Dark Figure of Crime
Definition
The gap between the actual volume of crime and the amount recorded in official statistics. Crimes go unrecorded when victims do not report them, when police do not log reports, or when statistical definitions exclude certain acts. Victimisation surveys are the primary tool for estimating the dark figure.
- Field
- Criminology and crime statistics
- What it describes
- Gap between actual crime and officially recorded crime
- Main causes
- Non-reporting, non-recording, narrow legal definitions
- Primary measurement tool
- Victimisation and self-report surveys
Common questions
How do criminologists estimate the dark figure of crime?+
Victimisation surveys ask a representative sample of the population directly whether they experienced crime in a given period, independent of whether they reported it to police. Comparing survey estimates to official police records reveals the size of the reporting gap for different offence types.
Which crimes tend to have the largest dark figure?+
Offences with a personal or stigmatised element, such as sexual assault and domestic violence, and low-value property crimes that victims judge not worth reporting, consistently show the widest gap between survey estimates and official statistics.
Related terms
- Criminology
- The scientific study of crime, its causes and distribution across populations, the operation of criminal justice institutions, and strategies for prevention and...
- Penology
- The branch of criminology concerned with the theory and practice of punishment and imprisonment. It examines the aims of punishment (retribution, deterrence,...
- Victimisation Survey
- A survey that asks a random population sample about crimes experienced in a reference period, regardless of whether those incidents were reported...
- Victimology
- The sub-field of criminology that studies crime victims: their characteristics, the victim-offender relationship, the impacts of victimisation, and the adequacy of legal...
- Administrative Data
- Records generated by an agency, such as police, courts or prisons, as a by-product of its operational work, later reused for research...
- Burglary
- The offence of entering a building or structure without authorisation with intent to commit an offence inside. Distinguished from theft by the...
- Cohort Study
- A longitudinal design that follows the same defined group of people, typically sharing a birth year or an event, over an extended...
- CompStat
- A police management and accountability system first implemented by the New York City Police Department in 1994. CompStat uses regularly updated crime...
- Crime Hotspot
- A small geographic area where crime incidents cluster at a rate significantly higher than surrounding areas over a defined time period. Hotspot...
- Crime Prevention
- Strategies and interventions aimed at reducing the incidence or severity of crime before it occurs. Includes situational prevention (modifying environments to reduce...
- CSEW (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
- The principal victimisation survey in England and Wales, conducted by the Office for National Statistics since 1982. Interviews around 35,000 adults annually...
- Deviance
- Behaviour that violates social norms, whether or not it is also illegal. Criminology studies deviance as well as crime because the boundary...
Explained in these topics
- Criminology, Law, and Forensic Science
- The Dark Figure of Crime and Crime MappingThe total volume of criminal offences that occur but do not appear in official statistics. Comprises crimes not reported to police, crimes reported but not rec...
- Property Crime and Economic OffendingThe volume of crime that is committed but never reported to police and therefore absent from official statistics. The dark figure is proportionally largest for...
- Sources of Crime and Criminal Justice DataThe gap between the true volume of offending in a population and the volume that appears in official records.
- Victimisation and Self-Report SurveysThe portion of crime that is not recorded in official statistics because it was not reported to police, was reported but not recorded, or was not detected at a...
- Violent Crime as a Social PhenomenonThe gap between crimes that occur and crimes that appear in official records. Largest for sexual violence and intimate partner violence, where social stigma, f...
- What Is CriminologyThe gap between the total volume of crime that occurs and the amount that is reported to, recorded by, or detected by official agencies. Victimisation surveys...