As we draw closer to the end of semester 2, Criminology students across the 3 cohorts will have recently submitted, or be in the process of submitting, assessments which contain research data. Glorious criminological research data. CRI1011 have their research report looking at an interview transcript. CRI2013 have their research project looking at observations whilst on a research placement. And the third years submitted their dissertations back in April: lots and lots of different data. But as most research methods students will know, there are strengths and weaknesses to all data, and the data is intrinsically linked to the research question, aims and objectives. But data exists outside of our research bubble as well. Think about how many websites have asked for/taken/stolen/used/stored/sold our data!

Data serves different purposes and has different impacts. Back in September 2025, the Department for Transport published their ‘Reported road casualties Great Britain: motorcycle factsheet’. Some key findings: from 2004-2024 motorcycle traffic decreased by 6%, from 2020-2024 92% of motorcycle killed or serious injured casualties were male and in 2024 340 motorcyclists were killed in Great Britain (Department of Transport, 2025). Some data: but what does it mean? Quantitative data holds an important part in our daily lives as it tends to provide us with the ‘how’s’ and ‘what’s’. So, we can see only 8% of motorcyclists killed or serious injured casualties were female but the factsheet does not tell us how many motorcyclists in Great Britain identify as female? We could think about how many hold a licence but this does not necessarily mean they are active riders. It doesn’t explain why there is such a difference across gender, and there is no data about race. So I guess whilst there is data there is also lots of missing data. And I think this is an important point to remember: quantitative data can be perceived as providing the bigger picture, the quantity, but even then it is often only part of the picture.

 The data from the Department of Transport (2025) also doesn’t tell us anything about who these people are: it has reduced them to a percentage. There is no story about who they were, why they ride, where they were going or what their hopes and dreams were. But it does give us an overview: it gives is the what. But I guess the question is do we need the why, the story, the narrative? We are fortunate (although it might not always feel like it) to live in a world full of different types of data! It is a data saturated society in which we live. Often at tip of our fingers, with a tip tap of the keyboard (across devices). But sometimes it can be difficult to manage, to understand and to recognise what’s missing. Data can be overwhelming. It can also be challenging to know you, or someone you know, is part of the data but at the same time be completely absent from it. The riders who have lost their lives in motorcycle accidents are reduced to numbers: they are in the data but who they are is unknown.

As the second years begin to think about their dissertation proposals, it’s a good time to reflect and think about the data we are exposed to, the data we want to collect and the data which already exists. In a society so saturated with data it might not always be relevant to keep adding to it, and instead might be more relevant to think about making sense of some of the data which already exists…

References:

Department of Transport (2025) Reported road casualties Great Britain: motorcycle factsheet [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-motorcyclist-factsheet-2024/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-motorcyclist-factsheet-2024 [Accessed 14th May 2026].