Measuring crime in times of change: survey developments and challenges 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Billy Gazard (Office for National Statistics) |
| Coordinator 2 | Ms Catherine Grant (Office for National Statistics) |
Measuring crime in times of change: survey developments and challenges
Decision makers in politics and policing rely on survey studies for reliable trend data on crimes against populations at a national and local level as not all crimes are reported to the authorities. While the complex nature of classifying crimes has meant many crime surveys have relied on face-to-face surveying, disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a number of challenges to long standing survey designs and data collection methods. This has resulted in a number of developments in crime survey measurement, such as transformation of sample designs and exploration of alternative data collection modes, including online methods. However, crime surveys face a number of unique challenges in transformation, such as how to respond to the evolving nature of crime and respondent safety and well-being in answering questions on sensitive crimes.
This session will explore innovative approaches to crime survey measurement, including how survey methods and key measures of crime have been adjusted or developed following changes in society and in individuals’ experience of crime, as well as papers discussing experiments or pilot studies on any of the following topics:
• Changes to crime survey design, including multi-mode and online survey design experiments,
• Changes to sample design, including “push to web” experiments
• Discussion of differences in mode impact at different points in data collection, including sample bias, respondent safety and barriers to inclusion
• Measurement of new and emerging crime types and violence against women and girls