British Crime Survey
The recorded crime figures represent those offences recorded by the police. Not
all offences are reported to the police and not all reported offences are recorded.
For that reason, the Home Office conducts the British Crime Survey.
The British Crime Survey (BCS) is a very important source of information about
levels of crime and public attitudes to crime. The BCS measures the amount of crime
in England and Wales by asking people about crimes they have experienced in the previous
year and therefore includes crimes which are not reported to the police.
The 2001 BCS
estimates that there were 12,899,000 crimes against adults in
2000, of which 276,000 (2.1%) were robbery offences. When snatch theft offences are included, the
overall figure for is 312,000 (2.4%). Within the BCS the two definitions, i.e., robbery
and snatch theft are often combined and referred to collectively as 'mugging'.
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Number of crimes in thousands
|
|
Vandalism (against vehicles and other private property)
|
2,608
|
|
|
|
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All property thefts
|
7,708
|
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Burglary (actual and attempted)
|
1,603
|
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Vehicle-related thefts (thefts of, from and attempts)
|
2,619
|
|
Bicycle thefts
|
377
|
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Other household thefts
|
1,616
|
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Other personal thefts (including stealth thefts)
|
1,997
|
|
|
|
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All violence
|
2,618
|
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Mugging (robbery and snatch thefts)
|
312
|
|
Wounding
|
417
|
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Common assault
|
1,890
|
|
|
|
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All BCS crime
|
12,899
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The 2001survey estimates the proportion of BCS robberies reported to the police
and of those the proportion recorded by the police:
| |
Proportion reported to the police |
Proportion recorded by the police |
| 1981 |
47% |
24% |
| 1983 |
39% |
35% |
| 1987 |
44% |
38% |
| 1991 |
47% |
47% |
| 1993 |
48% |
44% |
| 1995 |
56% |
33% |
| 1997 |
56% |
30% |
| 1999 |
31% |
59% |
| 2000 |
54% |
52% |
Source: The British Crime Survey
2001
The number of robberies reported to the BCS is small and therefore estimates are
subject to large sampling errors.
There are a number of reasons for the differences in the level of crimes reported
under the British Crime Survey and the level of recorded crime, including:
commonly the victims consider the incident too trivial or the loss too small
to warrant police attention:
victims also feel the police would be unable or unwilling to do anything;
a number of victims are afraid of reprisals if they go to the police;
and some feel the offence was a private matter or would be dealt with by the
victim;
some incidents could have been recorded by the police in crime categories outside
the comparable crime category, for example as theft from the person instead of robbery;
some incidents may not be recorded because of police compliance with victims’
wishes not to proceed (This is likely to be a small proportion, more likely the police
re-categorise the offence dependant upon the victim’s description of events or the
circumstances - e.g. lost not stolen).
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