CSEW (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
Definition
The principal victimisation survey in England and Wales, conducted by the Office for National Statistics since 1982. Interviews around 35,000 adults annually about crime experienced in the previous twelve months.
- Region covered
- England and Wales
- Running since
- 1982
- Conducted by
- Office for National Statistics
- Annual sample
- Around 35,000 adults interviewed
Common questions
Why does a victimisation survey like the CSEW matter alongside police-recorded crime figures?+
Police-recorded crime only captures offences that are reported and logged, missing crimes victims never report. The CSEW asks a representative sample directly about their experience, which surfaces unreported offending and lets researchers estimate the gap between recorded and actual crime levels.
What kinds of crime does the CSEW tend to undercount or miss?+
As a household survey of adults, it structurally excludes crimes against businesses, crimes with no identifiable victim such as some drug offences, and homicide, so it is read alongside, not as a replacement for, police-recorded statistics for a full picture.
Related terms
- Dark Figure of Crime
- The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not...
- NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey)
- The principal victimisation survey in the United States, administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics since 1973. Interviews approximately 240,000 individuals in...
- Self-Report Study
- A research method in which respondents are asked to disclose offences they have committed, whether or not those offences resulted in arrest...
- Telescoping
- A memory error in which respondents misplace events in time, typically drawing incidents from outside the reference period into it (forward telescoping),...
- Victimisation Survey
- A survey that asks a random population sample about crimes experienced in a reference period, regardless of whether those incidents were reported...