Extending the crime survey to include fraud and cyber Joseph Traynor.

Extending the crime survey to include fraud and cyber

Joseph Traynor

Introduction

• Why fraud and cyber • The Crime survey• The development phases• Problems encountered• Problems resolved• Planned outputs

Why fraud and cyber

• Main CSEW crime estimate doesn’t capture fraud or new types of crime such as those committed via the internet.

• The National Statistician's Review of Crime Statistics noted that "Public trust has also been affected by the fact that some crime is missed" and that "known significant gaps include e-crime (or cyber crime) enabled by the internet or new technology."

Why fraud and cyber

• Fraud – long established crime, internet provides a new vehicle

• Internet also provides opportunities for new crime

• Quickly changing crime types

Why fraud and cyber

Time series

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

18,000

20,000

1981

1982

1983

1984

1985

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998/9

9

1999/0

0

2000/0

1

2001/0

2

2002/0

3

2003/0

4

2004/0

5

2005/0

6

2006/0

7

2007/0

8

2008/0

9

2009/1

0

2010/1

1

2011/1

2

2012/1

3

2013/1

4

Police recorded crime - old counting rules

Police recorded crime - new counting rules

Police recorded crime - post NCRS

CSEW estimate

Number of offences (000s)

The Crime Survey for England and Wales

• The CSEW is a large nationally representative

sample survey

• Conducted by face-to-face interviews in people’s

own homes

• Using trained interviewers and a structured

questionnaire

• Fieldwork undertaken by external research agency

(TNS-BMRB)

• Contract re-tender every 3 or 4 years


• Adult survey is an average of 49 minutes and includes:

• Questions on experiences of crime

• Questions on perceptions of crime/ASB/police/CJS

• CASI questions on experience of sexual & domestic

violence and use of illicit drugs

• Data collected using specialist survey software and includes

automated routing & error checks

• Children’s survey is an average 20 minutes and includes:

• Experiences of crime, attitudes to police/ASB

The Crime Survey for England and Wales – recording a crime

• Screener questions – determine whether a crime has occurred

• Victimisation module – records details of each incident using both open ended and closed questions to describe the incident and to collect specific details

• Additional modules


• Once the information is transmitted back to the office, a trained team of coders look at the information gathered in the screener and victimisation modules and code these to a particular crime type. The coding mimics the Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) which the police use to record crime.


• Each crime currently ends up with just one offence code; if one

incident consists of a number of offences the coding needs to

sort out which of these offences takes priority:

Arson

Rape or serious wounding

Robbery

Burglary

Theft

Criminal damage

Assault

Threats

Phase 1

• Successfully bid for funding from the Quality Improvement Fund January 2014

• Work included:• review of what others had done• development and testing of new

screener questions - cognitive question testing• recommendations for implementation/

further testing

Phase1- consultation

Experts to provide advice and feedback on work. Representatives from:• Home Office• National Fraud Intelligence Bureau• ACPO lead for cyber crime• National Crime Agency• Criminologists

Phase 2

• Work required to take the project from initial phase of development to integration onto the survey• Further cognitive testing of screener questions

from phase one followed by integration of screener questions onto the survey (April 2015)

• Development and cognitive testing of victim form questions followed by integration onto the survey in October 2015

• Full pilot of questionnaire initiated May 2015 test

Findings

Issue – Where a traditional crime takes place such as a burglary where someone's bank details are stolen and then a fraud is committed, according to existing priority rule only one offence should be recorded.

Response – Having two phases to the development allowed us to create a screener question in the second phase which captures fraud following another (traditional)offences and amend the priority ordering rule to allow two offences to be recorded.

Findings

Sometimes following a crime, stolen items such as bank cards or computers or internet enabled devices may be used to gain access to a person’s accounts or personal information. In the time [since XXXXXX] did any of these things happen as A DIRECT RESULT of [the incident/any of the incidents] you have just told me about?

• Your personal information or account details were used or tried to be used to obtain money, or buy goods or services

• You were tricked or deceived out of money or goods (in person, by telephone or online)

• Someone TRIED to trick or deceive you out of money or goods (in person by telephone or online)

• Your personal information or details were accessed or used without your permission

• An internet-enabled device of yours was infected or interfered with, for example, by a virus

Findings

• Issue – Phase 1 cognitive testing identified that crimes victims of fraud did not generally know when the crime occurred and only knew when they had identified the incident.

Response – The extended development time allowed ONS to test moving to recording against when the victim came to know of the fraud unlike other offences

Findings

• Issue – Phase 1 identified respondents were confused and could not distinguish between consumer detriment (sharp practice/ inferior goods) and confidence fraud

Response – Having expert users from police led us to distinguish between sharp practices by asking the respondent if the perpetrator was still contactable.

Findings

• As far as you were aware were the people who did it acting on behalf of a company or organisation that is still contactable now?

Yes

No

Findings

• Issue – For on-line fraud one scam can be responsible for issuing many emails.

Response – Having expert users from police led us to use the same distinction as the police used to record an incident.

Findings

Did you actually reply or respond to any of the communication you received in any way

Yes

No

Findings

• Issue – Existing victim form asks whether the incident took place in England and Wales

• Response – Phase two piloting identified this question was irrelevant to fraud victims. Decision not to distinguish where incident took place for incidents of fraud

Outputs

• Following the 2nd development phase both Screener and victim form questions will go live on the survey in October 2015.

• Consultation will take place on the design of the outputs to follow as time series will be affected. Issues relating to a parallel set of outputs will need to be discussed on both old and new crime series.

Outputs

• First results from the screener questions introduced onto the survey in April 2015 will begin to emerge around October 2015 as experimental statistics

• Estimates based on both screeners and victim form will begin to emerge in early 2016 although outputs based on a full years worth of data will not emerge until early 2017.

Questions

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Extending the crime survey to include fraud and cyber Joseph Traynor.

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