Crime statistics
Encyclopedia
Crime statistics attempt to provide statistical
measures of the crime
in societies. Given that crime is usually secretive by nature, measurements of it are likely to be inaccurate.
Several methods for measuring crime exist, including household surveys, hospital or insurance records, and compilations by police
and similar law enforcement agencies. Typically official crime statistics are the latter, but some offences are likely to go unreported to the police. Public surveys are sometimes conducted to estimate the amount of crime not reported to police. Such surveys are usually more reliable for assessing trends. Public surveys rarely encompass all crime, rarely procure statistics useful for local crime prevention, often ignore offences against children, and do not count offenders brought before the criminal justice system.
Crime statistics are gathered and reported by many countries and are of interest to several international organizations, including Interpol
and the United Nations
. Law enforcement agencies in some countries, such as the FBI in the United States and the Home Office in England & Wales, publish crime indices, which are compilations of statistics for various types of crime.
Two major methods for collecting crime data are law enforcement reports, which only reflect reported crimes and victimization statistical survey
s, which rely on individual honesty. For less frequent crimes such as intentional homicide and armed robbery, reported incidences are generally more reliable. Because laws vary between jurisdictions, comparing crime statistics between and even within countries can be difficult.
The U.S. has two major data collection programs, the Uniform Crime Reports
from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey
from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, the U.S. has no comprehensive infrastructure to monitor crime trends and report the information to related parties such as law enforcement.
Research using a series of victim surveys in 18 countries of the European Union
funded by the European Commission
has reported (2005) that the level of crime in Europe has fallen back to the levels of 1990, and notes that levels of common crime have shown declining trends in the U.S., Canada, Australia and other industrialized countries as well. The European researchers say a general consensus identifies demographic change as the leading cause for this international trend. Although homicide and robbery rates rose in the U.S. in the 1980s, by the end of the century they had declined by 40%.
However they suggest that "increased use of crime prevention
measures may indeed be the common factor behind the near universal decrease in overall levels of crime in the Western world", since decreases have been most pronounced in property crime and less so, if at all, in contact crimes.
Even though a member of the public may report a crime to a law enforcement officer, it will not be counted unless that crime is then recorded in a way that allows it to be incorporated into the crime statistics. As a consequence, offending, particularly minor offending, may be significantly under counted in situations where law enforcement officers are overloaded with work or do not perceive the offending as worth recording.
Similarly certain high profile categories of crime may be well reported when there is an incentive (such as a financial or performance incentive) for the law enforcement officer to do so.
For example: Almost all recorded traffic offending is reported either by law enforcement officers or by automatic road safety cameras because there is normally a fine and (profitable) revenue collection process to go through. Yet it is likely that very little traffic offending reported by the public will make its way into official statistics because of the difficulty in following up these stories.
Crime rate is a useful statistic for many purposes, such as evaluating the effectiveness of crime prevention measures or the relative safety
of a particular city
or neighborhood. Crime rate statistics are commonly used by politician
s to advocate for or against a policy designed to deal with crime.
The calculation of crime rates uses data that is obtained either from criminal justice systems or from public surveys
. Comparisons between the two types of data are problematic, and so are comparisons using the same type of data between different jurisdiction
s.
The United Nations
publishes international reports of both Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice. A European initiative has resulted in the European sourcebook, an utmost attempt is made to harmonise the criminal justice data for the purpose of international (European) comparison.
Offending that is a breach of the law but for which no punishment exists is often not counted. For example: Suicide, which is technically illegal in most countries, may not be counted as a crime, although attempted suicide and assisting suicide are.
Also traffic offending and other minor offending that might be dealt with by using fines, rather than imprisonment, is often not counted as crime. However separate statistics may be kept for this sort of offending.
Statistics from law enforcement organisations are often used. These statistics are normally readily available and are generally reliable in terms of identifying what crime is being dealt with by law enforcement organisations, as they are gathered by law enforcement officers in the course of their duties and are often extracted directly from law enforcement computer systems.
However, these statistics often tend to reflect the productivity and law enforcement activities of the officers concerned and may bear little relationship to the actual amount of crime, as officers can only record crime that comes to their attention and might not record a matter as a crime if the matter is considered minor and is not perceived as a crime by the officer concerned. The statistics may also be biased because of routine actions and pragmatic decisions that law enforcement officers make in the field.
For example, when faced with a domestic violence dispute between a couple, a law enforcement officer may decide it is far less trouble to arrest the male party to the dispute, because the female may have children to care for, despite both parties being equally culpable for the dispute. This sort of pragmatic decisionmaking asked if they are victims of crime, without needing to provide any supporting evidence. In these surveys it is the participant's perception, or opinion, that a crime occurred, or even their understanding about what constitutes a crime that is being measured.
As a consequence victimisation
surveys can also exhibit a subjective bias. Also, differing methodologies may make comparisons with other surveys difficult.
