Crime Statistics - Counting Rules

Counting Rules

Counting rules vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Relatively few standards exist and none that permit international comparability beyond a very limited range of offences. However, many jurisdictions accept the following:

• There must be a prima facie case that an offence has been committed before it is recorded. That is either police find evidence of an offence or receive a believable allegation of an offense being committed. Some jurisdictions count offending only when certain processes happen, such as an arrest is made, ticket issued, charges laid in Court or only upon securing a conviction.
• Multiple reports of the same offence usually count as one offence. Some jurisdictions count each report separately, others count each victim of offending separately.
• Where several offences are committed at the same time, in one act of offending, only the most serious offense is counted. Some jurisdictions record and count each and every offense separately, others count cases, or offenders, that can be prosecuted.
• Where multiple offenders are involved in the same act of offending only one act is counted when counting offenses but each offender is counted when apprehended.
• Offending is counted at the time it comes to the attention of a law enforcement officer. Some jurisdictions record and count offending at the time it occurs.

Offending that is a breach of the law but for which no punishment exists is often not counted. For example: Suicide, which is technically illegal in most countries, may not be counted as a crime, although attempted suicide and assisting suicide are.

Also traffic offending and other minor offending that might be dealt with by using fines, rather than imprisonment, is often not counted as crime. However separate statistics may be kept for this sort of offending.