Crime Counts: A Review of Data Quality for Offences of the Most Serious Violence
HMIC was commissioned by the Home Secretary in January 2009 to carry out a review across all 43 police forces of the way they recorded most serious violence.
The Review found:
- Most forces correctly decided which calls from the public should not be treated as violent crime – overall more than 9 out of 10 of these decisions were correct. The error rates varied between forces - in some fewer than 9 out of 10 were correct.
- For the calls that were treated as a violent crime, most forces classified and recorded the crime correctly – overall more than 9 out of 10 were correct. The error rates varied between forces - in some fewer than 9 out of 10 were correct.
- However, of the 5% of violent crimes that are removed from the record after police decided that there had been no crime, fewer than 7 in 10 of these decisions were correct. Due to the low volume of these cases it is not possible to comment reliably on the differences between error rates in particular forces.
Date: Wed Oct 21 13:21:54 BST 2009
- A Review of Data Quality for Offences of the Most Serious Violence – Technical Report (PDF file - 539kb)
- A Review of Data Quality For Offences of the Most Serious Violence (PDF file - 324kb)
- Crime count press release (PDF file - 43kb)
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