The British Crime Survey
| Published date | 01 September 1983 |
| Date | 01 September 1983 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058303000311 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
THE BRITISH
information is necessary to lessen public fear:
crime is often mundane. In the case of
burglary,
CRIME SURVEY
the criminal is frequently a teenager, quick to flee
and usually taking only a few easily disposable
The first Home
Office British Crime Survey is
goods or cash.
based on
a
representative sample of 11,000 people
in England and Wales and provides a new method
Victims’
attitudes
of assessing crime and identifying people at risk.
The BCS
has important findings about public
The BCS considered the impact of crime on
attitudes toward the police and opinions about
victims and analysed fear of crime and popular
how ’their’ offender should be treated by the
views of the police. Many types of crime were not
criminal justice system. Victims’ recom-
covered by the survey, including those in which
mendations for treatment are broadly in line with
the victims are organisations (commercial
current practice. ’Certainly the findings are at
burglary, fraud and shoplifting). Whenever
odds with the impression which opinion polls tend
possible, the BSC compared crime categories
to give of a thoroughly punitive public’. Fines,
with existing Criminal Statistics. For 1981, the
mentioned by a quarter of the victims, were the
survey revealed four times more property
most favoured sanction. Only half felt that if
offences and about five times the number of
caught ’their’ offender(s) should be brought
violent crimes (wounding, robbery and sexual
before the courts.
offences) than appear in the statistics. Hidden
People tended to express a high degree of
crime tends to be less serious than that recorded
satisfaction with police, but young men expressed
in Criminal Statistics but some relatively serious
more
grievances. In 1981 police stopped one in
offences were not recorded.
five young men at least once, and more often in
urban areas. 52 per cent felt that police treatment
Risk
had not been polite. A
lack of understanding with
The ‘average’ person only...
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