The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on police recorded crime statistics.
Source: Caught Red-Handed: Why we can't count on Police Recorded Crime statistics, Cm 8910, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO
Links: Response | MPs report
Date: 2014-Jul
The police service inspectorate said that its work to date on inspecting the integrity of crime data had raised serious concerns about the crime-recording process in England and Wales. The interim report covered the inspection of 13 forces and was said to report 'emerging themes'. It said that if the findings to date were representative across all forces and all crime types it would imply that 20 percent of crimes might have been unrecorded, although some forces had performed better than others and areas of good practice were found. The final report from the continuing work would be due in October 2014.
Source: Crime Recording: A matter of fact – an interim report of the inspection of crime data integrity in police forces in England and Wales, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary
Links: Report | HMIC press release | BBC report
Date: 2014-May
A report by a committee of MPs said that the Home Office, Office for National Statistics, and United Kingdom Statistics Authority had been 'too passive' about concerns raised regarding the police recorded crime figures (PRC), and had repeatedly missed opportunities to ensure the integrity and quality of PRC data. The report said that numerical targets, based on PRC data and set internally, created perverse incentives to misrecord crime, tended to affect attitudes, eroded data quality, and presented officers with potential conflict between achievement of targets and core policing values. It recommended: the re-instatement of the regular external audit of police force crime recording; the discouragement of target setting; and for the Committee on Standards in Public Life to conduct an inquiry into the police's compliance with the new Code of Ethics.
Source: Caught Red-Handed: Why we can't count on Police Recorded Crime statistics, Thirteenth Report (Session 2013–14), HC 760, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Committee press release | ACPO press release | Police Federation press release
Date: 2014-Apr
An article presented an overview of male family 'annihilators' – men who committed multiple simultaneous murders against their own family members. Out of 71 family annihilators identified in the period 1980-2012, 59 had been male. The incidence rate had been increasing, with the first decade of the 21st century claiming over half of all cases. Over half of the men were in their thirties, and August was the most common month for the killing to take place, accounting for 20 per cent of cases. Just under half of all murders were committed over weekends, especially on a Sunday.
Source: Elizabeth Yardley, David Wilson, and Adam Lynes, 'A taxonomy of male British family annihilators, 1980-2012', Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 53 Issue 2
Links: Abstract | BCU press release
Date: 2014-Apr