Adopting the 2001 Census definition however means analysis by ethnic group since 2001 02 is not directly comparable with results from earlier rounds of the BCS which used a different classification The latest detailed results from the BCS focusing on the experiences of people from different ethnic minorities are reported in Jansson et al 2007 Employment status The BCS uses the following categories for employment status which are based on the National Statistics harmonised classification but include further breakdowns for those in the economically inactive category e In employment includes people doing paid work in the last week working on a government supported training scheme or doing unpaid work for own family business e Unemployed actively seeking work or waiting to take up work e Economically inactive those who are retired going to school or college full time looking after home family are temporarily or permanently sick or doing something else Base sizes for the student categories of employment status differ from those in the occupational classification see Occupation below Economically inactive students exclude those who are in employment or in ot
129. t the standards that the public could expect from the police in terms of fairness access to services local policing response to calls support and information for victims and dealing with dissatisfaction The current Government recently announced its intention to abandon the Policing Pledge as part of its plans to remove centrally imposed targets on the police 36 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics e what action the police said they were going to take and whether this action was taken e whether the action seemed reasonable to the respondent e whether the police took the incident or matter seriously and e whether the respondent felt they had been treated fairly and with respect 6 5 CONFIDENCE IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM Since October 2007 the BCS has included a set of questions relating to the fairness and effectiveness of the criminal justice system CJS Respondents are asked questions about their perception of the effectiveness of each aspect of the CJS and then asked e Thinking about all of the agencies within the criminal justice system the police the Crown Prosecution Service the courts prisons and the probation service How confident are you that the criminal justice system as a whole is effective Questions are then asked about the way in which the CJS deals with people whether victims witnesses or the accused or convicted and respondents are then asked the following overall question e Thinking about
130. that they cause with Class A drugs considered to be the most harmful Table 9d displays the drugs that respondents were asked about in the BCS and their current classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act Emerging psychoactive drugs which have been classified under the Act most recently such as Spice and other cannabinoids are not included in Table 9d because they are not currently presented within the overall extent of BCS drug misuse 58 User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics Table 9d Drugs included in the BCS and their classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act as at July 2010 Classification Drug Class A Powder cocaine Crack cocaine Ecstasy LSD Magic mushrooms Heroin Methadone Methamphetamine Class A B Amphetamines Class B Cannabis since January 2009 Class B C Tranquillisers Class C Anabolic steroids Ketamine since April 2006 Not classified Amy nitrite Glues including glues solvents gas or aerosols Following the Drugs Act 2005 raw magic mushrooms were classified as a Class A drug in July 2005 Prior to this change in the law only prepared such as dried or stewed magic mushrooms were classified as Class A drugs However the BCS does not distinguish between the different preparations of this drug so the trend in magic mushroom and Class A drug use presented here has not been affected by the change in the law Amphetamines can be classified as either Class A when prepar
131. this bulletin may be considered lower estimates of the true level of illicit drug use within the general population even for more commonly used drugs In tracking changes in the level of drug use through the BCS arguably what matters most is that irrespective of any strengths or weaknesses relating to coverage or response to the survey it is a consistent instrument deployed in the same manner for each round of the survey Hence even if drug use estimates are lower than the true value comparisons over time remain valid assuming that unwillingness to report has remained at a similar level over time BCS data are a good and robust way to measure general population prevalence but necessarily sit alongside other data sources in providing a comprehensive understanding of illicit drug use in England and Wales By their very nature self report estimates of drug use within a general population sample survey are a measurement of what respondents intended or believed they have taken In reality particularly with changes in purity of drugs such as powder cocaine those who have taken illicit drugs will not always be sure about what they have taken Historically the BCS has included those aged 16 or over resident in households however the survey has recently been extended to include children aged 10 to 15 The BCS child survey includes only a few questions on the use of drugs as there is already an established National Statistics series giving tr
