1. Their Strengths and Limitations

4. 1. Practically – available for free 2. More detail as there are more categories of crime than with the British Crime Survey 3. Includes crimes committed against under 16s 4. Easy to make comparisons 5. Enables us to assess the efficiency of the police

7.  Theft of vehicle – high reporting rate  Assault with minor or no injury – low reporting rate  Vandalism – very low reporting rate

8.  Downgrading crimes – from ‘attempted burglary’ to ‘criminal damage’  Disappearing crimes – from ‘theft’ to ‘lost property’ – the later is not a crime  NB – The Police are now less able to do this since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standards in 2002

9. 1. Reveals the extent of the dark figure of crime for each type of crime. 2. Asks questions about perceptions of crime and fear of crime 3. It provides a picture of the extent and patterns of victimization, i.e, we can find out about the ethnicity and gender of the victims of crime.

10. 1. It asks about a much more limited range of crimes than Police Recorded Crime – people are not asked if they have been victims of Health and Safety breaches by Corporations for example. 2. It is a survey of private individuals – crimes against corporate organisations such as businesses (theft from work for example) are not included. 3. It omits certain sections of the population – the under 16s and homeless people are excluded for example.

11.  The BCS interviews one person to talk about the experience of the household…. and the person interviewed may not know whether other members of the household have been victims of crime.  There are various reasons why the respondent may not tell the respondent about a crime or crimes experienced….  –domestic violence if the abuser is present,  ‘fatigue’ – the person may have experienced so much crime they are unwilling  Interview conditions will affect the reporting rate – matching interviews according to gender, ethnicity and age should enhance trust and increase the reporting rate.

12. Complete the self report questionnaire

13.  See separate document…

14.  Researchers are able to ask about a wider range of offences than either the BCS or Police recorded crime  Useful for asking about ‘non criminal’ but anti- social behaviour type offences  Useful for finding out about younger offenders – missing from the British Crime Survey

15.  Obviously there will be pressure for the respondents to be dishonest  Especially not useful for more serious offences

16.  Authorities are increasingly looking to other sources of information to collect valid data on the level of offending  For example - using Accident and Emergency figures to collect statistics on ‘more serious wounding’ for example