RT Article
T1 Estimating the Reliability of Crime Data in Geographic Areas
JF The British journal of criminology
VO 64
IS 6
SP 1347
OP 1361
A1 Brunton-Smith, Ian
A2 Cernat, Alexandru
A2 Pina-Sánchez, Jose
A2 Buil-Gil, David
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1914459202
AB Crime data are problematic: Crimes that are never reported undermine its validity and differences in police recording practices affect its reliability. However, the true extent of these problems is not well known, with existing studies suffering from a number of methodological limitations. We examine the quality of police recorded crime data and survey-based crime estimates recorded in England and Wales using a robust latent trait model that effectively represents the competing sources of error. We find that whilst crime rates derived from police data systematically underestimate the true extent of crime, they are substantially more reliable than estimates from survey data. Reliability is lower for violence and criminal damage and is getting worse over time.
K1 Criminal
K1 Statistics
K1 Reliability
K1 Validity
K1 regions
K1 UK
DO 10.1093/bjc/azae018