1. Our priorities

The type and nature of crime is constantly evolving. One of our challenges is keeping up to date with latest trends to provide the best overview of crime from all available sources.

Measuring crime over the last few years has been challenging because of the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We are continuing to adapt both our data collection and presentation of statistics in order to meet users' needs and provide the best overview of crime from all available sources.

What have we done?

In the last year we have:

This work has allowed us to continue publishing our regular crime bulletins and continue to make improvements to our statistics as the type and nature of crime evolve. In the last year we have implemented both user feedback and Office for National Statistics (ONS)-led improvements including:

Engaging with crime and justice statistics users

It is important for us to listen and engage with our stakeholders so that we can provide crime and justice statistics that are useful and relevant. As part of this, the second annual Crime and Justice Statistics Forum took place in May 2023.

The forum provided users of crime and justice data an opportunity to engage with experts, share insights and discuss the future of our statistics and foster future collaboration. A collection of presentations from the day is available here. Please sign up to our updates to be informed of the next Crime and Justice Statistics forum as well as other future events.

Upcoming priorities

Over the coming year we will continue to improve our work on crime statistics. Although our plans may change as we remain responsive to emerging priorities, over the next 12 months we plan to:

  • continue work to transform the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), including assessing the feasibility of online fieldwork as part of a multimodal approach to data collection

  • continue questionnaire development across many key topics including domestic abuse, experiences of harassment and crimes against children

  • improve crime statistics on non-household populations that are not captured by the CSEW

Further information can be found in our annual update document Improving Crime Statistics for England and Wales.

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2. Latest updates

We ran a user consultation on the redesign of the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) last year and received responses from across government, police bodies, the voluntary sector and academia. We were pleased to find overwhelming support for the introduction of a longitudinal panel design, which is now being piloted. You can see the full response on the Consultation on the Redesign of the Crime Survey for England and Wales Feedback page.

National Statistics status for estimates from the CSEW were temporarily suspended in July 2022 because of concerns about data quality. This stems specifically from the low response rate for face-to-face interviews on returning to data collection after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. To regain National Statistics status, efforts are being made to both improve the response rate and to assess the impact on data quality. Further information can be found in Improving Crime Statistics for England and Wales.

Latest releases

Links to the latest releases from the Centre for Crime and Justice can be found on our Crime and Justice page.

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4. Contact us

  • Phone: +44 20 7592 8695

  • Email: crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk

  • Sign up to ONS Centre for Crime and Justice statistics updates to receive our twice-yearly newsletter and notifications of our latest releases.

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5. Privacy information

For more information on our latest privacy information please visit our Data Protection pages.

Further privacy information related to our main sources of crime data can be found here:

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