Recorded serious crime 10% higher than statistics suggest
This is 10% times higher than official statistics suggest, which show that recorded serious crime rose by only 2% between 1996 and 2006.
But new information provided by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows when comparable figures are used for 1996 and 2006, at least 30,000 additional crimes should be added to last year’s figures for headline, or serious, crime.
Up until now, experts and academics have been unable to accurately compare recorded figures for serious crime before and after 2000, when a new classification system was introduced by gardaí.
This removed a large category of offences — defined as criminal damage — from headline crime from 2000 onwards. The category has since been included as non-headline crime or less serious crime. Prior to 2000, headline crime was known as indictable crime and non-headline as non-indictable.
After a detailed examination of the criminal damage offences, the CSO is satisfied that at least 75% of these crimes could be added to headline crime to make them comparable to indictable crime.
“If the indictable categorisation was still in use today then a large number of current non-headline offences would be included,” said Ger Healy of the CSO’s Crime Statistics Division, which has taken over responsibility for the compilation of crime statistics.
“Having examined current criminal damage offences it is clear that least 75% of them would have been included in the indictable category,” said Mr Healy.
He warned there were still serious limitations in comparing the overall figures, as they only referred to recorded crime and did not include crime that goes unreported to gardaí.
But he said that if comparisons were to be made, then it would be more accurate to include the criminal damage offences. “A better comparison would be to include a large proportion of criminal damage cases.”
The Government often compares headline figures with the old indictable figures, even though criminal damage is not included. It has used these figures to give estimates on serious crime rates per head of population.
The table shows that when figures for 75% of criminal damage offences are included there were 34.1 serious crimes per 1,000 people in 2006, compared to 24.1 before their inclusion. This compares to a rate of 27.8 in 1996.
This shows that when criminal damage was excluded, the crime rate fell noticeably. But when 75% of the crimes are included, the figure rises significantly.
This increase is despite the fact that the population in the country has jumped by 17% in the same period.
