A report examined why the public thought that crime rates were soaring and that personal safety had declined, despite the fact that crime had fallen significantly. It considered what the government could do to improve public perceptions.
Source: Bobby Duffy, Rhonda Wake, Tamara Burrows and Pamela Bremner, Closing the Gaps: Crime and public perceptions, Ipsos MORI (020 8861 8000)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Dec
A report examined the underlying dynamics of violence within the night-time economy. There was a need to devise targeted strategies aimed at recurrent offenders.
Source: Susan Donkin and Daniel Birks, Victims and Offenders of Night-time Economy Violence, Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science/University College London (020 7679 0818)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Dec
A report examined the results of a project designed to help understand the regularities in patterns of crime across a range of geographical areas, and to develop and test an emerging forecasting technique – 'prospective mapping' – for preventing and detecting more crime.
Source: Shane Johnson, Daniel Birks, Lindsay McLaughlin, Kate Bowers and Ken Pease, Prospective Crime Mapping in Operational Context, Online Report 19/07, Home Office (web publication only)
Date: 2007-Nov
A report presented findings from additional analyses of attitudes, perceptions, and risks of crime, based on the 2006-07 and 2005-06 British Crime Surveys.
Source: Krista Jansson, Sarah Budd, Jorgen Lovbakke, Sian Moley and Katharine Thorpe, Attitudes, Perceptions and Risks of Crime: Supplementary Volume 1 to Crime in England and Wales 2006/07, Statistical Bulletin 19/07, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Bulletin | Telegraph report
Date: 2007-Nov
A new book examined the relationship between madness and crime, and the justification for compulsory detention of mentally ill people.
Source: Philip Bean, Madness and Crime, Willan Publishing (01884 840337)
Links: Summary
Date: 2007-Nov
A new book examined the role of the British Crime Survey as a source of data for research and policy development.
Source: Mike Hough and Mike Maxfield (eds.), Surveying Crime in the 21st Century, Willan Publishing (01884 840337)
Links: Summary
Date: 2007-Nov
A report by an all-party group of MPs examined the incidence of identity theft. It called for a review into the effectiveness of a single, specific offence of identity fraud.
Source: Identity Fraud, All Party Parliamentary Group on Identity Fraud (0207 395 7179)
Links: Report | Guardian report
Date: 2007-Oct
Between April 2006 and March 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service prosecuted 822 cases identified as having a homophobic element. Of these, 478 resulted in a guilty plea and a further 124 resulted in conviction after trial. This compared to 600 cases prosecuted in 2005-06. The conviction rate had risen slightly, from 71 to 73.5 per cent.
Source: Press release 11 October 2007, Crown Prosecution Service (020 7796 8000)
Links: CPS press release
Date: 2007-Oct
A survey found that 95 per cent of children aged 10-15 had been a victim of crime on at least one occasion. A majority of children had experienced bullying or assaults, with 46 per cent stating they had been called racist names, and 56 per cent threatened on at least one occasion. Nearly three-quarters of children in the survey had been assaulted. The majority of incidents occurred in schools and playgrounds.
Source: Children as Victims: Child-sized crimes in a child-sized world, Howard League for Penal Reform (020 7249 7373)
Links: HLPR press release | Community Care report | BBC report
Date: 2007-Oct
Researchers examined the predictive accuracy of established risk-assessment instruments for violent offenders; the prevalence of offenders potentially classifiable as dangerous and severely personality disordered (DSPD); their reconvictions after release; the element of risk attributable to DSPD; and the likely relationship between DSPD and indeterminate sentences.
Source: Jeremy Coid et al., Predicting and Understanding Risk of Re-offending: The Prisoner Cohort Study, Ministry of Justice (020 7210 8500)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Oct
A new book examined psychological theories relating to criminal and anti-social behaviour. It considered the role of society in producing crime, and in deciding what was a crime in the first place.
Source: Francis Pakes and Jane Winstone, Psychology and Crime: Understanding and tackling offending behaviour, Willan Publishing (01884 840337)
Links: Summary
Date: 2007-Oct
A think-tank report said that a large proportion of the population was affected by gun crime and the fear of it, contrary to government claims.
Source: Gavin Lockhart, Jonathan McClory and Matt Qvortrup, Gun and Knife Crime in Great Britain, Policy Exchange (020 7340 2650)
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release
Date: 2007-Sep
An official taskforce called on the government to take urgent action on hate crime against people with learning disabilities.
Source: Learning Disability Task Force, Could Do Better: Annual Report 2006-07, Department of Health (08701 555455)
Links: Report | LDTF press release | Community Care report
Date: 2007-Sep
A survey examined hate crime against people with learning difficulties. More than 80 per cent of advocacy groups said that hate crime was a problem: but most community safety partnerships did not.
