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The meaning of crime
The meaning of crime

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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.

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

Discussion

  • Prior to the 1930s fewer than 100,000 offences were recorded annually, whereas in 1992, the peak year, over five million offences were recorded.

  • 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.

  • The numbers of recorded crimes doubled between 1955 and 1964, doubled again up to 1977 and yet again by 1991.

  • 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:

  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
YearTotal offences
1945  478,394
1950461,435
1955438,085
1960743,713
19651,133,882
19701,555,995
19752,105,031
19802,520,600
19853,426,400
19905,358,000
19955,146,383
20005,171,000

(Source: adapted from Social Trends, 2002)

Table 3: Types of recorded crime, 1981 and 2000
Type of crime19812000
(figures in thousands)
Theft and handling stolen property  1,6032,145
Burglary718836
Criminal damage387960
Violence against the person100601
Fraud and forgery107319
Robbery2095
Sexual offences1937
Drug offences-113
Other notifiable offences963

(Source: adapted from Social Trends, 2002, Table 9.3)

Table 4: Recorded crime, 1999–2001
England and Wales (thousands)
1999–002000–01
Theft and handling stolen goods;  2,2242,145
of which: theft of vehicles 375339
of which: theft from vehicles 669630
Criminal damage946960
Burglary906836
Violence against the person581601
Fraud and forgery335319
Drugs offences1221 13
Robbery8495
Sexual offences,3837
of which: rape 89
Other notifiable offences6663
All notifiable offences5,3015,171

(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.