Is Violent Crime Increasing or Decreasing?

Dr Jude Towers, GradStatDepartment of Sociology, Lancaster University

Violence & Society UNESCO CentreCore research agenda: understanding violence to be central to the analysis of social relations and not reducible to other social processes, the primary work of the Centre is to identify variations in different forms of violence and to develop theories of their causal pathways: to what extent these are shared or differentiated and specific. Integral to this is the second core component of the Centre’s work – measuring violence

Core research team:• Professor Sylvia Walby• Professor Brian Francis• Dr Jude TowersPlus academic experts, policy and practice networks in violence from across Europe

Research projects:• Is Domestic Violence Decreasing or Increasing?• Costing Gender-based Violence• Measuring Violence to Stop Violence• Gendered Dimensions of Trafficking in Human Beings• Review of EU Anti-trafficking Projects to inform strategic and legal development• Worldwide Best Practices in Rape Prevention and Supporting Victims of Rape

Focus Today: Is Violent Crime Increasing or Decreasing?

• Conceived of as a relatively straight-forward analysis of data on domestic violence from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)

Development of a new methodology for measuring violent crime using CSEW data and a new measurement framework for violence against women and men (Walby and Towers et al (2017) The Concept and Measurement of Violence against Women and Men. Policy Press). • Proposals for changes to the collection of data using surveys • Proposals for changes to the official estimation methodology for

violent crime• Substantive findings which challenge the official picture of

violent crime in England and Wales

Is the rate of domestic violence decreasing or increasing?

ESRC-funded Secondary Data Analysis Project phase IProf Sylvia Walby (PI); Prof Brian Francis (CI); Dr Jude Towers (SRA)

Overall, published rate of violent crime is falling; but fall in rate of domestic violence (DV) appears to have stopped

Walby, S., J. Towers and B. Francis (2014) ‘Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence’, Sociological Review, 62(S2);

Walby, S., J. Towers and B. Francis (2015) ‘Is violent crime increasing or decreasing? A new methodology to measure repeat attacks making visible the significance of gender and domestic relations’ BJC http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/01/31/bjc.azv131.full.pdf+html

Issues• Consistent definitions and measurements are necessary to

identify and follow the effect of actions• Absence of specific domestic violence ‘crime code’• Definition of domestic violence requires information on

‘relationship between perpetrator and victim’ - not usually part of crime code definitions

• More than one definition in use in policy and measurement• Crime codes (several) plus relationship?• Variations in ‘flagging’ between police force areas• Surveys often use ‘conflict tactics scale’ not crime codes• Lack of stability in ‘official’ definition • Varied measurement unit: event/crime or victim or perpetrator

• Tension between ‘specialised’ and ‘mainstream’ definitions

What statistics?• Police recorded crime• ‘Flagged’ domestic violence in the criminal justice system (CJS)• Police; Crown Prosecution Service

• Crime Survey for England and Wales• Special module ‘intimate violence, self-completed (SC)• Main questionnaire, answered face to face (F2F)

Police Recorded Crime

Issues in measuring domestic violence using police recorded crime data:• Violence disaggregated by sex of victim is visible in homicide,

rape and a subset of sexual offences: but the relationship between victim and perpetrator is not visible

• Domestic violence is not a specific category in police recorded crime data. Neither the sex of the victim nor the relationship between victim and offender are embedded in VAP offences (except homicide) – but it is not an insignificant crime: ‘In the 12 months to March 2015, the police in England and Wales… …one in three of all recorded assaults with injury crimes.’ HMIC, 2015 p.5

‘Flagged’ Domestic Abuse

• Police and CPS ‘flag’ domestic abuse• Essential data for police assessment of ‘what works’• Evaluating best practice to reduce ‘attrition’

• Statistics on police force flagged domestic abuse• Not on a statutory footing• Not routinely released to the public at a national level • Significant variation

“In view of the extreme variation in the information provided it is unlikely that some forces’ data accurately reflects the number of repeat victims” HMIC (2014: 42)

HMIC 2015 Report

In December 2015 the HMIC published its follow up report: Increasingly Everyone's Business: A Progress Report on the Police Response to Domestic Abuse ‘Overall, HMIC is encouraged… that police leaders, officers, PCSOs… now see tackling domestic abuse as an important priority for them – domestic abuse is increasingly becoming ‘everyone’s business’. …However, there is still much more to be done… Every force… needs to do more work to understand the nature and scale of domestic abuse in their area, through comprehensive analysis of their own and partner organisations data...’ (HMIC, 2015 p.7)

