L437 Criminology and Criminal Justice

Importance and reliability of crime statistics 

Since 1805, the Home Office have been collecting and publishing national statistics regarding crimes in England and Wales. Initially, the data included only court proceedings and convictions. Later, the crimes recorded and reported by the police officers were also included in the data collected by the Home Office (Rogers 2014). The crime statistics published by Home Office in England and Wales is based on two sets of crime statistics police recorded data and British Crime Survey (BCS). When these sources are used together, they enable to provide the public with necessary information regarding the crime statistics and help them keep an eye on the policies.

The BCS is a personal victimization survey where the residents of England and Wales are asked about their experiences regarding various crimes that have taken place within the last 12 months. They are also asked about their outlook towards the various crimes that is taking place within the country. The BCS survey includes the personal and household related crimes that are often not recorded by the police officers (Crawford and Evans 2016). 

Despite the fact that recorded crime statistics have been used since ages to determine the performance of the police officers, it has often been recognized to have number of weaknesses. It is often alleged that the police officers fiddle with crime statistics for demonstrating their improved performance (Silverman 2015). Moreover, the procedure followed by the local police officers in order to record crime is significantly inconsistent. Consequently, it has become very difficult to determine the accuracy of the crime statistics. The recorded crime is often manipulated and there is an uncontrollable inconsistency in the crimes reported by the public to the police officers. Although several attempts have been made to resolve this issue but it still persists in England and Wales.

Massaging of crime statistics

The police officers in England and Wales are alleged to have been manipulating the crime records or crime statistics in order to meet their targets. They re-classify the offenses so that their performance score look better. The police officers are regularly manipulating the crime statistics in order make their measured performance appear better than what it is in reality. It is also evident from the fact that the retiring police officers have provided sufficient evidences regarding the procedure used to manipulate the crime figures (Bullock 2014). They further stated that senior police officers are involved into the matter as they authorize the manipulating procedures. Such procedures include less serious offenses or convincing victims not to lodge any complaint against the offense, etc.

Further, it has been observed that the police officers record only those cases, which they can solve and the remaining complaints or records are removed from the register book completely and in such manner that it is impossible to trace such complaint records. In the event such offenses are traced and disclosed, it would weaken the claim made made by the Home Office that the crime rate has always been at its lowest for more than 30 years. If the media reports are to be believed, there is an incentive system in the police force, which has become corrupted and has enabled the public not to trust the police force. There are caps on the performance of the police officers, that is, they can afford to have certain number of burglaries per day or a certain number of robberies per day. In order to meet with the caps, they tend to suppress or manipulate the crime figures (Eterno, Verma and Silverman 2016).

The MPs are alleged that since they claim that the crime rates have gone down therefore, in order to establish their claim they tend to pressurize the police forces to implement procedures like convincing the victims not to report or lodge complaints or remove the recorded offenses from the complaint register, thus, pressurizing them to manipulate with the crime figures.

Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

The CSEW is another victimization survey that is conducted to know about the experience of the household residents in England and Wales regarding offenses. CSEW encompasses wide range of crimes that are experienced by those residents including those crimes that have not been recorded or reported before the police officers (Tonry 2016). On the other hand, the police recorded crimes figures are restricted to those crimes that have been reported and recorded by them. Therefore, unlike CSEW, the police officers do not cover those offenses that are neither noticed nor recorded by them.

Police Officers against fiddling crime figures

A considerable number of governmental officials and police officers are unhappy with the procedures leading to manipulation of the crime statistics. They loathe the role they play in the prevalent practice of massaging official crime statistics. There are several officers holding a senior rank in the police department, who are ethical-minded and they detest the fact that they have to take part in manipulating the crime figures (Waterhouse, Reynolds and Egan 2016). These officers within the organization dislike the procedure and have no respect for the officials who are engaged in the manipulation. However, for the sake of saving their jobs, they are bound to take part into the same either directly or indirectly.

According to media reports, the police officers fail to record serious offences like rape and child abuse or they persuade the aggrieved persons from reporting against such crimes. For instance, a London police officer named, James Patrick, who affirmed that the metropolitan police officers have often regarded serious offenses like rape as no crime on the basis that it is a case of mental health issues or that the victim has refused to lodge any compliant for the same (Walsh, Milne and Bull 2016). James Patrick and another senior Police Officer named, Dr. Rodger Patrick also admitted that police officers manipulate the fact that they have pressurized the victims not to report a complaint by stating that the victims have refused to lodge a complaint. They admitted the fact that massaging crime figures in order to make the performance look better is deeply-rooted in the police culture.

It has been observed that most of the police officers manipulate the crime figures in order to obtain a boost in their incentive. One of the MPs named, Paul Flynn, stated that providing false information for any financial advantage is itself an offense. James Patrick affirmed that the MPs are the ones who are pressurizing the police force to manipulate with the crime statistics. A metropolitan Police Officer named, Commander Simon Letchford stated that the department is confident of the fact that the crime rate in London has come down and that the Police Officers are ethically and appropriately recording and reporting crimes and are not at all engaged in the fiddling of the crime statistics. He further asserted that if they identify those police officers who are involved in massaging the crime figures, such officers should be dealt with accordingly.

