Victim Surveys

• Victim surveys - large-scale surveys where people are interviewed and asked what crimes have been committed against them in a given time period. It does not matter if these crimes haven’t been reported to the police.
• The CSEW stands for Crime Survey for England and Wales and was previously called British Crime Survey (BCS). has been carried out since 1981 and includes a large sample of around 50,000 people. It measures the amount of crime by asking what people have experienced in the past year. It includes crime that is not reported to the police so it can be an alternative to official statistics. 

  It suggests that only 4 in 10 crimes are reported to police showing that official statistics only show the tip of the iceberg.
• Advantages of Victim Surveys:

  • They might show some of the hidden figures of crime which is known as the dark figure of crime
  • It is a more accurate figure of crime than official statistics give
  • It includes crime that is not reported to the police
• Disadvantages of Victim Surveys:

  • It doesn’t cover all crimes such as theft against businesses and victimless crimes
  • Some people might still not admit to being a victim of some crimes such as rape for multiple reasons but they could still be too scared to report it
  • The victim might not remember the crime accurately as it may have happened a while ago and they have only just had the courage to report it in a victim survey