Frogs in a Boiling Pot of Crime, Part VI

When Fifteenth is Better Than Third

Official crime statistics are one way to gauge the levels of criminality in a society.  But they can be misleading.  Official statistics represent what the police and courts have accomplished in dealing with crime.  They do not measure the actual incidence of crime in the society.

A lot of crime goes unreported.  Still more is reported, but is unable to be investigated because there are no witnesses, no leads.  A classic is the grabbed purse or wallet.  A snatch, run off, rip out the cash, dump the wallet anywhere.  Or, leaving one's wallet unattended for a fraction of a second in a bar and it can disappear, with no-one the wiser.  Unless witnesses can come forward to describe the offender and give details, very little can be done even to begin an investigation. 

Consequently, it is likely that official statistics substantially understate the incidence of crime.  But how substantially?
  One attempt to address that question is the International Crime Survey.  This applies the methodology of statistical surveys to the citizens' experience of crime.  According to Wikipedia, normally in these surveys (which have been driven by the European Community) crime is defined as:

• The offences
  • Theft of a car
  • Theft from a car
  • (car vandalism)
  • Theft of a motorcycle/moped
  • Bicycle theft
  • Burglary
  • Attempted burglary
  • Robbery
  • Theft of personal property
  • Sexual offences (against women)
  • Assault & threat

The NZ Government has undertaken its own Crime and Safety Survey ("NZCASS"), with the results reflecting a survey completed in 2005.

These surveys measured crime by asking a large sample of the population how often they had been victimised by criminals [in the previous year].  The 2005 results, (published in 2006), revealed that there were not 442,540 offences committed every year, as recorded by the police for 2008/09, but almost 2.8 million (despite the fact that thousands of crimes, such as commercial crime, shoplifting, crimes against under 15 year olds, fraud, drug offences, traffic offences, crimes regarded as victimless, murder, and manslaughter are not included in this survey.) . . . Its results showed that the public were shouldering a crime burden more than six times larger than shown by police recorded crime figures . . . [David Fraser,  Badlands. NZ: A Land Fit For Criminals (Kaukapakapa, Auckland: Howling At The Moon Publishing, Ltd, 2011), p.79f.]

The 2009 NZCASS showed basically the same results.

The 2009 NZCASS indicates that, overall, there has been very little change in the level and nature of crime since the 2006 NZCASS. Where changes did occur, they were typically small and signalled a reduction in the extent and impact of crime on victims.

In addition:

•  As in the 2006 survey, victims said they reported one-third of the crime they experienced to the Police.

• Theft of, and from, vehicles continued to have the highest level of reporting to the Police.


• Sexual offences had the lowest level of reporting to the Police, typically because the matter was considered private and/or the victim felt ashamed or embarrassed.

So, the bottom line here is that two thirds of actual crime goes unreported to police.

Whilst it is encouraging to hear that crime numbers (as reported by the NZ Police) are dropping off, this is no comfort if it represents lower reporting of actual crimes to the police.  It is not progress in any sense if, say, we move from the present situation where two thirds of crimes are not reported to one where three quarters are not reported.  To be sure the NZ Police would be able to report a substantial drop in crime and criminality, but it would be a charade.

The real test is whether the next NZCASS will show a significant drop in the incidence of crime as experienced by the citizens to match the police's encouraging statistics.  Only then can we be sure progress is actually being made.

Crime surveys are not exactly the same in each country, so comparisons can be misleading to an extent.  The EU has persisted in attempting to compare the results of national crime incidence surveys across thirty countries.  Of the worst 15 countries, New Zealand currently ranks third--far worse than the US, Canada, and Australia. 

The results are:
1. Ireland
2. England and Wales
3. New Zealand
4. Iceland
5. Northern Ireland
6. Estonia
7. Netherlands
8. Denmark
9. Mexico
10. Switzerland
11. Belgium
12. USA
13. Canada
14. Australia
15. Sweden
[Fraser, op cit., p. 85.]