One way in which victimisation surveys are useful is that they show some types of crime are well reported to law enforcement officials, while other types of crime are under reported. These surveys also give insights as to why crime is reported, or not. The surveys show that the need to make an insurance claim, seek medical assistance, and the seriousness of an offence tend to increase the level of reporting, while the inconvenience of reporting, the involvement of intimate parters and the nature of the offending tend to decrease reporting.
This allows degrees of confidence to be assigned to various crime statistics. For example: Motor vehicle thefts are generally well reported because the victim may need to make the report for an insurance claim, while domestic violence, domestic child abuse and sexual offences are frequently significantly under-reported because of the intimate relationships involved, embarrassment and other factors that make it difficult for the victim to make a report.
Attempts to use victimisation surveys from different countries for international comparison had failed in the past. A standardised survey project called the International Crime Victims Survey has been set up to specifically to ínsure international comparison. The project started in 1989 and preparations for its 6th round of surveys in the spring of 2009 are taken. Results from this project have been breefly discussed earlier in this article.
, what constitutes a homicide
may be more problematic, while a crime against the person could vary widely. Legislation differences often means the ingredients of offences vary between jurisdictions.
The penalty for an offence may also vary, with fines being imposed in one jurisdiction, while imprisonment occurs in another. The level of penalty may determine what does and does not constitute a crime. Some jurisdictions may even have offences that do not exist in others.
Classification systems attempt to overcome these problems, although different jurisdictions perform this classification in different ways. Some classification systems concentrate on specific indicator crimes, such as murder, robbery, burglary and vehicle thefts. Other systems, such as the Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC) attempt to be more comprehensive.
The International Crime victims Survey has been done in over 70 countries to date and has become the 'de facto' standard for defining common crimes. Complete list of countries participating and the 11 defined crimes can be found at the project web site.
More complex measures involve measuring the numbers of discrete victims and offenders as well as repeat victimisation rates and recidivism. Repeat victimisation involves measuring how often the same victim is subjected to a repeat occurrence of an offence, often by the same offender. Repetition rate measures are often used to assess the effectiveness of interventions.
Because crime is a social issue, comparisons of crime between places or years are normally performed on some sort of population basis.
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
measures of the crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
in societies. Given that crime is usually secretive by nature, measurements of it are likely to be inaccurate.
Several methods for measuring crime exist, including household surveys, hospital or insurance records, and compilations by police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
and similar law enforcement agencies. Typically official crime statistics are the latter, but some offences are likely to go unreported to the police. Public surveys are sometimes conducted to estimate the amount of crime not reported to police. Such surveys are usually more reliable for assessing trends. Public surveys rarely encompass all crime, rarely procure statistics useful for local crime prevention, often ignore offences against children, and do not count offenders brought before the criminal justice system.
Crime statistics are gathered and reported by many countries and are of interest to several international organizations, including Interpol
Interpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
and the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. Law enforcement agencies in some countries, such as the FBI in the United States and the Home Office in England & Wales, publish crime indices, which are compilations of statistics for various types of crime.
Two major methods for collecting crime data are law enforcement reports, which only reflect reported crimes and victimization statistical survey
Statistical survey
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
s, which rely on individual honesty. For less frequent crimes such as intentional homicide and armed robbery, reported incidences are generally more reliable. Because laws vary between jurisdictions, comparing crime statistics between and even within countries can be difficult.
The U.S. has two major data collection programs, the Uniform Crime Reports
Uniform Crime Reports
The Uniform Crime Reports are published by the United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program...
from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey
National Crime Victimization Survey
The National Crime Victimization Survey , administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is a national survey of approximately 49,000 to 77,400 households twice a year in the United States, on the frequency of crime victimization, as well as characteristics and consequences of victimization...
from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, the U.S. has no comprehensive infrastructure to monitor crime trends and report the information to related parties such as law enforcement.
Research using a series of victim surveys in 18 countries of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
funded by the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
has reported (2005) that the level of crime in Europe has fallen back to the levels of 1990, and notes that levels of common crime have shown declining trends in the U.S., Canada, Australia and other industrialized countries as well. The European researchers say a general consensus identifies demographic change as the leading cause for this international trend. Although homicide and robbery rates rose in the U.S. in the 1980s, by the end of the century they had declined by 40%.
However they suggest that "increased use of crime prevention
Crime prevention
Crime prevention is the attempt to reduce victimization and to deter crime and criminals. It is applied specifically to efforts made by governments to reduce crime, enforce the law, and maintain criminal justice.-Studies:...
measures may indeed be the common factor behind the near universal decrease in overall levels of crime in the Western world", since decreases have been most pronounced in property crime and less so, if at all, in contact crimes.
