Home Office Statistics

Question 1

Are home office statistics reliable?

Answer 1

They are generally reliable because each police force should follow the same rules and procedures when recording crime, and use the same definitions of crime.

Question 2

What might reduce the reliability of home office statistics?

Answer 2

• issues with interpretation - it’s possible for the same incident to be recorded differently by different officers.
• definitions of crime may be inconsistent across different forces eg recording there’s at differing levels.

Question 3

What might reduce the validity of the home office statistics?

Answer 3

Issues with reliability, under-reporting, and under-recording all reduce the validity of the HOS.

Question 4

When would statistics have high validity?

Answer 4

If they capture the crimes that are actually being committed.

Question 5

What are noticeable offences?

Answer 5

Any offence, under UK law, where the police must notify the home office. The home office then use these ‘notifiable offences’ to compile the crime statistics.

Question 6

What offences would be considered as notifiable?

Answer 6

All crimes that could be tried by a jury, eg murder or rape. Some less serious crimes that could be tried by a magistrate eg assault without injury.

Question 7

Examples of non-noticeable offences.

Answer 7

Petty theft, graffiti, traffic violations, minor public disturbances.

Question 8

How are Home Office statistics reported/recorded?

Answer 8

every month, each regional police force reports the number of crimes they have recorded to the home office. these figures are sent to the office for national statistics, who publishes final statistics for the whole country.

Question 9

What are the counting rules issued by the home office?

Answer 9

Since 1998, the rule has been that the statistics should record the number of victims - not the number of criminal acts.