Radical
Statistics
POLICY RESPONSE
Great Expectations: Changes to the Recording of Crime
Caroline Keenan
Two years ago the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, announced changes to the production of criminal statistics to a meeting of the Police Federation. In addition to the fixing of the dates at which criminal statistics would be produced each year, the definition of a notifiable crime was to be expanded. It would now include all indictable and triable either way offences and some associated summary offences. Thirdly, some changes to the counting rules were to be made, to adhere to the principal of one crime per victim. Police officers, operating under the old rules, had been expected to keep to a principle of recording 'one crime per criminal incident'.
Jack Straw declared high hopes for the improvements which the changes would bring. He stated that "this new system will give a more accurate picture of the levels of crime which we are facing today' and 'a more honest and open system too" (Home Office, 1997). Was this anything more than political rhetoric? Could the changes to the counting rules deliver these promises?
Yes, of course the new statistics can "produce a more accurate picture". There is a great dark figure of crime which is committed, but does not appear in the criminal statistics. Any change which illuminates some small part of this figure, may be considered to have produced 'a more accurate picture'. The first figures compiled under the new counting rules, have now been published and are higher than those figures counted using the old rules. Thus, whilst the crime figures calculated using the old counting rules, show a small decrease in the number of recorded offences overall, from 4,545,337 to 4,481,817, the crime figures produced by the new counting rules show an increase to 5,109,104 (Home Office, 1999). This means, by implication that the new system acknowledges crime, which had under other methods, been swept into unrecorded categories. Should the Home Secretary be applauded for exposing a part of the dark figure of crime?
To add numbers onto a list cannot be a goal in itself. The stated purpose of the Home Secretary in making changes to recording practice was in order to provide a more accurate picture of the "levels of crime we are facing today". In considering whether these new numbers are indeed useful, it is vital to consider who the 'we' might be in his statement.
The we could, for example, be the police themselves. He was, after-all addressing the Police Federation. In this case, the changes do provide a more accurate picture of the crime which the police have to face. Recorded crime is, after-all, produced by the police from the acts reported to them as criminal and which they consider to be such. The police are, however, only required to record crimes which appear on the list of offences notifiable to the Home Office, rather than all those which they deal with. Any addition to the list of crimes which the police are asked to record produces "a more accurate picture" of the crimes the police deal with. However although the picture is thereby more accurate, it is by no means complete. Twenty four offences have been added to the list of notifiable offences by the new rules. Twenty one of these are triable either way offences, thus fulfilling the promise that the new list of notifiable offences would include all indictable and all triable either way offences. Only three new summary offences have been added to the list: assault on a constable; common assault; and indecent exposure. One of these, common assault is in fact only a reinstatement after a ten year absence, rather than a new addition.1 On the evidence of the number of summary convictions, which consistently outstrip those for indictable offences, it seems likely that a large slice of the crime which the police actually deal with is made up of summary offences. As long as many summary offences fail to appear in the Criminal Statistics, the picture of crime that the police face will continue to be far from complete.
The Home Secretary's promise "to provide a more accurate picture of the levels of crime we are facing today" could of course have been towards the whole population, rather than just the police. The new changes require each known victim of a notifiable offence to be recorded. However, each instance of victimisation continues not to be recorded. The old rule still exists, that when several offences were committed in one incident the most serious offence against a victim is the only one counted. Similarly, the new rule that one crime per victim be counted does not appear to have altered the previous rule on the recording of one representative offence for a cycle of repeated victimisation by the same person. On a more fundamental level, the criminal statistics remain solely a list of reported offences and can never become a list which also includes the crimes which people face, but which are never discovered.