Crime Survey for England and WalesRecords data about domestic violence in two ways:• Intimate Violence module• Self-complete methodology (CASI) -> 4 times higher disclosure rate than

face-to-face module• Conflict Tactic Scale -> does not coordinate act, injury and motivation thus

criminal and non-criminal events cannot be distinguished• Only records prevalence (number of victims)• Restricted to respondents aged 16-59 years and those able to use CASI

• Victim Form module• Face-to-face methodology -> impacts on disclosure rate• Series of open and closed questions -> expert coder determines if event

crosses the criminal threshold and what type of crime• Records prevalence (number of victims) and frequency (number of

incidents)• Screener questions direct respondents, but no age or sex restrictions

Domestic abuse and violent crimeMost, but not all, ‘domestic abuse’ has a ‘violent crime’ component (physical or sexual violence or threats of violence): • ‘Violence against the person’ (VAP)• Homicide• Wounding

• Serious wounding • Other wounding

• Common assault and attempted assault (no injury) • Threats to kill

• Sexual offences• Rape (including attempted rape)• Sexual assault

• Non-crime domestic incidents/domestic abuse• Includes emotional and financial abuse

CSEW is a victimisation survey and therefore does not include homicide. Snatch theft and robbery are not included in the published VAP figures from the CSEW.

Digging into the dataA close comparison of raw data with published findings found a difference in the number of incidents (crimes): not all incidents reported to the survey are included in published statistics• This is due to the treatment of respondents who report a high

number of incidents (greater than five) in a ‘series’ offence• Respondents can report between 2 and 96 incidents in a series;

official estimates only count the first five (known as capping): why?

‘The restriction to the first five incidents in a series has been applied since the CSEW began in order to ensure that the estimates are not affected by a very small number of respondents who report an extremely high number of incidents and which are highly variable between survey years’ ONS (2013)

The effect of cappingWe agree that volatility between years which risks introducing ‘noise’ instead of identifying ‘signal’ change should be avoided – especially in trend analysis

However, is the appropriate solution to cap at 5 incidents?

Effect of capping:• Under estimation of violent crime• Skew the patterning of violent crime by rendering invisible high

frequency victims• Hypothesis: capping will especially impact on victims of domestic

violence. The majority of victims of domestic violence are female thus capping could also especially impact on violence against women

Counting all reported incidents versus cappingRemoving the cap to count all incidents reported:• Increases the estimated number of violent crimes by 60%This increase is not evenly distributed: it is lowest among violent crime committed by strangers and higher among violent crimes committed by someone known to the victim:• Stranger violence increases by 20%• Domestic violence increases by 70%• Acquaintance violence doubles (increases by 100%)The increase is not evenly distributed by sex of victim:• Violence against women increases by 70%• Violence against men increases by 50%

CSEW 2011/12

Cap or count all reported?Counting all reported incidents:• reveals alternative patterns in violent crime• demonstrates that high frequency violence is unevenly distributed towards

women• demonstrates that high frequency violence is unevenly distributed to those

victimised by domestic relations and acquaintances rather than by strangers

Year-to-year volatility is not problematic in cross-sectional analysis; all reported crimes can be analysed

Counting all reported incidents increases volatility to an unacceptable level in trend analysis: does this justify excluding high frequency victims? • If number of incidents falling / rising is evenly distributed across the population

may not be problematic• If changes in trends of violence are driven by changes in specific groups of

victims e.g. high frequency victims, then it is problematic

Trends in violent crime

New methodology for assessing trends in violent crime in England and Wales using CSEW data:• Counting all incidents reported to the CSEW victim form

module• Using three year rolling averages to bring volatility into line

with the official method• Using the Davies test and segmented regression modelling

for trends rather than comparing two (random) points in time

Hypothesis: capping will especially impact on victims of domestic violence. The majority of victims of domestic violence are female thus capping could also especially impact on violence against women

Findings in violent crime trends

• The rate of domestic violent crime has been increasing since 2009• Domestic violent crime against women increasing• Domestic violent crime against men has stopped falling