132. timates for 16 to 59 year olds with confidence intervals 2008 09 BCS Percentages England and Wales 2008 09 BCS 2008 09 estimates of last year drug use 2008 09 estimates of last year drug use using LFS estimates pre 2010 revision using LFS estimates post 2010 revision Original estimate Original range Revised estimate Revised range Class A Any cocaine 3 0 2 8 3 3 3 0 2 8 3 3 Powder cocaine 3 0 2 8 3 3 3 0 2 8 3 3 Crack cocaine 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 Ecstasy 1 8 1 6 2 0 1 8 1 6 2 0 Hallucinogens 0 6 0 5 0 7 0 6 0 5 0 7 LSD 0 2 0 2 0 3 0 2 0 2 0 3 Magic mushrooms 0 5 0 4 0 6 0 5 0 4 0 6 Opiates 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 Heroin 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 Methadone 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 Class A B Any amphetamine 1 2 1 1 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 4 Amphetamines 1 2 1 1 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 4 Methamphetamine 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 Class B Cannabis 79 7 5 8 3 7 9 7 5 8 3 Class B C Tranquillisers 0 7 0 5 0 8 0 7 0 5 0 8 Class C Anabolic steroids 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 2 Ketamine 0 6 0 5 0 7 0 6 0 5 0 7 Not Classified Amyl Nitrite 1 4 1 3 1 6 1 4 1 3 1 6 Glues 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 2 Any Class A drug 3 7 3 4 4 0 3 7 3 4 4 0 Any stimulant drug 44 4 2 4 7 4 4 4 2 4 7 Any drug 10 1 9 6 10 5 10 1 9 6 10 5 9 4 CLASSIFICATION OF DRUGS UNDER THE MISUSE OF DRUGS ACT 1971 The Misuse of Drugs Act classifies illegal drugs into three categories Class A B and C according to the harm
133. to the number of respondents who gave information about each characteristic 3 See Section 7 for definitions of household personal and area characteristics 64 Table A 02 Confidence intervals around BCS estimates of incidents of crime Numbers thousands England and Wales 2009 10 BCS Estimate Range PROPERTY CRIME Numbers thousands Vandalism 2 408 2 287 2 530 Vehicle vandalism 1 571 1 478 1 664 Other vandalism 837 7741 903 Burglary 659 606 713 With entry 393 354 431 Attempts 267 230 304 With loss 276 245 307 No loss including attempts 384 340 427 Vehicle related theft 1 229 1 157 1 301 Theft from vehicles 850 73 907 Theft of vehicles 115 95 134 Attempts of and from 264 232 296 Bicycle theft 480 435 524 Other household theft 1 163 1 085 1 241 Unweighted base household crimes 44 610 Theft from the person 525 474 575 Snatch theft from person 64 41 87 Stealth theft from person 461 413 509 Other thefts of personal property 1 036 9422 1 131 All violence 2 087 1 917 2 256 Wounding 501 417 585 Assault with minor injury 428 362 494 Assault without injury 823 721 924 Robbery 335 263 407 Violence with injury 1 065 946 1 184 Violence without injury 1 021 912 1 131 Domestic violence 290 230 349 Acquaintance 679 573 786 Stranger 783 689 877 Mugging robbery snatch theft 398 322 475 Unweighted base personal crimes 44 559 Household acquisitive crime 3 531 3 39
134. ue plastic card and online bank accounts Fraud by false representation other frauds Fraud by failing to disclose information Fraud by abuse of position Obtaining services dishonestly Making or supplying articles for use in fraud Possession of articles for use in fraud Bankruptcy and insolvency offences Forgery or use of false drug prescription Other forgery 74 61A 814 Possession of false documents Vehicle driver document fraud These records comprise driving licences insurance certificates registration and licensing documents work records operators licences and test certificates CRIMINAL DAMAGE 56A 56B 58A 58B 58C 58D 58E 58rF 58G 58H 59 Arson endangering life Arson not endangering life Not all malicious fires that the police record are included here If the owner of the property set alight is wounded then a crime of violence is recorded If a stolen vehicle is subsequently burnt out it is recorded as a vehicle theft An additional arson offence is recorded only if there is evidence that the arsonist is unconnected with the vehicle thief Criminal damage to a dwelling Criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling Criminal damage to a vehicle Other criminal damage Racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage to a dwelling see classification 58A Racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage to a building other than a dwelling see classification 58B Racially
135. urban areas with a population of more than 750 000 e Large Urban districts with either 50 000 people or 50 per cent of their population in one of 17 urban areas with a population between 250 000 and 750 000 e Other Urban districts with fewer than 37 000 people or less than 26 per cent of their population in rural settlements and larger market towns A different methodology but with similar criteria is used to produce the three way classification at the police force area level In April 2009 nine new unitary authorities were created to replace 37 district authorities and 7 county councils resulting in a new total of 326 LA s in England This results in a break in the time series for the LA dataset Therefore a new time series was produced going back over time using the new coverage of Local Authorities so that previous Local Authorities take on the classification of the new unitary authority e g each old district in Cornwall now becomes Rural 80 This is in accordance with the methodology advised in the Defra Classification of Local Authorities in England Technical Guide April 2009 http www defra gov uk evidence statistics rural documents rural defn laclassifications techquide0409 pdf More information is available on the National Statistics website at http www statistics gov uk geography nrudp asp Super Output Areas SOAs These are geographical areas introduced in 2004 which were designed for the collection and publi
