The Northern Ireland Crime Survey is carried out by Central Survey Unit on behalf of the Northern Ireland Office. It is a household survey and which has been running as a continuous survey since January 2005. It was first carried out as a one-off survey in 1994/5 and was repeated in 1998, 2001 and 2003/4.

The main purpose of the survey is to collect information about levels of crime and public attitudes to crime. The information is collected by interviewing people to find out about crimes they may have experienced, including those that were not reported to the police. Respondents are also asked their views about the level of crime and how much they worry about crime.

The results play an important role in developing and monitoring government policies and targets. For example:

•  they help to identify those most at risk from different types of crime
• they examine people’s attitudes to crime, for instance, how much crime they think there is and how much they worry about it  
• they measure confidence in the police and the wider criminal justice system