Street Level Crime - Surrey Police

Statement of limitations of responsibility

• The format and presentation of the crime and anti-social behaviour data on the website is the responsibility Home Office and the NPIA ("the agencies"). This includes the setting of the minimum number of properties for which the data is displayed; the location of the display point on the map and the grouping of the crime data under the 5 headings + incidents of anti-social behaviour.
• The Home Office and the NPIA have not placed any restriction on secondary use of the data once it is displayed on the Website (i.e. the data may be used by any third party once it is published on the site)
• Surrey Police is required to provide data for use on the site in accordance with the requirements of the agencies and will be responsible for ensuring that the data provided is accurate.
• Once the data is provided to the agencies, Surrey Police is not responsible and has no control over how the data is managed, displayed or used.

The data

Surrey Police provides crime and anti-social behaviour incident data to the company contracted by the Home Office and the NPIA, Rock Kitchen Harris. The Association of Chief Police Officers has signed an agreement with Rock Kitchen Harris on behalf of all Chief Constables.

This agreement specifies and limits the way in which they use this data only for the purpose of converting the data into the agreed format for publication on the Street Level Crime website.

The data is provided on a monthly basis direct from Surrey Police's crime recording system and, in the case of incidents of anti-social behaviour, the incident recording system. Both these systems are used to manage the actions relevant to the investigation of crime and response to reports of anti-social behaviour.

This means that in some cases the data may still be subject to change when it is provided to the Street Level Crime website, e.g. a crime may be finally recorded as 'no crime' because enquiries reveal that no actual criminal offence took place, or it may be established that an incident initially described as anti-social behaviour may fit a different descriptor.

For this reason, the data may not compare directly with data provided by other processes, e.g. responses to Freedom of Information requests and information given by the police at local community meetings.

Points on the Map

The points on the map at which crimes/incidents are shown are called 'snap points' and are not the exact location the crime/incident occurred. These points are allocated as follows:

• Only to streets of 12 or more properties
• If a crime/incident occurs on a street with less than 12 properties, it is included in the figures for the nearest street of 12 or more properties. This means that some streets will be displayed as being the location of crimes/incidents that actually occurred on neighbouring streets - the comments box will state 'On or near to xxx Street'.
• In rural areas where there are very view properties, a crime/incident will be allocated to the nearest street in a 20 mile radius of 12 or more properties. If there is no street of 12 or more properties within a 20 mile radius, the crime/incident will not be shown on the map.
• The comments box will point to the street - the location of the snap point is aimed to be the centre of the street's length and in the centre of the roadway - the snap point does not indicate that the crime/incident occurred at any specific property in the street.
• Where there is a public building, e.g. hospital, police station, council offices, parks, the snap point will be placed at such locations

Local inspectors have been consulted over any particular issues in their area relating to the allocation of the snap points and Surrey Police may make recommendations to have snap points relocated.

Crime/Incident Categories

The following explains the types of crime covered by the 5 headings, and the types of incidents that may be recorded as anti-social behaviour. This is not an exhaustive list as there are many thousands of offence wordings.

Burglary

This category includes:

• Burglary of a dwelling.
• Burglary of a non-dwelling

Examples of non-dwellings are sheds, commercial premises, social clubs etc.

Anti-social behaviour (ASB)

• Antisocial behaviour is any aggressive, intimidating or destructive activity that damages or destroys another person's quality of life.

Examples of ASB are unruly behaviour, littering, unreasonable noise, public urination etc.

Robbery

This category includes:

• Theft directly from a person with violence
• or the fear of violence used to complete the theft

Vehicle Crime

This category includes:

• Theft of a vehicle.
• Theft from a vehicle.

Violent Crime

This category includes:

• Violence against the person

This consists of crimes committed with violence or the fear of violence excluding robbery or sexual offences

Other

This category includes:

• All other crimes

This covers a wide variety of offences, examples include

• criminal damage
• drugs offences, fraud & forgery
• sexual offences
• dangerous driving
• bigamy
• health & safety offences
• planning offences