Crime rate

“ Already our efforts to crack down on career criminals, organized crime, drugpushers, and to enforce tougher sentences and paroles are having effect. In 1982 the crime rate dropped by 4.3 percent, the biggest decline since 1972. Protecting victims is just as important as safeguarding the rights of defendants. ”

“ And we've made remarkable progress, with violent crime dropping to its lowest levels in 25 years. For elderly Americans who once locked themselves into their homes in fear, the falling crime rate is a godsend. ”

“ We need to allot crime-prevention funds in areas that can actually prevent crime, and not just to build jailhouses, or to buy helicopters, and so forth. We need to have full backing for police officers from all public officials. We need to have better street lighting. We need to have surer -- and perhaps briefer -- sentences for those who commit crimes, and that there's a fairly good certainty that if someone is convicted, they'll be punished. We also need to understand the major causes of increases in the crime rate. ”

“ We have cut the growth of crime by nearly 90 percent. Two years ago crime was increasing at the rate of 18 percent annually. In the first three quarters of 1976, that growth rate had been cut to 2 percent. But crime, and the fear of crime, remains one of the most serious problems facing our citizens. ”

“ Industrial conditions also have a profound influence upon criminal statistics. Economic crises, hard times, strikes, lockouts, are all productive of crime. Quetelet, the Belgian statistician, thought that the general rule could be laid down that, as the price of food increases, crimes against property increase, while crimes against persons decrease. At any rate, increase in the cost of the necessities of life is very apt to increase crimes of certain sorts. ”

“ Howard Wines, an eminent specialist in criminal matters, that crime is steadily increasing at a faster rate than in due proportion to the increase of population. Nearly all the chief statisticians abroad tell the same tale. Dr. Mischler, of Vienna, and Professor Von Liszt, of Marburg, draw a deplorable picture of the increase of crime in Germany. In France, the criminal problem is as formidable and perplexing as in Germany. M. Henri Joli estimates that crime has increased 133 per cent. within the last half century, and is steadily rising. ”

“ Statistics released to the public do not include crime rates. Reliable data that would include petty crime would, in any event, be difficult to obtain because many minor infractions of law and all but the more serious of personal disputes are not termed crimes and are tried before the hundreds of local judicial commissions. ”

“ It is to be regretted that we have no reliable data from which to form even a probable estimate of either the number of criminals or the cost of crime in any one of our States or cities, so far as our information extends. If there were such, even in one State or city, an inference, of more or less value, might be drawn from a comparison of population, police force, &c. We can scarcely suppose that the incentives to crime are much more numerous and powerful here than in England. ”

“ In recent speeches in Hartford, Connecticut, and San Antonio, Texas, I've pointed out that the 7-percent decrease in crime reported for last year is the sharpest decrease in the history of the crime statistics, and it marks the first time the serious crime index has shown a decline 2 years in a row. ”

“ In his introduction to the "Criminal Statistics for 1898," recently published by the Home Office, Mr C. E. Troup, of that Department, says that the general conclusions to be drawn from a study of the comparative tables which form part of the statistical returns, may be summed up as follows—"That the actual number of crimes brought into the courts has diminished appreciably during the last thirty years; that, if the increase of population is taken into account, the decrease in crime becomes very marked ”

“ If statistics are to be allowed any weight at all, these figures incontestably mean that the total volume of crime is on the increase in England as well as everywhere else. It is fallacious to suppose that the authorities here are gaining the mastery over the delinquent population. Such a supposition is at once refuted by the statistics which have just been tabulated, and these are the only statistics which can be implicitly relied upon for testing the position of the country with regard to crime. ”

“ Before the introduction of a system of criminal statistics—a step taken by most peoples within the memory of men still living—it was impossible for civilised communities to ascertain with absolute accuracy whether crime was increasing or decreasing, or what transformation it was passing through in consequence of the social, political, and economic changes constantly taking place in all highly organised societies. It was also equally impossible to appreciate the effect of punishment for good or evil on the criminal population. ”

“ How large a proportion of the criminal population is made up of the middle and upper classes? An answer to this question would at once show the exact relation between poverty and crime. If it could be shown that the well-to-do classes, in proportion to their numbers, are just as much addicted to the commission of criminal acts as the poorer people, it would demonstrate that crime prevailed to an equal extent among all sections of the community, and was not the work of one class alone. Unfortunately, such statistics are not to be had. ”

“ Many people are of opinion that it is, and the idea is at present diligently fostered on the platform and in the press that we have at last found out the secret of dealing successfully with the criminal population. As far as I can ascertain, this belief is based upon the statement that the daily average of persons in prison is constantly going down. Inasmuch, as there was a daily average of over 20,000 persons in prison in 1878, and a daily average of about 15,000 in 1888, many people immediately jump at the conclusion that crime is diminishing. ”

“ Now, while it may be fairly questioned whether there is any actual increase of crime in the United States, and while, on the contrary, observation would seem to show an actual decrease, not only in crimes of violence, but in all major crimes, there nevertheless exists to-day a widespread contempt for the criminal law which, if it has not already stimulated a general increase of criminal activity, is likely to do so in the future. ”

“ Comparing the number of cases of murder, attempts to murder, manslaughter, shooting at, stabbing and wounding, and adding to these offences the crimes of burglary, housebreaking, robbery, and arson—comparing all these cases reported to the police for the five years 1870-1874, with offences of a like character reported in the five years 1884-1888, we find that the proportion of grave offences to the population was, in many cases, as great in the latter period as in the former. [7] This shows clearly that crime, while it is increasing in extent, is not materially decreasing in seriousness ”

