Police Recorded Crime Statistics

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Jack Dromey

Thursday 16th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I welcome the decision to make time available for this debate, and I congratulate the Public Administration Committee and its Chair on doing a service to our country by tackling a series of problems—I shall refer to them in detail—in a thorough, impartial and forensic way, rightly challenging all those with power to act, be that the police service or those responsible at area level, including police and crime commissioners and the Government. This debate is well timed, because it comes against a background of a year during which there has been, to say the least, lively debate about police statistics. There is the work of not just the Public Administration Committee, but the UK Statistics Authority, the Office for National Statistics and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary.

Why does accurate crime reporting matter? First, it is crucial that criminal activities in local force areas are identified properly if the police are to deploy their resources efficiently and effectively, according to real need. In the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), it is about an evidence-based approach to how we commit local police resource. Secondly, accurate crime reporting is vital with regard to the victims of crime. Proper recording has an effect on getting victims to come forward and, crucially, informs the decisions that have to be taken to support the victims of crime, particularly sexual crime. Thirdly, accurate recording of crime helps politicians—at area and local level, in Parliament and at Government level—properly to hold the police to account.

Fourthly, proper recording of crime also informs other interventions. The Chair of the Select Committee referred to the excellent chief constable of Essex. I had the pleasure of meeting him recently, and I can give a rather interesting example from that. As in Northumbria, there was a welcome focus on the rising problem of domestic violence. The assessment made was that it was a very significant and growing problem in the county, so Northumbria police introduced a world-class system. They brought in a systems engineer with a background at Ford to construct the ability to track perpetrators and victims, and potential perpetrators and victims, of domestic violence, and also to identify domestic violence hot spots, so that other interventions could take place. For example, if there was a particular problem on some estates, that might require interventions in the schools on those estates. Having an accurate picture of crime is absolutely key on all those fronts.

[Mr Jenkin]

We were briefed yesterday by the chief constable of Essex, and many of my colleagues were astonished to learn that whereas most people think of crime as burglary, auto theft or violence against the person, there are four times as many incidents of domestic violence as burglaries every day in the county of Essex. The scale of the domestic violence problem is something that all constabularies will have to spend much more time on in order to protect the public, who are becoming victims of these crimes.

[Jack Dromey]

I totally agree with the Chair of the Select Committee. Historically, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, this crime was simply not taken seriously enough; it used to be described as “a domestic”. There has been welcome progress in the past 10 years and more—of that there is no doubt—but it remains a crime substantially hidden from history. Ensuring that we have an accurate picture, that we encourage victims to come forward, and that they are properly supported when they do is therefore of the highest importance.

Let me turn to the police recorded crime statistics. It was absolutely right to strip those statistics of their national statistics status—the gold standard—on the back of evidence heard by the Select Committee. Considering the substantial weight of evidence that has come forward of significant under-recording of crime, it would have been dangerous to let ourselves be drawn into the false sense of security that those statistics were providing. I therefore commend the considerable courage of PC James Patrick, who alerted the Chair of the Select Committee to his concerns and then appeared before the Committee so that its members could hear at first hand, from the sharp end, just what was happening. It heard very powerful evidence of—the Chair used these words earlier—cuffing, nodding and skewing. As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) rightly acknowledged, PC Patrick was a brave man who exposed what was clearly wrong.

The ONS has raised a number of hypotheses, including some very similar to what PC Patrick said, as to why the police were recording crime incorrectly, including the idea that there were performance pressures associated with targets. The time has clearly come to move on from that old-style performance target regime.

In addition to what PC Patrick, the ONS and others have said, there was compelling evidence to the Select Committee from Dr Rodger Patrick, a former chief inspector of the West Midlands police service. He set out his research, which suggested that

“the perverse incentives embedded in quantitative performance management…encourage a range of ‘gaming’ behaviours that result in under-recording of crime.”

As the Chair of the Committee said, there have been other “incentives”, including the desire for promotion.

