CrimeVictim Interaction

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Crime-Victim Interaction

• Who are the victims of crime?

• Complete a newspaper audit of crime
• What type of crime?
• Are some crimes missing?
• What influence on views on crime?

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Risk factors in victims of burglary
Who do you think are the likely victims of
burglary?

• Young head of household.
• Lone adults.
• Unemployed head of household.
• Low income household.
• Living in rented accommodation, Flat or end of
  terrace house.
• Home empty for three hours or more during the day
  
• Inner city or council estate residence.
• Living in north of country.
• Multi-ethnic area.

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Risk factors for repeated victims of burglary
Who do you think would be a repeat victim?

• Single parents.
• Living in rented accommodation.
• Living in an inner city area or on a council
  estate

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Risk factors in victims of violence
Who are likely to be victims of violence? Male of
Female?

• Single and living alone
• Unemployed or low income
• Living in rented accommodation.
• Living in a flat or terraced house
• Go out often.
• Living in London or Northern England.

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Risk factors for repeat victims of violence

• 25-44 year old female.
• Single parents
• Living in rented accommodation or on a council
  estate.

WHY?
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British Crime survey

• What is it?
• How is the data collected?
• What were the latest key statistics?
• So who are the victims?

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The British Crime Survey

• Face to face interviews with a sample of adults
  (16) living in private households in England and
  Wales
• Measures crime victimisation rates, experience of
  crime and public attitudes
• First survey in 1982, and approximately every two
  years between 1982 and 2000 (sample size 10,000
  to 20,000)
• In 2001, introduced continuous survey with a
  sample of 40,000 interviews per year and adopted
  calibration weighting (increasing to over 50,000
  interviews from 2004-05)
• Note The British Crime Survey only covers
  England and Wales. There are separate Scottish
  and Northern Ireland crime surveys.

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Why is the survey important?

• Provides a more comprehensive picture of crime
  than the police recorded statistics including
• unreported and unrecorded crime
• robust and reliable trends in certain key crime
  types
• relative risks of victimisation
• information about victims experience of crime
• public attitudes towards crime, anti-social
  behaviour, and fear of crime
• security precautions taken and other issues
• Used to evaluate a range of policies related to
  crime reduction
• Used to monitor key Home Office and police
  service performance indicators on crime, fear of
  crime, anti-social behaviour and confidence in
  the police

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Moving to continuous sampling

• New performance management culture required
  robust measures
• at sub-national level (for 43 police force areas)
• on a regular annual basis
• Prior to 2001, the survey was carried out in the
  first 3 months of the year on victimisation
  relating to the preceding calendar year
• A review of BCS methodology expressed serious
  concern regarding the feasibility of using the
  old BCS design with a 40,000 annual sample to
  meet these demands
• Now uses continuous sampling throughout the year
• The recall period is now the 12 months prior to
  interview (with new procedures adopted using a
  calendar to aid recall)
• Adopted calibration weighting to take account
  of differential response rates between regions,
  age groups and genders

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Example Questionnaire Structure
Full sample (Main survey and
demographic) Victimisation screener
questions Fear of crime Disorder and antisocial
behaviour Confidence in the Criminal Justice
System Socio-demographic and lifestyle
information Quarter samples (Additional
questions) Contact with and attitudes towards the
police and criminal justice system Crime
prevention and security measures Ad hoc crime
topics e.g. Technology crimes and Antisocial
behviour Victims (Victim Forms) Details of
victimisation incident Reporting to the police,
contact by Victim Support Police response and
satisfaction with the police All 16 to 59 year
olds (Self completion elements) Knowledge and
use of drugs Drinking behaviour Sexual
victimisation
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Comparing survey and recorded crime figures

• To compare need to limit to a comparable subset
  of crimes covered by both BCS and recorded crime,
  which includes vandalism, burglary, bicycle and
  vehicle-related theft, theft from the person,
  robbery, common assault, and wounding.
• The main BCS statistics exclude
• Victimless crimes (e.g. drug dealing)
• Murder (unavailable for interview!)
• Fraud
• Sexual offences (small number /disclosure)
• Adjustments are made to estimate for
• victims aged under 16
• commercial targets

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The proportion of all BCS crimes reported to the
police and recorded by them, year to September
2003
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Reporting rates 2003-04
Of those respondents who experienced a crime but
did not report it to the police, for property
crimes around four fifths said this was because
the crime was too trivial or the police could
not do anything about it. For violent crimes,
almost a half felt it was too trivial, but a
further half additionally stated that the
incident was a private matter or they preferred
to deal with it themselves.
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Trends in all BCS crimes, 1981 to 2003-04
Crime in England and Wales peaked in 1995 and has
fallen in each successive survey since then.
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Trends in the main BCS crime categories,
comparing 2003-04 with 1995.
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The risk of being a victim of crime in 2003/04
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Adults most at risk of violence in 2003/04
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Worry about violence in England and Wales, 1998
to 2003/04
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Other information on violence

• Victims knew their offender in more than half of
  all violent incidents
• Victims judged that there was an offender of
  school age in ten per cent of violent incidents
• Victims believed offenders to be under the
  influence of alcohol in almost half (47) of
  violent incidents
• Over a fifth (22) of muggings involved four or
  more offenders.
• The 2001 BCS also included a self-completion
  module to measure the extent and nature of
  domestic violence, sexual victimisation and
  stalking and showed
• Prevalence of domestic violence approximately 5
  times that of the main face-to-face BCS measure
  in the year prior to interview
• One in five (21) women and one in ten (10) men
  over the age of 16 experience domestic violence
  (threat or force) in their lifetime

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Regular victims

• Some research has tried to establish whether
  there is a certain type of person who becomes a
  regular victim. .
• Chambers (1995) suggests the case of individuals
  from violent homes with low self-esteem, who seem
  to put themselves in risky situations.
• For example, such a man may walk through a gang
  of men standing on a street corner rather than
  cross the road. Such an action is taken as
  provocative, and the man is beaten up.

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Domestic violence

• Some women in domestic violence cases are
  attracted to power and so end up in abusive
  relationships.
• These women often have low self-esteem and
  believe the abuse is a sign of love.
• However, this is a controversial idea and
  certainly does not explain all domestic violence
  and abuse.

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Domestic violence

• Dobash and Dobash's (1979) survey of police
  records in Scotland showed that women were the
  victims in 94 of all reported domestic violence
  incidents.
• When Straus and Gelles (1990) analysed 500
  reports of domestic assault, they found that
  women had experienced an average of 7.2 assaults
  per year from their husbands.

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The End