Note
Companion volumes to: Home Office statistical bulletin, no. 07/03, Crime in England and Wales, 2002/2003.
Summary
The National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) was adopted by all police forces in England and Wales in April 2002 in an effort to improve the consistency of police recording and to better reflect the demands made on the police by victims of crime. In most cases, this necessitated a move to a more victim-focused approach to crime recording based on the victim’s perception of a crime taking place, rather than an evidential approach based on the police obtaining evidence of a crime occurring. In many cases, the new system of recording increased the statistics on recorded crime in 2002/03 over and above that attributable to a real increase in crime. This report describes the impact of the NCRS, and provides a better indication of the actual level of police recorded crime in 2002/03. When the effect of the NCRS is taken into account, police recorded crime decreased by three per cent overall from 2001/02 to 2002/03. Part One describes the method of estimating the impact of NCRS nationally for different offence types and for all crime. Part Two provides an analysis of the impact of the NCRS in each police force in England and Wales. The conclusions of this report are that most of the impact of the NCRS, certainly for the crimes measured in the government’s main crime targets - domestic burglary, vehicle thefts and robbery - was realised throughout 2002/03 with little evidence of any continuing impact.