This lecture presents students, and professionals who are training in crime statistics reporting, with a concrete tutorial in how to critically evaluate government crime statistics with reference to public data collected from public surveys on their recounted experiences of crime.

Particularly of benefit to students and lecturers of criminology, psychology of law, and law, this tutorial uses historical crime statistics from Home Office UK reports from what was previously known as the British Crime Survey. The tutorial demonstrates the inconsistencies in police reported crime and crime reported in the same time period by a representative sample of people from public households in England & Wales. What’s more, the tutorial explores whether public fear of crime can be justified by crime’s extent. The tutorial presents a worked clear example of the ‘Dark Figure of Crime’ phenomenon, and provides detailed coverage of the following:

1. Advantages and disadvantages of police reporting v public reporting of crime,

2. Understanding the explanatory steps to attend to when discrepancies in official policing crime statistics, and official public crime reporting statistics arise,

3. The circumstances that brought about the ‘Simmons Report (2000)’,

4. Explanations for the rise in crime according to societal and psychological factors,

5. The ‘Social Psychological Fear of Crime Model’ of explanation regarding public perception of their likelihood to be victims of crime, regardless of crime statistics reporting,

6. The psychological consequences of victimization and how it relates to lack of crime reporting to the police in the first instance, and finally the presentation closes with an evaluation.

The lecture will be suitable to those working in social research and studying criminology, law, socio-legal studies, forensic psychology, critical psychology, or social statistics.