When considering Jack Straw's second promise, to make the crime records "more honest and open" it is difficult to see how the new system could be regarded as such by anyone who does not make their living studying, or producing, crime statistics. It may be easier for the police, as they now know, for example, that all offences triable either way must now be recorded, without exception. However, for the lay-person, the new crime statistics are rarely what they might appear. Although one crime is now recorded per victim, this does not mean that the crime statistics are solely a list of the number of known victims of notifiable offences. Records of some victimless crimes, such as the possession of drugs, are also included. However the crime statistics are also not a complete list of the number of known offenders. Only one offence is still recorded, when a crime has been committed by several people. The meaning of incident remains similarly technical. A criminal incident, can plausibly stretch across days, covering a number of offences. This is where each offence is a repetition of the last, and that the repetition of offences was facilitated by a special "relationship, knowledge, or position" enjoyed by the offender "against the person or property offended against" (Criminal Statistics, 1997). In this case, the offences in question have been seen as belonging to the same time frame and consequently became lumped together as one offence.
The final change announced by Jack Straw was for the publication dates for the Criminal Statistics to be set according to a fixed formula, which could not be altered according to political expediency. Our Home Secretary was, by his own account, "taking the politics out of crime statistics" (Home Office, 1997). When the first statistics produced under the new regime were announced, the changes did appear to have produced criminal statistics which went against the Home Secretary's own political interest, which is to publish figures which appear both authoritative and low. On the day of publication, the Home Secretary was heard, on the Today programme, in the seemingly invidious position of justifying figures published under the new counting rules, which showed both a rise and a fall in recorded crime, to the explosive John Humphries. However the Home Secretary's statement that changes now render the crime statistics apolitcial is patently false. Of course, the new changes are political. The requirement that each victim should now be counted when a criminal act is recorded, does not, as I have already stated, create a clearer picture of known victimisation. It is instead a political statement that crime will now be recorded from the victim's corner, rather than the offender's. It is a small political victory for those who press for the victim to be considered in the organisation of the Criminal Justice system. Similarly the incorporation of particular offences into the list of notifiable offences may again be considered as a political statement. In this case, a recognition by government of newly emerged areas of popular concern, which it should be seen to be gathering information about and then acting upon - for political expediency, if nothing else. The new additions to the list of notifiable offences include possession of controlled drugs and other non trafficking drug offences, cruelty and neglect of children, indecent exposure, soliciting and importuning by a man, dangerous driving and Firearms Act offences. No change by a Home Secretary can take the politics out of the criminal statistics. Any choice about what we count as crime and how it is counted will always be political. His realistic aim, if anything, was to avoid party politics when the criminal statistics are released. The timing of the release of political statistics is only important to party mavericks, who may make particular political capital on figures if they are released on certain dates rather than others.
The new criminal statistics may be of most use to a category of the population which has, in all likelihood, not been considered by the Home Secretary, undergraduates. They may be put to use in convincing students, who have, until now, been desperately clinging to the criminal statistics to be the true figure of crime to abandon their belief. Teachers may point to the number of recorded violent offences, which have either dropped in the period of March 1998 to March 1999 from 256,070 to 230,756, when recorded under the old rules, or doubled to 502,793, when recorded under the new rules. The scales may at this point fall from the student's eyes and they may finally acknowledge the weaknesses in the criminal statistics. It is a pity that the Home Secretary cannot do the same. For all his claims of objectivity and his membership of the Royal Statistical Society, he does not appear to be able to accept in public that no possible change will ensure that the criminal statistics provide a picture of all the crime that the public face. They are merely the records produced, primarily by one agency, of the criminal acts reported to them. If he were to make this admission, he could cease to make largely cosmetic changes for public consumption. He could also cease to attempt to please several potential audiences. He could instead begin to consider the only audience for which the crime statistics could be potentially useful, the police, and make any alterations to the counting rules solely to produce meaningful information for them.
NOTES
- Common assault was a notifiable offence, until the Criminal Justice Act 1988 changed it from an offence triable either way into summary offence.
REFERENCES
Home Office (1997), New Crime Figures will Lead to Greater Clarity Says Jack Straw, Press Release 247/97, 1st October.
Home Office (1998), Criminal Statistics: England and Wales 1997, London: HMSO
Home Office (1999), Recorded Crime Statistics - England and Wales April 1998 - March 1999 Issue 18/99.
Caroline Keenan
Department of Law
Wills Memorial Building
University of Bristol
Queens Rd
Bristol
BS8 1TJ
Tel: (0117) 954 5355
E-mail:
C.Keenan@bristol.ac.uk
