Crime Of The Century - A Chilling Look At Crime Statistics In The UK
One such report was compiled by the Research Development & Statistics Directorate at the Home Office and published in 2000, entitled: Home Office Research Study 204 - Review of police forces’ crime recording practices
By John Burrows, Roger Tarling, Alan Mackie, Rachel Lewis and Geoff Taylor Source file :
http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors204.pdf
This review examined the policies, and practices, of different police forces in recording crime. It describes the process followed in dealing with crime allegations, and the criteria applied, across different forces. In doing so it has aimed to shed light on the ‘recording shortfall’.
This is the discrepancy between the British Crime Survey’s (BCS) estimate of the number of crimes said to have been experienced by victims and which were reported to the police, and those numbers that appear in police recorded crime statistics.
The review was conducted in two stages. The first stage encompassed a preliminary assessment of policy and practices relating to crime recording in ten police forces across England and Wales. In the second stage, a more detailed review was conducted into the practices within five of these forces. This incorporated a ‘tracking’ exercise, which monitored what happened to reports of crime made by telephone to the police.
Key findings The process of dealing with crime allegations
The way crime reports originate – whether by calls made direct to a police station, 999 calls, personal visits to police stations, or other means – varies between forces. The processes by which crimes are recorded vary substantially:
• Incident room arrangements differ. A crucial distinction is between forces that operate ‘single-tier’ and ‘two-tier’ arrangements with their incident rooms. There are however many other hybrids.
• Incident rooms deal not only with 999 calls, but the majority of phone calls made to local police stations, which are routed automatically to them.
• Incident rooms keep records (taped and written) of all the actions they take in respect of any call, and generally finalise this record with a ‘closing’ incident code or label.
• Methods of creating crime records vary widely. In the forces under review crime records could be initiated by police officers phoning Crime Management Units (CMUs) or central input bureaux, or by officers themselves entering them on the
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