Let me turn to the crime survey for England and Wales. That was historically relied on as more accurate. However, we must recognise that the situation is far from ideal. It is true that the CSEW stats are based on interviews with adults about their experience of crime, regardless of whether or not it was reported to the police, but the CSEW stats cannot give us a detailed indication of crime trends at local level. We are missing that vital piece of the puzzle.

Additionally and very importantly, several crimes are not included in the statistics, and that ultimately skews our understanding of crime and where it is headed. For example, according to an ONS study released in July 2013, the number of fraud offences could total between 3.6 million and 3.8 million incidents of crime a year. However, most fraud offences in England and Wales are now referred to a central organisation, Action Fraud, rather than being logged by local forces. It is therefore believed that if bank and credit card fraud were included in the CSEW stats, the estimated number of annual offences would jump by almost 50%. When we listen to Government rhetoric on crime being at an all-time low, we must remember that the Government tend to pick and choose which crimes to pray in aid and which statistics to refer to, ignoring these very significant and growing areas of crime, which are not properly reflected in the statistics. That is both wrong and dangerous.

Professor Marian FitzGerald, a criminologist at the university of Kent, was absolutely right when she said to The Times in August 2014:

“Ministers were readily persuaded that the Crime Survey represented a gold standard for measuring crime when it started to show a continuous fall from the time Labour took office in 1997. Yet here we have an admission from its own results that crime is 50 per cent higher than the figure it claims.”

In addition, the CSEW does not cover a range of other things. It does not cover those living in group residences such as care homes, student halls of residence and prisons, or crimes against commercial or public sector bodies. The CSEW figures exclude murder and manslaughter because the victim is dead; figures on rape and other sex offences, which are calculated separately and differently because of their sensitive nature; and crimes, such as drug possession, that are considered victimless.

Both the Chair of the Select Committee and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East referred to no-criming. Another important issue identified by the Select Committee in its report was the prevalence of no-criming. In response to the

“damning indictment of police complacency, inertia and lack of leadership”,

the Select Committee recommended that the Home Office undertake a comprehensive analysis to explain the extraordinary disparities in no-crime rates for sexual offences across all police forces.

The gravity of the impact of no-criming should not be underestimated. Let us consider this example given by HMIC of a case that was no-crimed. A woman alleged rape by a man in a car after she changed her mind about having sex following a discussion about use of a condom. The rape was recorded as a crime. She reports that she did not run away because she was scared of being beaten up. There had been no violence or pinning down, although the woman said that her chest was sore and she had felt intimidated. The incident was no-crimed because the man said that he did not know that she did not consent to having sex, but there is no additional verifiable information to show that the victim had in fact given consent. That was “no crime”.

Let us imagine, first, the difficulty of coming forward to report a rape during which the woman was so afraid for her well-being that she felt powerless to do anything. Let us imagine then what happens if the authorities doubt her, in effect favouring the perpetrator, despite no evidence being given to disprove her allegations.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East rightly praised the excellent work of Vera Baird in Northumbria. When the issue that he referred to was looked into as a consequence of her action, more than one in three rape allegation cases initially deemed to be no crime were reopened, following a review of 153 separate cases. An audit by HMIC identified that the force may have incorrectly no-crimed many of those cases. As a result of the action taken by Vera Baird, the chief constable ordered a review of all such reports going back three years, and a team of experienced officers have now checked 153 cases. In addition, 48 officers involved in the incorrect no-criming and failure to act have been warned that they may face disciplinary action as a result of the inquiry by the force.

Concern about this issue is all the greater today; statistics show a 29% increase in rape, and a worrying justice gap: in the last year on record, there was a fall of 28% in referrals for prosecution, and a fall of 14% in prosecutions.