Recording practices
The crime statistics recording practices vary, not only between countries and jurisdictions but sometimes within jurisdictions and even between two individual law enforcement officers encountering the same situation. Because many law enforcement officers have powers of discretion, they have the ability to affect how much crime is recorded based on how they record their activities.Even though a member of the public may report a crime to a law enforcement officer, it will not be counted unless that crime is then recorded in a way that allows it to be incorporated into the crime statistics. As a consequence, offending, particularly minor offending, may be significantly under counted in situations where law enforcement officers are overloaded with work or do not perceive the offending as worth recording.
Similarly certain high profile categories of crime may be well reported when there is an incentive (such as a financial or performance incentive) for the law enforcement officer to do so.
For example: Almost all recorded traffic offending is reported either by law enforcement officers or by automatic road safety cameras because there is normally a fine and (profitable) revenue collection process to go through. Yet it is likely that very little traffic offending reported by the public will make its way into official statistics because of the difficulty in following up these stories.
Crime rate is a useful statistic for many purposes, such as evaluating the effectiveness of crime prevention measures or the relative safety
Safety
Safety is the state of being "safe" , the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be...
of a particular city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
or neighborhood. Crime rate statistics are commonly used by politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
s to advocate for or against a policy designed to deal with crime.
The calculation of crime rates uses data that is obtained either from criminal justice systems or from public surveys
Statistical survey
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
. Comparisons between the two types of data are problematic, and so are comparisons using the same type of data between different jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
s.
The United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
publishes international reports of both Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice. A European initiative has resulted in the European sourcebook, an utmost attempt is made to harmonise the criminal justice data for the purpose of international (European) comparison.
Counting rules
Counting rules vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Relatively few standards exist and none that permit international comparability beyond a very limited range of offences. However, many jurisdictions accept the following:- There must be a prima facie case that an offence has been committed before it is recorded. That is either police find evidence of an offence or receive a believable allegation of an offense being committed. Some jurisdictions count offending only when certain processes happen, such as an arrest is made, ticket issued, charges laid in Court or only upon securing a conviction.
- Multiple reports of the same offence usually count as one offence. Some jurisdictions count each report separately, others count each victim of offending separately.
- Where several offences are committed at the same time, in one act of offending, only the most serious offense is counted. Some jurisdictions record and count each and every offense separately, others count cases, or offenders, that can be prosecuted.
- Where multiple offenders are involved in the same act of offending only one act is counted when counting offenses but each offender is counted when apprehended.
- Offending is counted at the time it comes to the attention of a law enforcement officer. Some jurisdictions record and count offending at the time it occurs.
Offending that is a breach of the law but for which no punishment exists is often not counted. For example: Suicide, which is technically illegal in most countries, may not be counted as a crime, although attempted suicide and assisting suicide are.
Also traffic offending and other minor offending that might be dealt with by using fines, rather than imprisonment, is often not counted as crime. However separate statistics may be kept for this sort of offending.
Surveys
Because of the difficulties in quantifying how much crime actually occurs, researchers generally take two approaches to gathering statistics about crime.Statistics from law enforcement organisations are often used. These statistics are normally readily available and are generally reliable in terms of identifying what crime is being dealt with by law enforcement organisations, as they are gathered by law enforcement officers in the course of their duties and are often extracted directly from law enforcement computer systems.
However, these statistics often tend to reflect the productivity and law enforcement activities of the officers concerned and may bear little relationship to the actual amount of crime, as officers can only record crime that comes to their attention and might not record a matter as a crime if the matter is considered minor and is not perceived as a crime by the officer concerned. The statistics may also be biased because of routine actions and pragmatic decisions that law enforcement officers make in the field.
For example, when faced with a domestic violence dispute between a couple, a law enforcement officer may decide it is far less trouble to arrest the male party to the dispute, because the female may have children to care for, despite both parties being equally culpable for the dispute. This sort of pragmatic decisionmaking asked if they are victims of crime, without needing to provide any supporting evidence. In these surveys it is the participant's perception, or opinion, that a crime occurred, or even their understanding about what constitutes a crime that is being measured.
As a consequence victimisation
Victimisation
Victimisation is the process of being victimised or becoming a victim. Research that studies the process, rates, incidence, and prevalence of victimization falls under the body of victimology.-Peer victimisation:...
surveys can also exhibit a subjective bias. Also, differing methodologies may make comparisons with other surveys difficult.
One way in which victimisation surveys are useful is that they show some types of crime are well reported to law enforcement officials, while other types of crime are under reported. These surveys also give insights as to why crime is reported, or not. The surveys show that the need to make an insurance claim, seek medical assistance, and the seriousness of an offence tend to increase the level of reporting, while the inconvenience of reporting, the involvement of intimate parters and the nature of the offending tend to decrease reporting.
