Crime Rates

AuthorGeorge Kurian
Pages23-25

Page 23

For more than a century, police have maintained statistics on various forms of crime, as well as on arrest rates and imprisonment rates. Such information has become important as a criminological tool, as well as a political one. Fluctuations in crime rates have important political consequences for elected officials, and in their ability to protect the life and property of constituents in the most cost-effective manner.

Because crime and imprisonment are public events, it is sometimes assumed that crime data are accurate and reflect the actual state of affairs. However, an undetermined percentage of all crimes go unreported, either because the victim did not report the crime or because the police ignored the report. Furthermore, because the police have a vested interest in keeping crime (or at least crime-rate data) low, they may juggle numbers to make it appear that they are more successful than they actually are. Once a crime is reported and gets into the data pipeline, it becomes difficult to hide or manipulate.

The accuracy of police-related data varies with the nature and size of the society. Small towns generally are able to maintain clean data with few distortions, and the occasional crimes are solved without much fanfare. The accuracy also varies with the nature of the crime. Auto thefts are solved much more quickly than some other crimes because technology is on the side of the police. Juvenile crimes are solved at a faster rate because juveniles do not have the professional savvy that hardened criminals have in eluding the police. The crime rates also depend on the expertise of the criminal investigation department. Those with skilled detectives have a better arrest rate than those with less trained cadres.

A different problem—common to all statistical formulations—arises when crime and arrest rates and police density rates are presented as a percentage of the population, especially as percentages of ethnic segments of the population. For example, urban populations are changing every day in terms of their ethnic mix. It is thus difficult to express a crime rate in terms of a minority population because the overall universe may be larger or smaller than reported in the decennial census. If crime data are not presented as rates per unit of population, they becomes meaningless because of differences in size among towns and localities, as well as police departments.

Crime statistics, like economic statistics, run in cycles...

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