Source: Louise Lamb and Mark Redmond, Learning Disability Hate Crime: Identifying barriers to addressing crime, Care Services Improvement Partnership/National Health Service (020 7972 1324)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Sep
The overall number of recorded detections of crime in England and Wales in 2006-07 dropped by 3 per cent compared with 2005-06, while the number of offences fell by 2 per cent.
Source: Hazel Mitchell and Penny Babb, Crimes Detected in England and Wales 2006/07, Statistical Bulletin 15/07, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Bulletin | Telegraph report
Date: 2007-Sep
Crime covered by the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (a household survey measuring personal and household crimes) increased by an estimated 13 per cent between 2003-04 and 2005-06.
Source: Matthew Brown and and Keith Bolling, 2006 Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey: Main Findings, Scottish Government, available from Blackwell's Bookshop (0131 622 8283)
Links: Report | Drugs misuse report | SG press release
Date: 2007-Sep
An article examined the key ways in which occupational injury and death remained excluded by criminological definitions of violence.
Source: Steve Tombs, ''Violence', safety crimes and criminology', British Journal of Criminology, Volume 47 Number 4
Links: Abstract
Date: 2007-Jul
A bulletin brought together statistics from the British Crime Survey and crimes recorded by the police to provide a comprehensive account of the latest patterns and trends in the main high-volume crimes committed in England and Wales. There was no significant change in crime in 2006-07 (for the second year running), and police-recorded crime showed a 2 per cent decrease.
Source: Sian Nicholas, Chris Kershaw and Alison Walker (eds.), Crime in England and Wales 2006/07, Statistical Bulletin 11/07, Home Office (020 7273 2084)
Links: Bulletin | Home Office press release | ACPO press release | Nacro press release | Conservative Party press release | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2007-Jul
The government published an action plan in response to a review (published in November 2006) which recommended changes in the production and release of crime statistics aimed at restoring public trust.
Source: Home Office Response to the Smith Review of Crime Statistics, Home Office (0870 000 1585)
Links: Action plan
Date: 2007-Jul
A report said that more than 6 out of 10 people regularly committed crimes against their employers, businesses, and the government - such as paying 'cash in hand', keeping money when given too much change, and stealing from work. Crime was rife in the middle classes, and the 'law-abiding majority' was a myth.
Source: Susanne Karstedt and Stephen Farrall, Law-abiding Majority? The everyday crimes of the middle classes, Crime and Society Foundation (020 7848 1685)
Links: Report | CSF press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2007-Jun
A report examined the scale of organized crime, the values of revenue derived from it, and the social and economic costs associated with it.
Source: Richard Dubourg and Stephen Prichard (eds.), Organised Crime: Revenues, economic and social costs, and criminal assets available for seizure, Online Report 14/07, Home Office (web publication only)
Links: Report | Telegraph report
Date: 2007-Jun
A think-tank report said that the British Crime Survey excluded 3 million offences each year, because it capped at five the number of times a victim could report that they had been the target of the same crime.
Source: Graham Farrell and Ken Pease, Crime in England and Wales: More Violence and More Chronic Victims, Civitas (020 7401 5470)
Links: Report | Civitas press release | Conservative Party press release | Guardian report (1) | Guardian report (2)
Date: 2007-Jun
A report said that fraud was costing the economy a minimum of £13.9 billion per year - even after excluding income tax and European Union-related fraud, where statistics were not available.
Source: Michael Levi, John Burrows, Matthew Fleming and Matthew Hopkins with Kent Matthews, The Nature, Extent and Economic Impact of Fraud in the UK, Association of Chief Police Officers (020 7084 8950)
Links: Report | ACPO press release | ABI press release | Guardian report
Date: 2007-Mar
A study found that 25 of the 29 crime types tested showed evidence of seasonal patterns.
Source: Celia Hird and Chandni Ruparel, Seasonality in Recorded Crime: Preliminary findings, Online Report 02/07, Home Office (web publication only)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Jan
A report presented findings from a survey of crime analysts designed to assess the extent to which geographic information systems were being used across the crime analysis community in England and Wales.
Source: Ruth Weir and Mark Bangs, The Use of Geographic Information Systems by Crime Analysts in England and Wales, Online Report 03/07, Home Office (web publication only)
Links: Report
Date: 2007-Jan
An article examined the concept of relative deprivation and restated its relevance and potential to extend the theoretical boundaries of criminology.
Source: Craig Webber, 'Revaluating relative deprivation theory', Theoretical Criminology, Volume 11 Number 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2007-Jan