136. vel analysis but some headline figures are available at regional and police force area level The BCS is also a better indicator of long term trends for the crime types and population it covers than police recorded crime because it is unaffected by changes in levels of reporting to the police or police recording practices The victimisation methodology and the crime types included in the main count of crime have remained comparable since the survey began in 1981 As a result the BCS does not capture relatively new crimes such as plastic card fraud in its main crime count However additional questions have been added to the survey to investigate the extent and trends of such issues and these are reported separately to the main BCS crime count BCS estimates for 2009 10 are based on face to face interviews with 44 638 respondents The BCS has a relatively high response rate 76 in 2009 10 and the survey is weighted to adjust for possible non response bias to ensure the sample reflects the profile of the general population Being based on a sample survey BCS estimates are subject to a margin of error Unless otherwise specified any changes in BCS estimates over time that are described as differences in Home Office statistical bulletins are statistically significant see Section 8 Annual BCS technical reports provides further information on response rates and how these vary see http rds homeoffice gov uk rds bcs methodological html 2 2 BCS M
137. vered in the same way as other crimes The government s Fraud Review 2006 also specifically welcomed the changes that were being put in place http www aasbni gov uk pubs FCl fraudreview_finalreport pdf The 2006 Fraud Act also resulted in the creation of a National Fraud Authority NFA One of the key objectives of this new body is to support better reporting of fraud crimes and their subsequent investigation During 2009 10 the NFA opened a single national point of reporting for a wide range of frauds in particular those arising from the growing use of the internet and email This new means of reporting sits outside the police service as a call centre Action Fraud with an associated online reporting tool At the same time the police have established a National Fraud Intelligence Bureau NFIB to receive reports from Action Fraud as well as those from the banks and other financial institutions and to analyse them to identify positive investigatory opportunities which will then be referred to individual forces to follow up The creation of these new bodies has had little or no impact on police recorded crime data for 2009 10 as they only commenced operation in early 2010 5 5 RACIALLY OR RELIGIOUSLY AGGRAVATED OFFENCES Used in recorded crime racially aggravated offences are legally defined under section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 The Anti terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 section 39 added the religiously aggravated aspect R
138. vity etc with a person with a mental disorder Abuse of children through prostitution and pornography Trafficking for sexual exploitation sexual offences Incest or familial sexual offences Exploitation of prostitution 72 25 Abduction of a female 27 Soliciting for the purpose of prostitution 73 Abuse of position of trust of a sexual nature 88A Sexual grooming 88C Other miscellaneous sexual offences 88D Unnatural sexual offences 88E Exposure and voyeurism ROBBERY Key elements of the offence of robbery Section 8 of the Theft Act 1968 are stealing and the use or threat of force immediately before doing so and in order to do so Any injuries resulting from this force are not recorded as additional offences of violence 34A Robbery of business property 34B Robbery of personal property BURGLARY Key elements of police recorded burglaries as defined by the Theft Act 1968 are entry or attempted entry to a building as a trespasser with intent to either a steal property from it including stealing or attempting to steal b inflict grievous bodily harm or c commit unlawful damage to property whilst inside The offence group also includes aggravated burglary Section 10 of the same Act which is defined as a burglary where the burglar is in possession of a weapon at the time The Home Office website see above contains details of the types of premises that constitute a dwelling 28A Burglary in a dwelling 28B
139. ween BCS and recorded crime for example the BCS violence categories include robbery but the police recorded crime violence categories do not recorded robbery figures are shown separately Just over half of all BCS violent incidents and just under half of all police recorded violence against the person resulted in injury to the victim e Violence with injury includes all incidents of wounding assault with injury and BCS only robbery which resulted in injury Homicide is only included for police recorded crime Police recorded crime also includes attempts at inflicting injury although the BCS would not include these if no actual injury occurred e Violence without injury includes all incidents of assault without injury and BCS only incidents of robbery which did not result in injury Police recorded crime also includes possession of weapons offences and a number of public order offences such as harassment Police recorded crime statistics for violence especially less serious violence are particularly affected by changes in recording practice over time for the population and crime types it covers the BCS is the best measure for long term national trends in violence Police statistics are important for showing the mix of violent crimes dealt with and recorded by the police They are an important measure of activity locally and a source of operational information to help identify and address local crime problems at a lower geographical l

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