Children’s experience and attitudes towards the police, personal safety and public spaces: findings from the 2009/10 British Crime Survey interviews with children aged 10 to 15, supplementary volume 3 to Crime in England and Wales 2009/10

The British Crime Survey (BCS) is a face-to-face victimisation survey of around 46,000 adults resident in households in England and Wales. The survey has been carried out since 19821, asking adults aged 16 or over about their experiences of crime in the 12 months prior to interview as well as their attitudes towards different crime-related issues such as the police, criminal justice system, and perceptions of crime and anti-social behaviour. One of the key recommendations of crime statistics reviews carried out in 2006 was that the BCS should be extended to include populations currently not covered by the survey, for example, people aged under 16 (Smith, 2006; Statistics Commission, 2006). An announcement was made in May 2008 that the BCS would be extended to include children aged 10 to 15 following independent expert advice (Pickering et al., 2008). After a period of testing, development and consultation, data collection began in January 2009. A methodological report detailing all aspects of this process was published on 21 October 2010 (see Fitzpatrick et al., 2010)

« Lies, damned lies and criminal statistics » : Reinterpreting the criminal statistics in England and Wales

What legitimately to conclude from government statistics relating to the criminal justice system in England and Wales since their inception from 1803 has provoked neither great interest nor much controversy amongst historians. Although the defects of the data are well known, there has been a tendency to settle for using the data as a basis for coming to an understanding of the phenomena they were accepted as setting out to chart. Relying on published sources, Dr Howard Taylor has challenged this consensus by offering a new reading of the data in the century up to 1960. He argues that the data represent not simply flawed though essentially bona fide product but, on the contrary, conscious attempts to mask the suppression of the real levels of criminality, including murder. Approaching the data from a supply side perspective, he claims these ends were furthered at times by under-recording, by consciously ungenerous funding, and by manipulating prosecution practice. It is contended that Dr Taylor's arguments allow insufficiently for the decentralised and disaggregated character of criminal justice policy and practice, exaggerate the significance of adventitious statistical phenomena, and mistakenly attribute premeditated design for outcomes there was both no capacity to encompass and for which there are adequate alternative explanations.Ce qu'on est en droit de tirer des statistiques pénales établies en Angleterre et Galles, depuis leur création en 1803, n'a pas soulevé un grand intérêt, ni controverse, parmi les historiens. Bien que les défauts de ces données soient bien connus, on a eu tendance à s'accorder pour les utiliser pour comprendre les phénomènes que, de l'avis général, elles visaient à représenter. En se fondant sur des sources publiées, le Dr. Howard Taylor a remis en cause ce consensus et a proposé une relecture des données sur un siècle, jusqu'en 1960. Il soutient qu'on ne peut pas considérer ces données comme une production, certes défectueuse, mais réalisée de bonne foi ; il y voit au contraire une entreprise délibérée visant à dissimuler le véritable niveau de la criminalité, meurtres compris. En analysant les données dans une perspective de l'offre, il affirme qu'à certaines périodes, on a cherché à atteindre ce but par un sous-enregistrement, une pénurie budgétaire organisée, et en jouant sur les poursuites.Le présent article soutient que l'argumentation du Dr. Taylor fait trop peu de place au caractère décentralisé et émietté des politiques et des pratiques pénales ; qu'elle attribue trop de signification à des phénomènes statistiques fortuits ; et qu'elle voit à tort, un projet prémédité là où n'existait pas la capacité d'en contrôler le résultat que l'on peut, du reste, convenablement expliquer d'une autre façon

Understanding the Criminal: Record-Keeping, Statistics, and the Early History of Criminology in England, 1780-1860

This article seeks to understand why detailed personal information about accused criminals and convicts was collected from the late eighteenth century in England, and why some of this information was converted into statistics from the 1820s, such that by 1860 extensive information about criminals’ physical characteristics and backgrounds was regularly collected. Record-keeping was mostly driven by local initiatives and imperatives, revealing the development of a grass-roots information-gathering culture, with limited government direction. Similarly, the government was a slow and reluctant participant in the collection of statistics, often yielding to external pressures. Ultimately, the substantial amount of information recorded reveals a strong and widely-held desire to understand the criminal, long before the self-conscious enterprise of ‘criminology’ was invented

The criminal justice system and people on the autism spectrum: perspectives on awareness and identification

Individuals with a diagnosis of autism are seven times more likely to be represented in criminal justice statistics compared to people without this diagnosis (Debbaunt, 2004). This signals the need for further investigation into the practices of professionals working in these areas; in particular, the extent of their awareness and understanding of autism. This paper reports on a qualitative study undertaken with 30 people working in probation, a community rehabilitation company, police, and liaison and diversion services in a county in the North of England. Interviews were conducted between July and September 2017. While a number of criminal justice professionals possessed some experience of autism in their personal or professional practice, several professionals struggled to accurately identify what autism is, and how it could impact on an individual’s communication style; which could represent a barrier to effective communication between providers and service users. These results add to the body of literature on the subject of criminal justice services and alleged offenders who are on the autism spectrum and aims to raise awareness and promote discussion on this important subject

Reducing Reoffending: Review of Selected Countries: Final Review for Audit Scotland

The report reviews reoffending patterns in Scotland, England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway and New Zealand to establish relevant conditions for different rates of reoffending. A significant part of the report, however, is given over to a critical examination of the concept of 'reoffending' itself which is more a measure of criminal justice agency behaviour than individual behaviour. The report concludes with some suggestions for moving beyond such thin, technocratic understanding of reoffending and rehabilitation. This work was commissioned by and submitted to Audit Scotland

Review of equality statistics

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) commissioned this review as part of its remit to map the equalities landscape across England, Scotland and Wales. The report examines the extent to which data are available for the following equality strands: sex; ethnicity / race; disability; religion or belief; age; sexual orientation; and also for socio-economic status (social class). The extent to which statistics are available at different levels of geographic classification (UK, GB, England, Scotland and Wales and regional and local areas within this) is investigated. The report addresses the ten domains of equality identified in the equality measurement framework in the Equalities Review.1 These are: Longevity Physical security Health Education Standard of living Productive and valued activities Individual, family and social life Participation, influence and voice Identity, expression and self-respect Legal securit

The Failed Experiment: Gun Control and Public Safety in Canada, Australia, England and Wales

Widely televised firearm murders in many countries during the 20th Century have spurred politicians to introduce restrictive gun laws. The politicians then promise that the new restrictions will reduce criminal violence and "create a safer society." It is time to pause and ask if gun laws actually do reduce criminal violence. Gun laws must be demonstrated to cut violent crime or gun control is no more than a hollow promise. What makes gun control so compelling for many is the belief that violent crime is driven by the availability of guns and, more importantly, that criminal violence in general may be reduced by limiting access to firearms. In this study, I examine crime trends in Commonwealth countries that have recently introduced firearm regulations: i.e., Great Britain, Australia, and Canada. The widely ignored key to evaluating firearm regulations is to examine trends in total violent crime, not just firearms crime. Since firearms are only a small fraction of criminal violence, the public would not be safer if the new law could reduce firearm violence but had no effect on total criminal violence. The upshot is that violent crime rates, and homicide rates in particular, have been falling in the United States, but increasing in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The drop in the American crime rate is even more impressive when compared with the rest of the world. In 18 of the 25 countries surveyed by the British Home Office, violent crime increased during the 1990s. This contrast should provoke thinking people to wonder what happened in those countries where they introduced increasingly restrictive firearm laws