# In your country, when does an action become, for statistical purposes, listed as a crime?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-country-when-does-an-action-become-for-statistical-purposes-listed-as-a-crime/916212>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 24, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-country-when-does-an-action-become-for-statistical-purposes-listed-as-a-crime/916212 "2020-07-24T13:13:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-country-when-does-an-action-become-for-statistical-purposes-listed-as-a-crime/916212/1 "2020-07-24T13:13:06Z")

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People say, X-country has a low crime rate or a high crime rate, but there is no equivalence in reporting standards. Which means each country reports the crime rate that their regulatory body dictates they report.

What country are you from and how does your country determine its crime rate?

I’m Australian and I actually don’t know how Australia reports its crime rates. I live in Japan though and I know that Japan reports a crime only when the police decide that a crime has taken place. And that only happens when they have a slam dunk case. So that’s why they have a 99% conviction rate and a “low” crime rate. Other crimes go unreported.

What happens in your country?

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**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-country-when-does-an-action-become-for-statistical-purposes-listed-as-a-crime/916212/2 "2020-07-24T14:32:28Z")

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In England and Wales, we have both what the police record as crimes and the Crime Survey, which attempts to capture people’s personal experience of crime. The Office for National Statistics tries to [put both together to report overall trends](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice). There’s a portal based on police recorded crime statistics that can give you a [snapshot view of crime down to the level of individual streets.](https://www.police.uk/pu/your-area/)

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-country-when-does-an-action-become-for-statistical-purposes-listed-as-a-crime/916212/3 "2020-07-24T17:57:00Z")

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As you note, convictions or even arrests provide an incomplete measure.  
In the US, but I doubt specific to there, there are two methods used: actual measured crime, and anonymous surveys about instances where you might’ve been a victim, even if it wasn’t reported. An example of the former is the FBI [UCR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Crime_Reports). The latter, the [NCVS](https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ncvs.html).