NICK HARVEY SAYS THE GOVERNMENT IS SOFT ON CRIME FIGURES
June 27, 2007 9:25 AM
'It beggars belief, says Nick Harvey, 'that the latest British Crime Survey seems to have lost two million violent and another million household crimes. The BCS counting system appears to be pure nonsense.
'In essence if a person is victimized over five times by the same perpetrators the BSC will only put down five incidents to avoid distorting rates. Surely in reality this is having the reverse affect.
'It is clear that the official statistics on crime, based on a limited sample survey, do not paint the full picture when compared to actual crime rates.
'Ignoring the extent of repeat offences does nothing to help people who suffer the trauma of being regularly targeted by criminals.
'Ten years of the Government's tough talk and endless legislation have not left people feeling any safer. The Home office claims that these recalculated figures do not affect the trends, I cannot see how this is the case.'
Background:
The recently issued report by the think tank Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, claims that the British Crime Survey is omitting a large number of crimes through an unsound methodology. See: http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/CivitasReviewJun07.pdf
BSC figures were recalculated by Civitas after comparing 'Official' crime rate figures with actual crime rate figures and using the percentage differences to scale up.
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