British Crime Survey

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The British Crime Survey or BCS is a systematic victim study, carried out by the Home Office. The BCS seeks to measure the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking 50,000 people aged 16 and over, living in private households, about the crimes they have experienced in the last year. The survey is comparable to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted in the United States.

The British Crime Survey was first carried out in 1982 and further surveys were carried out in 1984, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2001.

Since April 2001, BCS interviews have been carried out on a continuous basis and results from that point are now reported by financial years.

40% of crime reported to the police does not actually appear in the official crime statistics as the police may regard certain reported offences as too trivial, not to be law violations or simply to be false accusations.

1 Example of statistics gathered by the BCS
2 Home office statistics
3 Further reading
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Example of statistics gathered by the BCS

In 2003/04 the number of robbery offences in England and Wales was for people aged 16 and over was around 283,000.

In 2004/05 the number of robbery offences in England and Wales, for people aged 16 and over was around 255,000

The BCS does not measure robbery offences among victims under 16 years.

[edit] Home office statistics

Violent crime accounted for 14% of all recorded crime yet over the past five years violent crime has fallen by 22%, domestic burglary is down by 39%, and vehicle crime is down by 26%.

In 1997, there were over 1.6 million domestic burglaries in England and Wales. Burglary is the crime most commonly referred to Victim Support, with nearly half a million victims of burglary being offered help each year