“ Statistics in the United States show that in thirty years, from 1880 to 1910, the criminal population increased relative to population by one-third. This is only partly due to immigration, nor is it mainly because a large majority of criminals escape punishment. Two facts are to be kept constantly in mind: (1) Crime depends upon certain subjective and objective elements, and tends to increase or decrease without much regard to police protection. ”

“ It is only recently that we have made any serious effort to keep a [Pg 27] record of offenders shut up in penal institutions, of crimes which have been detected and of offenders who have been punished, and it is a fact well known in police circles that there is a great deal of crime which is never ferreted out. There is consequently very little use in trying to calculate the number of the entire criminal population. ”

“ It is quite certain, for instance, that the spread of education, of which Beccaria wrote in terms of such despair, means the diminution of crime; and as the majority of crimes are committed between the ages of twenty and forty, it may be predicted that from the present year onwards the great Act of 1870 will bear increasing fruit in lowering our criminal statistics. More too may be hoped for from the electric light than from any multiplication of prisons. ”

“ Passing from this point, we shall now inquire into the possibility of establishing some system of International Statistics, whereby the volume of crime in one country may be compared with the volume of crime in another. At the present time it is extremely difficult to institute any such comparison, and it is questionable if it can ever be properly done. In no two countries is the criminal law the same, and an act which is perfectly harmless when committed in one part of Europe, is considered in another as a contravention of the law. ”

“ According to these statistics, the proportion of crime to the population has remained almost the same for the last two decades; but, if the last two decades are compared with the first, the growth of crime has outstripped the growth of population."
The question whether crime is increasing in seriousness along with its expansion in volume may be answered best by an analysis of the number and nature of the indictable offenses brought up for trial during the three decades. ”

“ Owing to the federal system of government in America, it is almost impossible to estimate how much is spent in the prevention and punishment of crime in the United States, but Mr. Wines calculates that the police force alone costs the country fifteen million dollars annually. [9] In the United Kingdom the cost of criminal justice and administration is continually on the increase, and it has never been so high as it is at the present time. In the Estimates for the year 1891 the cost of Prisons and of the Asylum for criminal lunatics falls little short of a million sterling. ”

“ The criminal statistics have exposed this fallacy as completely, in reference to the different degrees of depravity in different parts of the empire, as the registrar-general's returns have, in regard to the different degrees of salubrity in employments, and mortality in rural districts and manufacturing places. It now distinctly appears that crime is greatly more prevalent in proportion to the numbers of the people in densely peopled than thinly inhabited localities, and that it is making far more rapid progress in the former situation than the latter. ”

“ During the nineteenth century, the number of criminals, of recidivists, of punishable offences, and the gravity of these latter, has increased to a greater extent than the population. The number of offences against public order, and of crimes against the person, has indeed diminished, but the number of crimes against property, and of offences against morality, has disproportionately increased. The number of the most serious crimes is smaller, but the number of relapses into crime has greatly increased. ”

“ The industrial activity of a country causes a considerable increase of criminality, especially when it displaces agriculture. Of 42 agricultural departments only 11, or 26%, go beyond the average number of assassinations in France; while the average is exceeded by [95] 10 out of the 26 departments of mixed industry, or 38%, and by 7 out of 17 manufacturing departments, or 41%. Rapes upon adults and crimes against persons show similar results.10
Percentage of departments exceeding the average of all France in:
Not only poverty, but often wealth as well may cause crime. ”

“ It has recently been pointed out by Dr Anderson, of the Criminal Investigation Department, that despite the marked decrease of crime which we congratulate ourselves has been one of the most noteworthy features of the Victorian era, "the professional criminal is developing and becoming a serious public danger." [246] Since the abolition of transportation the company of criminals who are criminal by deliberate choice has been steadily increasing, and every mitigation of the penal code, every alleviation of prison existence, has helped to bring recruits to the profession. ”

“ The cost of maintaining police systems for the prevention of crime, courts for the trial of accused persons, and prisons for the incarceration of the convicted, is about a billion dollars per year, or about as much as the country spends upon education.
Are crimes on the increase? Whether the number of crimes, taking the country as a whole, is increasing more rapidly than the growth of population we do not know. ”

“ The great sources of crime are the personal, the social, and the economic conditions of the individuals who commit it. Criminal statistics, to be exhaustive, ought to include not only the amount of crime and the degrees of punishment awarded to offenders; these statistics should also, as far as practicable, take cognisance of the sources from which crime undoubtedly springs. In this respect, our information, so far as it comes to us through ordinary channels, is lamentably deficient. It is confined to data respecting the age, sex, and occupation of the offender. ”

“ Irrespective of its effect on the criminal, what is the effect on the victim of the criminal? A man is held up on a lonely highway; the robber does not intend to kill. His face is exposed. If the penalty for robbery is life imprisonment, he kills to avoid detection. If it is death, he kills even before he robs. The same thing operates in rape, in burglary, and in other crimes. In all property crimes not only is no killing intended or wanted, but precautions are taken to guard against killing. All laws to make drastic penalties should really be entitled: "An Act to Promote Murder." ”

“ Criminal statistics show that crime increases in the aggregate, with more or less notable oscillations from year to year, rising or falling in successive waves. Thus it is evident that the level of criminality in any one year is determined by the different conditions of the physical and social environment, combined with the hereditary tendencies and occasional impulses of the individual, in obedience to a law which I have called, in analogy with chemical phenomena, the law of criminal saturation. ”