To understand the phenomenon of crime, to analyze it, to control it, and then to prevent it, it becomes necessary to collect accurate statistics of crimes. It is also necessary to evaluate the performance of law enforcement agencies. This is a very complicated, complex, and time-consuming matter.
To understand this complexity, it is necessary to clarify two or three terms. Whether the stolen property of the affected person has been returned to him or has been recovered.
Crime Rate
The increasing or decreasing pace of crimes in a particular area during a specific period is called the crime rate. Although this concept and these trends can be very useful for society, unfortunately crime statistics are highly unreliable. They are based only on those crimes that are reported to the police or those that are discovered by them. Some crimes are even deliberately ignored by the police. The reasons for not reporting crimes have already been discussed above.
Sometimes, the number of crimes is deliberately distorted by departments in order to highlight the performance of that department or the ruling party.
At times, the crime rate of one period or country is compared with that of another period or country, but such comparisons are invalid because the laws of each country are different, and even within the same country, laws keep changing.
Economists have developed the Cost of Living Index and several other indicators to guide themselves and the administration. Criminologists also wish that there were some kind of index for crime that could be useful for administrators and researchers according to their needs. However, this seems difficult at present because crime statistics cannot be relied upon.
Apart from the above reasons, there are other reasons as well for this difficulty.
First: The definitions of crime differ under different sets of laws.
Second: The sources of data are very different, such as police departments, courts, prisons, and correctional institutions.
Even the police do not record crimes in a uniform manner. Therefore, it is said that crime statistics are actually indicators of the performance of law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, efforts are ongoing to develop such an index that could be beneficial for administrators and researchers. However, whatever data is collected is analyzed from various perspectives.
The first task is to review the total number of crimes. While analyzing them, it is examined what the nature of the crimes is. Crimes against persons include murder, violence, rape, etc., while crimes against property include robbery, theft, armed theft, burglary, etc. These crimes are divided into different categories, and it is observed in which direction criminal activities are moving. Then an investigation is made as to why this is happening and how it can be prevented.
While analyzing total crimes, it is also observed over what period these crimes occurred, and they are compared with crimes that occurred during the same period in the past so that it can be determined whether any change has occurred in criminal activities.
Crimes are also compared and contrasted on the basis of area. For example, crimes occurring in one province, district, or police station are compared with those in another or neighboring province, district, or police station, so that the overall situation becomes clear.
From crime statistics, it is also estimated how many people have been victims of criminal activities—that is, how many people were killed, how many suffered violence, how many were involved in riots, and what was the value of the property affected by criminals. Through this analysis, it is also determined how much wealth was looted in robberies, how much in burglaries, how much in thefts, and so on. This analysis also sheds useful light on criminal activities and provides good guidance to those responsible for crime prevention.
The next stage is the analysis of individuals involved in crimes. In this, it is examined how many of these offenders are previously convicted and how many times they have been punished. How many criminals are first-time offenders? What are their ages? What is their level of education, and how much potential there is for their reform? It is also observed whether they commit crimes individually or in groups. This too provides guidance to organizations working for crime prevention.
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