Crime Reduction - Helping to Reduce Crime in Your Area

This bulletin brings together statistical information on criminal justice collected by the Home Office and the Council of Europe. The data covers all EU countries, and selected others. The majority of the information has been collected from official sources. The period to 2001 is covered, but more recent data is available on England & Wales (covering the period 2002-2003).

Title: International comparisons of criminal justice statistics
Authors: Gordon Barclay & Cynthia Tavares with Sally Kenny, Arsalaan Siddique & Emma Wilby
Series: Home Office Statistical Bulletin 12/2003
Number of pages: 24
Date published: October 2003

Recorded Crime

Most countries collect data on the total number of crimes recorded but the manner and level of recording can vary quite sigificantly, making direct comparisons difficult. Reasons for differing recording practices include:

• Different legal and justice systems

• Different definitions of offences, and the offences that are included in the official figures

• Rates at which crimes are reported to the police and recorded by them

• The rules by which multiple offences are counted

• Data quality

With these caveats in mind, the report draws the following conclusions

Total Crime

Over the period 1997-2001 crime rose by an average 4% across the EU. The greatest rises were in France, Greece and Portugal (16%), and the greatest drops were in Italy and Denmark. England & Wales saw a fall of 2% over this period (see graph)

In 2000-2001 there was a rise of 3% on average across the EU. The largest rises were in Greece, Northern Ireland and Spain. Similar comparisons are given in the report for homicide, violent crime, robbery, domestic burglary, theft of a motor vehicle and drug trafficking.

Other data

Victimisation Rates

In addition to recorded crime, the report outlines victimisation rates, although the International Crime Victims Survey is indicated as being the most reliable source of this data. The trends given in the report are broadly similar to those for recorded crime.

Police Officer Numbers

Once again, differences in recording practices make direct comparisons difficult. Over the period 1997-2001 the was an average rise of 3% in police numbers across the EU. The highest rises were in Greece and the Netherlands, but there was a large fall in Northern Ireland. For the period 1999-2001 there was an average of 337 police officers per 100,000 population across the EU. A selection of other rates is given in the chart below.

Prison Population

In 2001 the average per capita rate of prison population was 87 per 100,000. The highest level was in England & Wales were it was 129 prisoners per 100,000 population, followed by Portugal (128) and Scotland (120). Higher rates were to be found outside the EU - most notably in the US (689 per 100K), Russia (673) and some Eastern European countries (eg 370 in Latvia).

Getting a copy

• Download International comparisons of criminal justice statistics from the Home Office website PDF 330Kb

Also available is a the data from which the report is drawn, available as an Excel spreadsheet

• Download International comparisons of criminal justice statistics - data spreadsheets Excel 794Kb