Comparing Crime

Comparing crime-statistics
• Caution! Statistics are not always reliable and do not tell the whole
story around the extent of crime
• Common problems across jurisdictions
• Dark figure of crime-unreported, unrecorded, recorded incorrectly
• Counting rules-only record most serious offence committed if numerous
offences committed at one time
• Local/jurisdiction specific crime statistics might be problematic-GS
statistics CSO ‘under reserve’
• https://www2.unil.ch/icvs/index.html#:~:text=The%20International%20
Crime%20Victims%20Survey,be%20used%20for%20international%20co
mparison
.
Comparing with caution
• Challenges of comparing crime across jurisdictions
• Example: Conviction rate in France 90% versus England and Wales 39% in
crown courts (see Pakes 2010:20).
• What do the statistics mean?
• Some countries count crimes that are reported to the police whereas others
count them when they are prosecuted. (What does Ireland do?)
• Countries where household insurance is more common and developed tend
to report a higher proportion of burglary.
• Policing styles-countries where police adopt proactive policing styles tend to
find a higher proportion of crime.
Comparing with caution
• Countries with better and more available medical facilities may have
lower rates of homicide.
• Definitions of crimes vary between countries
• Type of behaviour that is criminalised differs too-crime is not a natural
category but a social construct
• Crime statistics are compiled in different ways in different contexts
and for difference reasons.
Why compare crime rates?
• Provide insight into the relative effectiveness of certain measures to
contain crime
• Understand relationship between crime statistics and different kinds
of geographic, cultural or government variables
• Further our understanding of deviance and social control in different
contexts
• Understandings of what is a crime vary-UK sex offence-one in three
victims did not regard it as a crime but just something that happened.
Therefore many may not have reported in self-reporting victimisation
studies,
Comparing official statistics
• Comprehensive
• Periodically reported
• Raw data for theory construction
• International crime statistics have been around for 20-30 years
• United Nations, Council of Europe, Interpol and Europol hold crime
data.
• HEUNI is the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control
affiliated with UN. It is the European link in network of institutes
operating within framework of UN Crime Prevention and Criminal
Justice Programme
Comparing official statistics
• Click on link to HEUNI statistics in moodle
• Compare and contrast Homicide rate for Europe, North America and
Africa
• Note any differences
• Compare Ireland’s Homicide rate with countries which have similar
population
• Conclusions?
• Limitations?
International Victimisation Studies
• International Victimisation Study-conducted since 1989 (Van Dijk et al,
1990)
• 30 countries, 33 cities
• 10 common crimes
• 16 % of population have been victim of one of ten crimes
• Ireland scores one of highest victimisation rates, Spain one of lowest
• More reliable than official statistics but still has limitations
• Telephone surveys-proportion of population with phone varies between
countries
• Difficult to ask sensitive questions via phone-sex offences…see Pakes p.30
Specialised international statistics
• Hold data on particular crimes
• EMCDDA European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction (
http://www.emcdda.Europa.eu)
• Collects & disseminates data on various types of drug usage
• Annual report on state of drugs in Europe
• Cannabis-self report user data, number of seizures, price and potency of cannabis
products and legislative changes in various European states
• Look up state of cannabis usage for 15-34 year olds in Europe
• Are rates increasing or decreasing? How does Ireland fare? Highest, lowest or
average?
• Describe regional differences between Western and Eastern Europe.
Establishing crime rates using other data
• Hospital records to establish how many people were victims of knife crime-Britain, 14000 in
2008.
• USA, hospital records used to gather data on how many people were victims of firearm
accidents.
• Sometimes most reliable statistics are found in places that have nothing to do with criminal
justice system
• World Health Organisation (WHO) World Health Report on Violence and Health (Krug et al,
2002) combines health data, with self reports with community data on population statistics,
income, education, employment etc
• Looks at homicide and suicide rate-same number of homicides as suicides and deaths by
war but ratio differs per region and with age.
• Males most at risk (15-29) but risk decreases with age
• Poorer countries have more violent deaths (see Pakes p.28).
Further reading
Reichel, P.L.(2005) Comparative Criminal Justice Systems, (4nd Ed.), New
Jersey: Pearson Education
Pakes, F. (2010) Comparative Criminal Justice (2nd ed.), Collumpton,
Devon: Willan Publishing