'The official criminal statistics are an accurate measure of the extent and seriousness of crime. Discuss'

Official criminal statistics have always been found as unable to become an accurate measure of the extent and seriousness of crime. With all the different hidden types, along with many classifications and perspectives of crime, it is literally impossible to construct a method to collate all this information and publish it annually as statistics. "The mere fact that an incident is reported to the police (even one which, on the surface at least, appears to …

…Plan 2003/04 An Analysis of Official Crime Statistics, Matt Elsmore http://www.solent.ac.uk/law/crime.html viewed 1/03/04 British Crime Survey 2001 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hosb1801.pdf viewed 19/02/04 National Crime Recording Standard http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/countrecstan.pdf viewed 13/02/04 Official Criminal Statistics England and Wales 2002 http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm56/5696/5696.pdf viewed19/03/04 Victimless Crime Page, Chris Newman http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~nifty/victimless.html viewed 2/03/04