Use of Criminal Justice Statistics in Criminal Justice Policy in England and Wales (From Computerization in the Management of the Criminal Justice System: Proceedings of the Workshop and the Symposium on Computerization of Criminal Justice Information at the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prev

• NCJ Number: 167627
• Author(s): C G Lewis
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: Finland

Annotation

Criminal justice statistics and their uses in policy-making in England and Wales are described, with emphasis on the central location of the statistical departments to promote ready access and central control.

Abstract

The Home Office Research and Statistics Department has a central role in the use of data for policy purposes. The Department has some 240 statisticians, researchers, economists, computer specialists, data collectors, and administrative staff. They work in the same building as policy colleagues. Statistics influence policy analysis with respect to the measurement of crime and police workloads, the work of the prosecutors, court cases and sentencing, and the work of the probation and prison services. The British Crime Survey and police statistics measure crime. Other databases cover prosecutions, the courts, offender, probation, and prisons. The ongoing shift to UNIX-based computing techniques is reducing the expenditures on statistical databases.