Abstract
This article presents 10-year trends (1998–2007) on some common crimes: homicide, assault, rape, robbery, car theft, domestic burglary and drug offences. In addition, a few less common offences in police statistics, such as money laundering, corruption, offences against computer data and systems are discussed, even though trends of these crimes are not available. Trends are shown from Western, Central and Eastern Europe, where significant sociopolitical changes have occurred. Although police data actually describes more the recording practices of the officials than the amount of crime, police data is highly valuable for research purposes. Most countries continuously collect information about police activity, and the police is mostly the starting point for proceeding with a case in the criminal justice system. In the USA, all common offences recorded by the police have decreased during the recent years. In Europe, property crimes, homicide and robbery have decreased in most countries, but violence and drug crimes have increased. According to the crime victim surveys, the increase in assault cannot be explained by the increasing reporting activity of victims; the increase seems real. The level of crime differs considerably in different areas: for instance, homicide is most common in Eastern Europe, but assault is much higher in Western Europe.
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Notes
The European Sourcebook project also collects data on the total number of offences in each counrty, but this item was excluded from the analysis as the scope of recorded crimes is dissimilar across countries.
The first report was published in 1999 by the Council of Europe (PC-S-ST (99) 8 DEF). The continuation of the European Sourcebook project became possible with the financial support of the Home Office (UK), the Dutch Ministry of Justice Research and Documentation Centre (WODC), the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs (through the University of Lausanne) and the French CESDIP (Aebi et al. 2006, 9).
Further editions were published in 2003, 2006, and 2010. They are available at http://europeansourcebook.org/index.html
The authors are the European Sourcebook group members and regional coordinators of the project. They are also responsible for their national statistical data.
The UK data, according to different statistical systems, are presented in three parts: UK England and Wales; UK Northern Ireland; UK Scotland.
The social and economic changes in Europe started much earlier in a Polish shipyard, where Solidarność was established (1980), and were then followed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Perestroika in the Soviet Union.
The average annual growth was calculated as the geometric mean of police crime rates for 1998–2007.
Another example is Finland. Here, in the Jokela school shooting tragedy, eight persons were killed in 2007. This increased the yearly number of homicides that was used to calculate the annual change rate.
According to Malby’s study (2010), the homicide rate in the Russian Federation was the highest in Europe; it was nearly twice as high when the calculation was based on health data compared with Russian police data. The Russian Federation is excluded from our analysis, because it was not able to distinguish between completed and attempted homicide.
In Poland, the number of robberies increased during 1989–1990 by 80%, including armed robberies of banks, etc. (Gruszczyńska and Marczewski 1995).
Rates may differ due to availability of cars/motor vehicles in the country. In this case, a better measure would be the rate related to the number of registered vehicles or the number of motor vehicle owners in the country (similar to the victimisation survey). However, such data are not available in the Sourcebook, and therefore the rate per 100,000 population was used.
The growth in the CEE countries has sometimes been associated with the expansion of criminalisation. In Poland, for example, possessing any quantity became illegal in 1997, and in 1998–2007, drug offences increased by a factor of three (Siemaszko, et al. 2009).
Money laundering is an example of complex crimes that are very difficult to measure. First detailed comparative report on a European level was published in 2010 (Tavares et al. 2010).
The interview questions were as follows (van Dijk et al. 2007):
Assaults and threats: “… have you over the past 5 years been personally attacked or threatened by someone in a way that really frightened you, either at home or elsewhere, such as in a pub, in the street, at school, on public transport, on the beach, or at your workplace.”
Robbery: “Over the past 5 years, has anyone stolen something from you by using force or threatening you, or did anyone try to steal something from you by using force or threatening you.”
Sexual assault: “…People sometimes grab, touch or assault others for sexual reasons in a really offensive way. This can happen either at home, or elsewhere, for instance in a pub, the street, at school, on public transport, in cinemas, on the beach, or at one’s workplace. Over the past 5 years, has anyone done this to you? Please take your time to think about this.”
Theft of personal property: “Apart from theft involving force, there are many other types of theft of personal property, such as pickpocketing or theft of a purse, wallet, clothing, jewellery, sports equipment. This can happen at one’s work, at school, in a pub, on public transport, on the beach, or in the street. Over the past 5 years, have you personally been victim of any of these thefts?”
Burglary: “Over the past 5 years, did anyone actually get into your house/residence without permission, and steal or try to steal something? I am not including here thefts from garages, sheds or lock-ups?”
Car theft: “Over the past 5 years, have you or another member of your household had any of their cars/vans/trucks stolen? Please take your time to think about it!
Burglary and car theft are household-related questions, and only those were asked about car theft who had had a car in their private use over the past 5 years before the interview.
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Gruszczyńska, B.Z., Heiskanen, M. Trends in Police-recorded Offences. Eur J Crim Policy Res 18, 83–102 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-011-9160-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-011-9160-0