This allows degrees of confidence to be assigned to various crime statistics. For example: Motor vehicle thefts are generally well reported because the victim may need to make the report for an insurance claim, while domestic violence, domestic child abuse and sexual offences are frequently significantly under-reported because of the intimate relationships involved, embarrassment and other factors that make it difficult for the victim to make a report.
Attempts to use victimisation surveys from different countries for international comparison had failed in the past. A standardised survey project called the International Crime Victims Survey has been set up to specifically to ínsure international comparison. The project started in 1989 and preparations for its 6th round of surveys in the spring of 2009 are taken. Results from this project have been breefly discussed earlier in this article.
Classification
In order to measure crime in a consistent manner, different sorts of crime need to be classified and separated into groups of similar or comparable offences. While most jurisdictions could probably agree about what constitutes a murderMurder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, what constitutes a homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
may be more problematic, while a crime against the person could vary widely. Legislation differences often means the ingredients of offences vary between jurisdictions.
The penalty for an offence may also vary, with fines being imposed in one jurisdiction, while imprisonment occurs in another. The level of penalty may determine what does and does not constitute a crime. Some jurisdictions may even have offences that do not exist in others.
Classification systems attempt to overcome these problems, although different jurisdictions perform this classification in different ways. Some classification systems concentrate on specific indicator crimes, such as murder, robbery, burglary and vehicle thefts. Other systems, such as the Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC) attempt to be more comprehensive.
The International Crime victims Survey has been done in over 70 countries to date and has become the 'de facto' standard for defining common crimes. Complete list of countries participating and the 11 defined crimes can be found at the project web site.
Measures
Measures of crime include simple counts of offences, victimsisations or apprehensions, as well as population based crime rates. Counts are normally made over a year long reporting period.More complex measures involve measuring the numbers of discrete victims and offenders as well as repeat victimisation rates and recidivism. Repeat victimisation involves measuring how often the same victim is subjected to a repeat occurrence of an offence, often by the same offender. Repetition rate measures are often used to assess the effectiveness of interventions.
Because crime is a social issue, comparisons of crime between places or years are normally performed on some sort of population basis.
See also
- Crime scienceCrime scienceCrime science is the study of crime in order to find ways to prevent it. Three features distinguish crime science from criminology: it is single-minded about cutting crime, rather than studying it for its own sake; accordingly it focuses on crime rather than criminals; and it is multidisciplinary,...
- CriminologyCriminologyCriminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society...
- Dark figure of crimeDark figure of crimeThe dark figure of crime is a term employed by criminologists and sociologists to describe the amount of unreported or undiscovered crime, which calls into question the reliability of official crime statistics....
- DemographyDemographyDemography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...
- List of countries by intentional homicide rate
- Moral statisticsMoral statisticsMoral statistics most narrowly refers to numerical data generally considered to be indicative of social pathology in groups of people. Examples include statistics on crimes , illiteracy, suicide, illegitimacy, abortion, divorce, prostitution, and the economic situation sometimes called pauperism...
- QuestionnaireQuestionnaireA questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case...
- Self report studySelf report studyA self-report study is a type of survey, questionnaire, or poll in which respondents read the question and select a response by themselves without researcher interference....
- The International Crime Victims Survey
- United States cities by crime rateUnited States cities by crime rateThe following table of United States cities by crime rate is based on Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports statistics. The population numbers are based on U.S. Census estimates for the year end. The number of murders includes nonnegligent manslaughter. This list is based on the...
- Victim studyVictim studyA victim study is a survey, such as the British Crime Survey, that asks a sample of people which crimes have been committed against them over a fixed period of time and whether or not they have been reported to the police...
- VictimologyVictimologyVictimology is the scientific study of victimization, including the relationships between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system — that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials — and the connections between victims and other social groups...
Further reading
- Van Dijk, J. J. M. (2008). The World of crime; breaking the silence on problems of crime, justice and development. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
- Catalano, S. M. (2006). The measurement of crime: victim reporting and police recording. New York, LFB Scholarly Pub. ISBN 1593321554
- Jupp, V. (1989). Methods of criminological research. Contemporary social research series. London, Unwin Hyman. ISBN 0044450664
- Van der Westhuizen, J. (1981). Measurement of crime. Pretoria, University of South Africa. ISBN 0869811975
- Van Dijk, J.J.M., van Kesteren, J.N. & Smit, P. (2008). Criminal Victimisation in International Perspective, Key findings from the 2004-2005 ICVS and EU ICS. The Hague, Boom Legal Publishers. rechten.uvt.nl
External links
- crime-statistics.co.uk, UK Crime Statistics and Crime Statistic Comparisons
- A Continent of Broken Windows – Alexander, Gerard The Weekly StandardThe Weekly StandardThe Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
(Volume 11, Issue 10, 21 November 2005) - United States: Uniform Crime Report -- State Statistics from 1960 - 2005
- Experience and Communication as explanations for Criminal Risk Perception