Recorded Crime Q4 2020

Introduction

Recorded Crime statistics are produced on a quarterly basis by the Central Statistics Office.

The Recorded Crime electronic publication and related tables provide statistical information on the volume and type of crimes recorded by An Garda Síochána.

Recorded Crime statistics are categorised by the Central Statistics Office as Statistics Under Reservation. This category is used to keep users informed about the quality of statistical outputs, and arises because of ongoing data quality issues within the data source. In the case of PULSE data, it informs users that Recorded Crime statistics based on recorded incidents on PULSE may understate or overstate the prevalence of reported offences and may be subject to revisions in subsequent statistical publications.

Please see Statistics Under Reservation FAQs for further information.

Data Source

Recorded Crime statistics are compiled exclusively from administrative records created and maintained by An Garda Síochána, Ireland’s National Police and Security Service, on their incident recording system PULSE (Police Using Leading Systems Effectively).

Published figures may be subject to revision as underlying records are subject to update, review or revision by An Garda Síochána as investigations progress.

Data Collection

Crimes reported to, or which become known to, An Garda Síochána are recorded as crime incidents if a member of An Garda Síochána determines that, on the balance of probability, a criminal offence defined by law has taken place, and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

The rules governing how crimes are to be recorded by An Garda Síochána are provided in the Guide to How Crime is Recorded and Counted by An Garda Síochána. This newly published document explains the rationale for whether or not to record a crime incident and what to record, and provides guidance for the classification, reclassification, and invalidation of crime incident records, and for recording whether a crime incident has been detected. Its publication is an important development, not only for providing transparency in how crime is recorded on PULSE, but also in allowing users to better understand and use its statistical outputs.

Crime incidents are classified by type according to a set of approximately 200 different incident types (e.g. murder, assault, burglary).

Crime incidents are recorded against the Garda sub-district in which the offence was committed, or where it was reported if the place of commission cannot be determined.

Compilation of Recorded Crime statistics

The Central Statistics Office is in receipt of a single regular data extract from the PULSE database, updated each quarter. The data extract comprises a subset of the data held on the PULSE database, configured for the specific purpose of compiling Recorded Crime statistics.

Only valid, primary crime incidents assigned to a valid Garda sub-district within the State are included in Recorded Crime statistics.

Recorded Crime incidents are differentiated by type, reporting period and location for statistical purposes:

• Crime type

The ‘incident type’ variable, as recorded on PULSE, is used to differentiate between crimes of different type.

The set of PULSE incident types is mapped to the Irish Crime Classification System (ICCS) for statistical reporting.

The Recorded Crime publication does not include Groups 14 and 16 of the ICCS, and includes only some subcategories of Group 4. This is because some offences (i.e. specified road traffic offences) are initially recorded as Fixed Charge Notice offences on a separate database and are only recorded on PULSE if the offender fails to pay the fine within the specified time period. Statistics on Fixed Charge Notice offences are not published by the CSO at present. 

• Date

The ‘date reported’ variable, as recorded on PULSE, is used to differentiate between different reporting time periods i.e. by quarter and by year.

It is the date the crime is reported, rather the date the crime occurred, which is used for statistical reporting, in line with international best practice.

• Location

The Station (or Garda sub-district) variable, as recorded on PULSE, is used to aggregate crime incidents up to administrative areas such as Garda Divisions and Garda Regions.

For stations which have been closed, crime incidents are reassigned to the Garda sub-district which assumed responsibility for the area of the closed station.

The Garda regional structure changed in Q4 2019. This reduced the number of Garda regions from six to four. The four regions are

• Dublin Metropolitan Region
• North Western Region
• Eastern Region
• Southern Region

Data edits for statistical purposes

Recorded Crime statistics are based on the unedited records of An Garda Síochána, except in the following circumstances:

• For Garda stations which have been closed, crime incidents are reassigned to the Garda sub-district which assumed responsibility for the area of the closed station. 
• From Q4 2017, CSO implemented an automatic edit to PULSE data whereby only a single incident is counted in cases deemed to be a continuous series involving the same victim and same offender, in accordance with Section B.3 of the Crime Counting Rules. The automatic edit replaced a manual edit which had been previously carried out on a quarterly basis. The edit is only performed in the case of incidents within Group 02 Sexual Offences and Group 09 Fraud offences, and with reported dates between January 1st 2003 and June 30th 2017. An Garda Síochána introduced additional quality control procedures in respect of incidents recorded after June 30th 2017, eliminating the need for CSO to continue to implement the edit after this date.
• Until Q2 2019, CSO performed an edit whereby it amended, for statistical purposes, the classification of incident records where the age of the victim determined that the incident type classification was inaccurate. For example, an incident classified as Abduction of a Child would be edited, for statistical purposes, to False Imprisonment if the recorded victim was not aged under 16. Due to improvements in data quality, this check is no longer performed on incidents with reported dates after June 30th 2017.

ICCSQ Offence Groups