[ARCHIVED CONTENT] rds recorded crime statistics

Recorded Crime Statistics

This statistical series covers all ‘notifiable’ offences recorded by the police. This does not mean all criminal offences, as almost all the more minor summary offences are excluded (even though the police may record them for their own investigations). The significance of the term ‘notifiable’ is that all these offences are notified to the Home Office, and they are collectively known as ‘recorded crime’.

The crime recording process is governed by three key stages:

Reporting a crime: someone reports to the police that a crime has been committed or the police observe or discover a crime. In these cases the police should register a crime-related incident, and then decide whether to record it as a crime. From April 2002, the police comply with the National Crime Recording Standard in making this decision, although generally the police would record these reports of crime if they amount to a ‘notifiable’ offence and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

Recording a crime: the police decide to record the report of a crime and now need to determine how many crimes to record and what their offence types are. The Home Office issues rules to police forces on the counting and classification of crime. These Counting Rules for Recorded Crime are mostly straightforward, as most crimes are counted as ‘one crime per victim’ and the offence committed is obvious (e.g. a domestic burglary). However, it also covers special situations where more than one offence has taken place, maybe on several occasions over a period of time, or there is more than one offender or victim.

Detecting a crime: once a crime is recorded and investigated, and evidence is collected to link the crime to a suspect, it can be detected according to criteria contained in Detections Guidance within the Home Office counting rules. In many cases, someone is charged or cautioned or the court has taken the offence into consideration (TIC). The detections guidance covers these detection methods as well as certain others where the police take no further action. The guidance covering these latter methods are stringent, relying on a sufficient amount of evidence that if given in court would be likely to result in a conviction, and in most cases approval by a senior officer.

The Home Office’s crime statistics publications contain further details on the reporting, recording and detecting processes as part of their commentary and analysis of current trends.

Related Information

Figures relating to 2006/2007 are available in the following publication: Crime in England and Wales 2006/2007

Click here for a summary of recorded crime data from 1898 to 2001/02 (excel format)
Click here for a summary of recorded crime data from 2002/03 to 2006/07 (excel format)

Counting Rules for Recorded Crime

Impact of the national Crime recording Standard