Choosing and using statistical sources in criminology – what can the Crime Survey for England and Wales tell us?

There is a wide range of sources that might fruitfully be used in criminological research. This article overviews the type of evidence used in research that has recently appeared in the British Journal of Criminology, gives examples of unobtrusive administrative data that have been used in recent projects, and focuses on a single data set, the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which covers a wide range of criminological topics. Finally, it will be suggested that criminologists may be missing opportunities to draw on valuable data sets that, though imperfect, may be useful to them in their research