Crime statistics

Crime statistics provide a statistical measure of the level, or amount, of crime that is prevalent in societies.

Crime statistics are gathered and reported by many countries and are of interest to several international organisations, including Interpol and the United Nations. Law enforcement agencies in some countries, such as the FBI in the United States, publish crime indices, which are compilations of statistics for various types of crime.

Crime statistics can come from a number of sources. However, the primary sources are Police forces and similar law enforcement agencies. Police statistics are generally limited to the offending that is reported to them and the offenders they apprehend. It is well known that some types of crime are not reported to Police. Public surveys may be conducted in order to ascertain the amount of crime not reported to Police and to ascertain levels of victimisation, which Police may have difficulty identifying.

Statistics are usually collected on

Offences - Breaches of the law
Offenders - Those who commit offences
Victims - Those who are offended against

Because laws vary between jurisictions, comparing crime statistics between, and even within, countries can be difficult, sometimes even problematic.

Recording practises

Crime statistics recording practises vary, not only between countries and jurisictions but sometimes within jurisdictions and even between two indiviual 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, unless that crime is then recorded in a way that allows it to be incorporated into the crime statistics it will not be counted. As a consequence, offending, particularly minor offending, may be significantly undercounted in situations where law enforcement officers are overloaded with work or do not perceive minor offending as worth being recorded. 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 traffic offending is reported by law enforcement officers 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 reports.

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 juridictions accept the following:

There must be a prima face 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.
Multiple reports of the same offence count as one offence. Some jurisdictions count each report 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.
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 come 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. Although separate statistics may be kept for this sort of offending.

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Recording practises

Counting rules

See also