The meaning of crime
◄Previous: 3.1 Claims about crime

# 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.

Figure 6: Crimes recorded by the police, 1876–2000. Source: Maguire, 1997, p. 158; Social Trends, 2002
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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:

1. 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?

2. For Tables 3 and 4 what is the overall change in recorded crimes?

## Table 2: Recorded crime, 1945–2000

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)

## Table 3: Types of recorded crime, 1981 and 2000

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)

## Table 4: Recorded crime, 1999–2001

| 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

1. 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.

2. 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.

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