Résumé
This report reviews the current state of official UK crime statistics. Crime statistics are the quintessential ‘official figures’, used by both the public and the government. This report considers who uses the statistics, for what purposes, whether the available statistics meet those purposes, and whether further statistical sources or outputs might need to be developed. Part 1 is the Commission’s own report. It builds on a 2005 Interim Report and draws extensively on a detailed Review of Crime Statistics conducted by Matrix Research and Consultancy (the ‘Consultancy Review’) which forms Part 2.
As a generalisation, if statistics are not trusted they are not useful. The Interim Report noted that broad statistical messages about crime – the ones most of us look for most of the time – are being lost against a backdrop of confused reporting; and this confusion is both a cause and a consequence of a lack of trust. The need to promote greater trust is thus central to this report. The recommendations follow four main themes: structural separation between Home Office policy functions and the compilation and publication of crime statistics; improved communication with users through clearer presentation of the statistics at the time of publication; better, more consistent, crime data for small areas, through more systematic exploitation of existing police data sources; and further technical research on options where the existing statistics do not fully meet demand – including the best measure of ‘total crime’, and ways to improve inter-administration (within the UK) comparisons of crime statistics.