• The rate of violent crime against women has been increasing since 2009• Rate of domestic violent crime against women increasing• Rate of violent crime against women by acquaintances increasing• Rate of violent crime against women by strangers unchanged since 1994

• The rate of violent crime against men continues to fall• Rate of violent crime against men by acquaintances falling• Rate of violent crime against men by strangers falling• Rate of domestic violent crime against men has stopped falling

The overall rate of violent crime has been increasing since 2009

Trends in violent crime

All reported violent crime

per 1000 adults

All reported violent crime

against women per 1000 adult

females

All reported domestic

violence per 1000 adults

High-frequency victims

The trends in different forms of violent crime consistently differ when the unit of measurement is all reported crime, capped crimes or victims in ways which suggest that the increases in domestic violent crime and violent crime against women are driven by changes in the experiences of high frequency victims…

Contact detailsDr Jude Towers, GradStatDepartment of Sociology, Lancaster UniversityLancasterLA1 4YT

Email: j.towers1@lancaster.ac.ukWeb: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sociology/about-us/people/jude-towers

Walby, S., J. Towers and B. Francis (2014) ‘Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence’, Sociological Review, 62(S2) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12198/pdf

Walby, S., J. Towers and B. Francis (2015) ‘Is violent crime increasing or decreasing? A new methodology to measure repeat attacks making visible the significance of gender and domestic relations’ BJC http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/01/31/bjc.azv131.full.pdf+html

Estimated number of Violent Crimes (in thousands) from Crime Survey for England and Wales

YEAR END

93 95 97 99 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13

Domestic Violence 1,166 989 814 775 626 506 447 402 358 407 343 293 289 391 308 398Stranger & acquaintance violence 2,111 2,820 2,426 2,181 1,745 1,905 1,866 1,666 1,682 1,739 1,542 1,543 1,460 1,567 1,477 1,301All violent crime

3,515 4,176 3,593 3,382 2,728 2,714 2,596 2,322 2,350 2,473 2,201 2,113 2,082 2,206 2,041 1,915CSEW Trend Data to 2012/13: Table A1.

Estimated number of offences peaks. Lowest recorded estimate of offences.

Table reproduces ONS published data for the estimated number of offences per year at the level of the adult population of England and Wales (‘000). Data taken from the face-to-face Victim Form module• Domestic Violence: violence against the person by a partner/ex-partner/other family or household member• Stranger & Acquaintance Violence: violence against the person by an unknown perpetrator or a perpetrator known

by sight but not a partner/ex-partner/other family or household member (ONS (2013: 34) User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales)

Crime Survey for England and Wales

CSEW 2011/12 FEMALES MALES ALL

VICTIMS: DVViolence against

the person

Face-to-Face Module

133,000 52,000 185,000

Self-complete Module

458,000 244,000 702,000

Ratio: F2F to SC 3.4 4.7 3.8

Currently best data on domestic violence comes from CSEWCSEW asks questions about domestic violence in two ways:

• victim form module where questions asked face-to-face• Intimate Violence self-completion module

We use F2F data since it provides greater detail about incidents and repeat victimisation. Only incidents crossing the criminal threshold are included

Source: Published Data from Office for National Statistics (ONS 2013) Appendix tables : Crime Survey for England and Wales Year ending September 2013.1 CSEW is a victimisation survey and therefore does not include homicide 2 Snatch theft and robbery are not included in the VAP figures

Perpetrator Number of offences

% of violent crime

% of all crime

Domestic 308,000 17.0 3.0Acquaintance 731,000 41.0 8.0Stranger 753,000 42.0 8.0All VAP 1,792,000 100.0 19.0All offences 9,500,000 - 100.0

Violence against the Person (men and women)by domestic relations, acquaintances or strangers Crime Survey for England and Wales, 2011/12

The effect of capping: DataEstimated No.

offences – CAPEstimated No. offences – ALL

REPORTED

Ratio

Domestic violence 315,000 526,000 1.7

Acquaintance Violence

777,000 1,529,000 2.0

Stranger violence 797,000 996,000 1.2

All VAP offences 1,966,000 3,051,000 1.6

All sexual offences 77,000 120,000 1.6

All VAP & sexual offences

1,966,000 3,171,000 1.6

Violence against women

839,000 1,417,000 1.7

Violence against men

1,144,000 1,753,000 1.5