On unreported crime, in its interim report released earlier this year, HMIC noted a “significant under-recording of crime”. Basing its comments on the assessment of 13 police forces, HMIC stated that up to 20% of crimes may be unrecorded. Only yesterday, I had the privilege of attending an event organised by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, at which I heard some heartbreaking cases of violence against shop workers, including the case of a man whose whole life was ruined as a consequence of being seriously assaulted at work. A survey by USDAW of its members revealed that one in five of those who had been assaulted did not report the incident, not least because they often lacked confidence that any action would be taken if they did.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

Again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to make a general comment about the under-reporting of crime. The Conservative police and crime commissioner for Suffolk, Tim Passmore, has said that he would not be complacent about a drop in crime in Suffolk because in his assessment, half of all offences go unreported.

As we know from tragic experience over the past two to three years, the scale and obscenity of some crimes—including domestic violence, sexual offences and child abuse—have been hidden from history. I welcome the growing focus on those obscene crimes that are the legacy of history and that sadly persist to this day. When it comes to tackling child sexual exploitation—I say this with all respect to the Minister—I have no doubt whatever that the Government are taking the matter seriously, but it is the worst possible time to cut 16,000 police officers; demand is rapidly growing. In the West Midlands police, 10% of officers are working on nothing but historical and current CSE cases. In the words of the chief constable, that is the tip of the iceberg. The debate today reinforces the need to take action on sexual crime and crime against children. To do that, the police need determination and focus, but they also need the resources that will enable them to do their job.

[Mr Jenkin]

We all share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the pressure on resources. However, the chief of the Metropolitan police has reported that he has been able to take all the savings out of the back room, and there are just as many officers on the front line as there were before the spending reductions. In Essex, we are finding that technology can enable police officers to do much more. Technology can release resources for the extra tasks that we are demanding of the police, despite the overall reduction in resources. Furthermore, there are still huge savings to be made in the way in which police forces buy technology and communications equipment. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I do not think that we need to despair about it.

[Jack Dromey]

The Chair of the Select Committee makes an interesting point. It is true that the police have coped remarkably so far, in the circumstances. There has been some interesting innovation in the use of technology; I mentioned a classic example in the Essex police service. In addition, there remains significant scope to develop the use of technology. For example, the 19 basic technological requirements provide remote access and allow police officers to operate in the field with all necessary support, intelligence and access to intelligence, so that they do not have to go back to police stations. The electronic submission of witness statements is speeding up the criminal justice process, as the Camberwell project has shown. Video-link evidence can allow cases to be brought quickly and effectively to court, particularly domestic violence cases; some interesting experiences have arisen out of the Camberwell project in that regard.

Having said all that, I want to provide one example from the West Midlands police service to illustrate why resources matter. In the west midlands, 40 people have been brought before the courts for serious terrorist crime in the past five years, and there have been 31 convictions. That conviction rate was the result of highly effective and patient building of relationships with communities—all bar one of the defendants were of a Muslim background—and good neighbourhood policing. Year in, year out, the police have patiently built trust and confidence with the community, to the point where the community now comes forward and identifies wrongdoing in its ranks.

With all respect to the Chair of the Select Committee, all over the country neighbourhood policing is being hollowed out; that is eroding the ability of the police to form relationships that are crucial not only to the detection of wrongdoing—in the cases that I have just mentioned, serious wrongdoing—but the prevention of crimes and the diversion of people from crime. I have been conducting a tour of police services all over the country, including Essex. Everywhere I go, I hear that we are getting close to what the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers has called the “tipping point”. The Government must reflect long and hard on the continuing trajectory of significant cuts to our police service.

Public Administration Select Committee

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Jack Dromey

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for this opportunity to launch the Public Administration Select Committee’s report entitled “Caught red-handed: Why we can’t count on Police Recorded Crime statistics”. The Daily Telegraph has already described our report as “devastating”. That is because this is not just about inaccurate numbers; it is about the long crisis of values and ethics at the heart of our police force.

