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  • HO 4001982-2002Home Office: Research and Statistics Directorate and predecessors: British Crime Survey Datasets

    The British Crime Survey (BCS) is one of the most important methods used by the Home Office to gather information on crime in England and Wales; ten surveys dating from 1982 to 2001 are held in this series. The survey asks a representative sample of the adult population about their experiences as victims of household crimes and personal crimes during the previous year. Its main purpose was to provide an alternative to police measurement of crime in England and Wales.

    The questions asked in the BCS have evolved over time. Most questions relating to the experiences of crime victims have remained the same, but questions on other topics have varied with different sweeps of the BCS. The following is a summary of the types of information gathered in the different sweeps of the survey:

    • Demographic information about respondents and their households, to allow analysis of the types of people who have and have not been victims of crime: e.g. size of household, numbers of children, sex and age of members of the household, health and employment experiences of the respondent, type of accommodation, household income.
    • Information about crimes experienced by the respondent and their household. This includes (1) general information about crimes (e.g. numbers and types during the reference period, whether incidents were isolated or part of a series), gathered through 'screening' questions intended to identify crime victims; and (2) details of specific incidents or related series of incidents gathered from those respondents who answered the screening questions positively: e.g. when and where the incident occurred, details of property stolen, the nature of any relationship between the victim and the offender, and whether the incident was racially motivated. These details are used to determine whether the incident or series counts as an offence, and to classify the offence.
    • Information about fires which have occurred in the respondent's home (a feature of BCS sweeps in the periods 1988-1996 and 2000-2002).
    • Information about the attitudes of the respondent on topics such as fear of crime, the police, the Criminal Justice System, and the punishment and sentencing of offenders, the respondents' perceptions of the prevalence and seriousness of crime, attitudes towards Neighbourhood Watch schemes, etc. The nature of these attitude-related questions has varied with the different sweeps of the survey.
    • Information on other topics, dealt with on an ad hoc basis, which may change with different sweeps of the survey: e.g. experiences of drug use, domestic violence, contacts with the police, self-reported offending, stalking, sexual victimisation, mobile phone theft, and technology crime.

    The data gathered in the BCS is intended to complement the Home Office's published statistics on notifiable offences, i.e. crimes reported to and recorded by the police which the police are required to notify to the Home Office. The BCS captures household and personal crimes which were not reported to the police, or not recorded by the police, or not in those categories of crimes which the police were required to notify to the Home Office. It therefore provides a truer estimate of the extent of household and personal crimes. BCS data is also less prone than the statistics on notifiable offences to changes in police practices in recording crimes, and to changes in the willingness of the public to report crimes, so it can provide a more accurate indication of trends in crime over time. The survey provides demographic profiles of the victims of crime (highlighting those groups which are most at risk of victimisation), and also provides information about the nature of crime, the circumstances in which crime takes place, and the impact of crime. Respondents are also asked for their opinions on related topics such as sentencing, the police, and the efficacy of the criminal justice system. The results of the BCS have been published by the Home Office in a variety of statistical and research publications, and are used to measure trends in crime, to provide a point of comparison for statistics on notifiable offences, and to inform policy making on crime and punishment.

    It should be noted that the BCS does not cover all crimes, only those classed as household crimes (e.g. burglary, thefts of and from vehicles, vandalism and theft from the home), and personal crimes (e.g. assaults, robberies, thefts from the person and other personal thefts). The BCS does not cover crimes against organisations (e.g. fraud, shoplifting), 'victimless' crimes (e.g. drug abuse) or crimes where the victim is no longer available for interview (e.g. murder, manslaughter). As the core sample in each sweep of the BCS covers adults aged 16 and over, the BCS does not record crimes against children (the exception is the 1992 survey, which included an additional sample of 12-15 year olds from households where an adult was also interviewed).

    The datasets in this series are available to download. Links to individual datasets can be found at piece level.