[creepydata]

I read somewhere that one way to measure crime is surveys that ask people about crimes that they have been a victim of in the previous year. These surveys indicate that the reduction of crime isn't due to reduction in reporting or policing.

[DanBC]

That's how England and Wales does it. The police record crimes, but these are not seen as statistically sound, and so the Office For National Statistics also does a crime survey.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/htt...

> The CSEW, formerly known as the British Crime Survey (BCS), is a face-to-face survey asking people who are resident in households in England and Wales about their experiences of a range of crimes in the past year. The survey interviews both adults and children. The survey started in 1982 (covering crime experienced in 1981) and is conducted on a continuous basis with around 35,000 adults and 3,000 children aged 10 to 15 years old interviewed each year.

[YokoZar]

"In the past year, were you a victim of murder?"