As per the media reports, the political parties are pressurizing the police force to follow procedures for manipulating the crime statistics and come up with desirable figures. In fact, during the period of election of the police commissioner and the political parties in England and Wales, the pressure is more and the crime statistics are fiddled with largely to such an extent that most of the police forces pledge during their campaign that they will bring down the crime rates in England and Wales (Medway, Parker and Roper 2016). In order to execute the same, the political parties and most of the members of the police forces are empowered to dismiss any chief constables who fail to meet the target that is to bring down the crime rate. They are not concerned how to prevent the crimes but they are concerned about reducing it in any which ways, be it by adopting ways of manipulating the crime figures or pressurizing the victims not to lodge a complaint or passing off serious offenses by framing them to be as a ‘no crime’.

The Office for National Statistics reported that the police force have not recorded over 40,000 offenses which were lodged by the aggrieved persons. It has been alleged that the police departments is often understaffed and this has given rise to anxiety between the necessity to maintain supreme quality crime recording system which requires huge number of staffs for the back office operation and providing standard service to the aggrieved persons with respect o police service (Tompson et al. 2015). The police officers defend the allegations that they record the complaints ethically and correctly, however, the contentions made by the police officers indicate that the police officers are under performance pressures because of which they may enter less accurate data in the compliant register.

The failure of the police forces to record the crimes is glaring and the public will start to distrust and lose faith in the official crime statistics to the extent that gradually these statistics shall cease to have any reliability (Matthews 2016). The victims who are trying to report the crimes that has taken place and the police instead of recording the same, they are saying is they are no more con concerned about it and the victims must report about crimes to some national agency they are not aware of or the victims are pressurized for not lodging the complaint at all.

The alternative technique that is being used by the officials is re-stating the reports lodged by the victims as less serious crimes or no crimes at all. For instance- where multiple crimes are committed within any specific area, such incidents are recorded as a single incident. The offense of theft is being recorded as ‘lost property’; burglary is being noted as ‘criminal damage’ and serious sexual offenses are noted as ‘no crime’ or ‘less serious crimes’ (Hohl and Stanko 2015). Under such circumstances, it is highly imperative that the crimes recorded by the police officials or the crime statistics are appropriate and the government must take initiatives to underpin the accountability and independence of the crime records made by the police officials (Pahl 2016). 

In order to address the issue regarding fiddling with the crime statistics by the police officials it is recommended that the Home Secretary must make necessary arrangements to create a regulatory environment in order to make sure that there is a perceived and actual separation between those officials who maintains the crime records and the statistical data and those officials who are under statutory obligation to advise the victims be such officials are part of the police force or the Home office (Lister 2014). The government must take necessary steps to cut down the crime rates and the victims must be assured regarding the fact that if they report a crime justice is administered to them.

Reference:

Bullock, K., 2014. Introduction. In Citizens, Community and Crime Control (pp. 1-24). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Crawford, T.A.M. and Evans, K., 2016. Crime prevention and community safety.

Eterno, J.A., Verma, A. and Silverman, E.B., 2016. Police manipulations of crime reporting: Insiders’ revelations. Justice Quarterly, 33(5), pp.811-835.

Hohl, K. and Stanko, E.A., 2015. Complaints of rape and the criminal justice system: Fresh evidence on the attrition problem in England and Wales. European Journal of Criminology, 12(3), pp.324-341.

Lister, S., 2014. Scrutinising the role of the Police and Crime Panel in the new era of police governance in England and Wales. Safer Communities, 13(1), pp.22-31.

Matthews, R., 2016. Realist criminology, the new aetiological crisis and the crime drop. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 5(3), pp.2-11.

Medway, D., Parker, C. and Roper, S., 2016. Litter, gender and brand: The anticipation of incivilities and perceptions of crime prevalence. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45, pp.135-144.

Pahl, J. ed., 2016. Private violence and public policy: The needs of battered women and the response of the public services. Routledge.

Rogers, C., 2014. On Police Recorded Crime. Police J., 87, p.73.

Silverman, E.B., 2015. Numbers and narratives. Applied police research: Challenges and opportunities, pp.82-94.

Tompson, L., Johnson, S., Ashby, M., Perkins, C. and Edwards, P., 2015. UK open source crime data: accuracy and possibilities for research. Cartography and geographic information science, 42(2), pp.97-111.

Tonry, M., 2016. What Should We Expect from Police Data: Can They Tell Us Whether Crime Rates Rise or Fall?.

Walsh, D., Milne, B. and Bull, R., 2016. One way or another? Criminal investigators’ beliefs regarding the disclosure of evidence in interviews with suspects in England and Wales. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 31(2), pp.127-140.

Waterhouse, G.F., Reynolds, A. and Egan, V., 2016. Myths and legends: The reality of rape offences reported to a UK police force. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 8(1), pp.1-10.