Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The British Crime Survey, 2000 (BCS) Teaching Dataset has been prepared solely for the purpose of teaching and student use. The dataset will help class tutors to incorporate empirical data into their courses and thus to develop student skills in quantitative methods of analysis. Many of the names of the variables and value labels are those used in the original BCS files. However, some variables have been recoded for ease of use and may vary from the original BCS data. The original BCS 2000 dataset is held at the UKDA under SN:4463. (Note that the main British Crime Survey has now become the Crime Survey for England and Wales, but titles of older studies in the series remain the same.)



Main Topics:

The BCS teaching dataset contains 55 variables taken from and 19,411 cases, taken from the main BCS 2000 survey (see under SN:4463). The cases are drawn from the core sample of adults aged 16 and over, resident in England and Wales. The original BCS 2000 dataset also contained an ethnic minority booster sample, but this has been excluded from the teaching dataset to avoid complexity.

Most of the variables included within the teaching dataset are individual variables, and require individual based analysis. It is important to use the individual weight variable (weighta) where such analysis is concerned. A few household variables are also included in the file, however, such as 'mottheft', 'motstole' or 'yrdeface'. The household weight variable (weightb) should be used for the analysis of these variables.

Topics covered in the data include accommodation, area of residence, socio-demographic characteristics, economic status, educational attainment, social class, fear of crime, crime rate and other related problems in the area and personal experience of crime.