Crime rate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crime rate is a measure of the rate of occurrence of crimes committed in a given area and time. Most commonly, crime rate is given as the number of crimes committed among a given number of persons. Often, the type of crime is exactly specified. Thus, a crime rate might be given as the number of murders (or rapes, thefts, etc.) per 100,000 persons per year within a city.
Crime rate is a useful statistic for many purposes, such as evaluating the effectiveness of crime prevention measures or the relative safety of a particular city or neighborhood. Crime rate statistics are commonly used by politicians to advocate for or against a policy designed to deal with crime.
The calculation of crime rates uses data that is obtained either from criminal justice systems or from public surveys. Comparisons between the two types of data are problematic, and so are comparisons using the same type of data between different jurisdictions. The United Nations publishes international reports of both Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice, and Crime Victim Surveys.[1]
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[edit] Further reading
- Maguire, M., Morgan, R., & Reiner, R. (2002). The Oxford handbook of criminology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199256098 - see Chapter 11 Crime Statistics: The ‘Data Explosion’ and its Implications. Online synopsis of Chapter 11 accessed at [1] April 5, 2007.
[edit] Notes
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- A Continent of Broken Windows – Alexander, Gerard The Weekly Standard (Volume 11, Issue 10, 11/21/2005)
- United States: Uniform Crime Report -- State Statistics from 1960 - 2005
