Background Notes

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 (AGS).

Removal of the ‘Statistics Under Reservation’ designation from Recorded Crime Statistics

The CSO published its fifth CSO Review of the Quality of Recorded Crime Statistics in October 2023. As part of this review the CSO has lifted the ‘Under Reservation’ designation from all Recorded Crime data disseminated after Quarter 1 (Q1) 2023.

CSO has made this decision because the terms of its various key recommendations from the Quality Improvement Proposal from 2018 and Quality Reviews have been met, principally:

• The development and implementation of a formal data quality management system for PULSE that ensures fit-for-purpose crime data (developments throughout 2022 & 2023 culminating in quality checking and publishing of those results, with a focus on risk management).
• An independent review conducted on behalf of AGS which found evidence of good controls for the acknowledged risks to data collection and quality.
• There is now a senior manager (appointed in 2019) within AGS who has overall responsibility for data quality.
• The provision of a comprehensive and publicly available document explaining how crime is recorded (2020).

In addition, a new Memorandum of Understanding has been agreed between CSO and AGS which explicitly outlines expectations concerning AGS quality checking and reporting of same. The standard quality checks of PULSE data carried out as part of this fifth CSO Quality Review show evidence of consistent high data quality levels.

AGS has worked over the past number of years to advance the assurance levels which can be provided around Garda PULSE data, and in particular the quality management developments of 2022 and 2023. This work has seen the development of quality assurance processes by AGS over the period which has culminated in the implementation of a more formal data quality management system by AGS.

The recorded crime series has been progressively improving over time with the cumulative impact of the improved data quality, assessment, and assurance measures being seen in a higher data quality level as noted in various CSO reviews in recent years.

Given the new AGS controls for quality checking and reporting, coupled with the CSO reserving the right to do its own reviews, a level of assurance has been provided warranting the lifting of the "Under Reservation” categorisation. 

However, some judgement should be exercised by users when using data produced in the earlier years of the recorded crime time series given the legacy quality issues which have been commented on in various reviews. For instance, detections data pre and post 2018 are not comparable given the improved governance controls introduced in that year. The CSO will continue to inform users of the quality of the data they are using, and of any particular issues which may need to be noted around time series comparability as they arise.

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

New An Garda Síochána Operational Model

An Garda Síochána are currently in the process of the rolling out of a new Operation Model. This will involve fundamental change to the organisational structure from the existing District Based Model to a new Divisional Functional Area Model. Further updates will follow in due course.

Cancelled Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) incidents

The premature or improper cancellation of incidents on the CAD system may mean that records relating to crimes, which were reported to AGS, were not created on the PULSE system, and are therefore not counted in Recorded Crime statistics. AGS has carried out an investigation which focused initially only on the most serious high- risk crimes. These mainly related to Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Health and Missing Persons, which covered the cancellation of about 6,000 incidents dating back to 2019. An incident can be validly cancelled, for example, if multiple calls are received for the same incident. Of the incidents which should not have been cancelled based on the AGS investigation of the issue, 141 would have resulted in a criminal incident being recorded on PULSE. All 141 missing PULSE incidents have since been created. In volume terms, this has a negligible effect on published Crime Statistics for the 21 month period in question. AGS are keeping this issue under review and any updates which impact on official crime statistics will be communicated to users.

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.

User note from Q2 2021: The description of subgroup 03b has changed from 'Murder - Threat' to 'Threat to kill or cause serious harm' to align with the PULSE incident type description.