3.2 Counting the crime problem
What kind of evidence would support the claims of the common-sense narrative? Where would it come from and where would you find it? Most social scientists would start with the people who actually spend their time counting these things – governments. Government agencies of all kinds spend a great deal of time and money producing official statistics, recording crime rates, conviction rates, the size of prison populations, and so on.
Activity 4
Look at the diagram below of the numbers of recorded crimes in England and Wales between 1876 and 2000. Note what you think the key trends in the graph are, and then compare them with our commentary below.
Discussion
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Prior to the 1930s fewer than 100,000 offences were recorded annually, whereas in 1992, the peak year, over five million offences were recorded.
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Annual figures changed little until the 1930s. They then rose during the 1930s, levelled off at the end of the 1940s and early 1950s, and increased sharply from the mid 1950s onwards.
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The numbers of recorded crimes doubled between 1955 and 1964, doubled again up to 1977 and yet again by 1991.
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Between 1993 and 1998 there was a small but steady drop in number of total recorded crimes. By 1998 there were fewer than five million recorded crimes, but this had risen to 5,171,000 by 2000.
These figures relate to recorded crime. The overall rate of all incidents of crime measured by the British Crime Survey, recorded or not by the police, have declined consistently since 1995.
In order to explore the quantitative data further we are going to ask you now to study a range of statistical evidence. These Tables are derived from the annual government publications, Criminal Statistics and Social Trends. Again these figures relate only to England and Wales (data on Scotland and Northern Ireland may also be found in Social Trends).
Activity 5
Examine the statistical Tables below and try to note down:
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For Table 2 what is the overall change from 1945 to 2000; and what are the key moments of growth over the period from 1945 to 2000?
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For Tables 3 and 4 what is the overall change in recorded crimes?
| Year | Total offences |
|---|---|
| 1945 | 478,394 |
| 1950 | 461,435 |
| 1955 | 438,085 |
| 1960 | 743,713 |
| 1965 | 1,133,882 |
| 1970 | 1,555,995 |
| 1975 | 2,105,031 |
| 1980 | 2,520,600 |
| 1985 | 3,426,400 |
| 1990 | 5,358,000 |
| 1995 | 5,146,383 |
| 2000 | 5,171,000 |
(Source: adapted from Social Trends, 2002)
| Type of crime | 1981 | 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| (figures in thousands) | ||
| Theft and handling stolen property | 1,603 | 2,145 |
| Burglary | 718 | 836 |
| Criminal damage | 387 | 960 |
| Violence against the person | 100 | 601 |
| Fraud and forgery | 107 | 319 |
| Robbery | 20 | 95 |
| Sexual offences | 19 | 37 |
| Drug offences | - | 113 |
| Other notifiable offences | 9 | 63 |
(Source: adapted from Social Trends, 2002, Table 9.3)
| England and Wales (thousands) | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1999–00 | 2000–01 | |
| Theft and handling stolen goods; | 2,224 | 2,145 |
| of which: theft of vehicles | 375 | 339 |
| of which: theft from vehicles | 669 | 630 |
| Criminal damage | 946 | 960 |
| Burglary | 906 | 836 |
| Violence against the person | 581 | 601 |
| Fraud and forgery | 335 | 319 |
| Drugs offences | 122 | 1 13 |
| Robbery | 84 | 95 |
| Sexual offences, | 38 | 37 |
| of which: rape | 8 | 9 |
| Other notifiable offences | 66 | 63 |
| All notifiable offences | 5,301 | 5,171 |
(Source: adapted from Social Trends, 2002)
Discussion
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There has been a big growth overall: over four million more crimes recorded annually by 2000 compared with 1945.
After the small decline of the period from 1945 to 1955 there was a massive increase between 1955 and 1965 and significant growth between 1970 and 1990. Note there was over ten times as much recorded crime in 2000 compared with 1945.
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Between 1981 and 2000 there was a general rise in most categories of crime in England and Wales (Table 3) but the increase was most striking in cases of robbery, criminal damage and violence against the person over this period. In 1999–2001 (Table 4) there was a slight decrease overall in recorded crime, for example in the number of thefts, but an increase in cases of violence against the person.