Crime statistics are central to our understanding of the nature and prevalence of crime in England and Wales. They provide crucial information for the police, without which they would have no way of knowing how to deploy their manpower and resources. We found strong evidence that the police under-record crime, particularly sexual crimes such as rape, in many police areas. Lax supervision of recorded crime data means that the police are failing in their core role of protecting the public and preventing crime. The main reason for this mis-recording is the continued prevalence of numerical targets. They create perverse incentives to mis-record crime, so a police officer is presented with a conflict: does he or she record “attempted burglary”, as was originally reported, or subsequently downgrade it to “criminal damage” in order to achieve the burglary target? That creates conflict between the achievement of targets and core policing values. We deprecate the use of targets in the strongest possible terms. But most police forces are still in denial about the damage that targets cause both to data integrity and to standards of behaviour.

The Home Office must accept responsibility for the quality of police recorded crime statistics and do more to discourage the use of targets. As a result of PASC’s inquiry, the UK Statistics Authority has already stripped police recorded crime data of the quality kitemark, “National Statistics”. The Home Office, the Office for National Statistics and the UK Statistics Authority have all been far too passive in addressing this problem, even though they have all known about it for years. Leadership by targets is a flawed leadership model, and that is what really must be addressed, because poor data integrity reflects the poor quality of leadership within the police. What does the institutional dishonesty about police recorded crime say about their compliance with the core values of policing, which are meant to include accountability, honesty and integrity?

That comes on top of all the other controversies that have raised questions about the values and ethics of the police and their leadership: Hillsborough; Stephen Lawrence; the attempt to hide the cause of Ian Tomlinson’s death in the G20 protests; Plebgate; Operation Elveden, about the police accepting payments from journalists to leak unauthorised information; just last month, four police officers under investigation for allegedly getting a burglar to confess to 500 crimes he apparently did not commit; and many other instances.

I yield to no one in my admiration and respect for so many police officers. They put their lives at risk in the line of duty while they serve our communities. We see them around this Palace, ready to throw themselves between us and the terrorists if the need arises. Yet these same officers are deeply cynical about the quality of their leadership and its honesty and integrity.

That is why we recommend that the Committee on Standards in Public Life conduct a wide-ranging inquiry into the police’s compliance with the new code of ethics and, in particular, into the role of leadership in promoting and sustaining those values.

The most depressing part of our inquiry is the way in which the Metropolitan police have treated my constituent, PC James Patrick, who was our key witness. He says he has been forced to resign from the Metropolitan police. Acting as a whistleblower, he tried to highlight serious concerns about police recorded crime and the target culture. We record the fact that we are indebted to PC Patrick for his courage in speaking out, in fulfilment of his duty to the highest standards of public service despite intense pressure to the contrary.

I am pleased that the Minister for Crime Prevention has now written to me—he is on the Front Bench at the moment—to say that the Home Office is looking at a range of what he calls radical proposals to strengthen the protection of whistleblowers within the police. But this has all come too late for PC Patrick. By a quirk of the rules, police offices are denied what is called “interim relief” in constructive dismissal cases, so he will cease to be paid from 6 June while he awaits his tribunal, which will not be until August or September.

We are calling for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to investigate the Metropolitan police service in respect of the treatment of PC Patrick. We do not believe that the Metropolitan police service has treated him fairly or with respect and care.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I have a brief question, but first may I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and PASC for a forensic report which charts a long-standing and deep-seated problem? Sir Andrew Dilnot said in evidence to the Committee that the more accurate crime statistics become, the more likely they are to show that crime is rising. Now that we have the Committee’s verdict that we can no longer rely on crime statistics, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be most unwise, until such time as the system has been changed in the way the Committee recommended, for Ministers to rely on the crime statistics to assert that crime is falling?

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his compliments, but I am not sure that that is quite what Sir Andrew said. What the Office for National Statistics has said is that crime may not be falling quite as fast as police recorded crime suggests, but the crime survey for England and Wales, which is a survey not a recording system, does corroborate the fact that crime is falling. That is the figure the Labour party relied on when in government and it is the figure the Government of any party are entitled to rely upon.

On the substantive point that we need to improve the auditing of police recorded crime statistics in order to make them a more reliable source of data, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.