Crime and Delinquency in the United States: An Over-All View

Abstract

To describe the scope, nature, and trends of criminality in any country, it is necessary to rely upon crimi nal statistics. The task is made difficult in the United States by the multiplicity and diversity of jurisdictions, each state as well as the federal system having its own criminal legislation, its own police, courts, and correctional agencies, and its own methods of compiling and publishing criminal statistics. The most important national series of criminal statistics is pub lished by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was claimed that 89 per cent of the United States population resided in the areas covered by those reports in 1959. There exists the general limitation that statistics are based on crimes known to the police. Also, the picture of criminality will depend on the stage in the law enforcement process at which statistics are gathered, because a process of selection operates at each stage between offense and sentence. As traditionally constructed and published, criminal statistics are deficient in a number of respects. They do not, for example, reveal occupation, em ployment status, or social class of offenders, nor do they show the existence of organized crime or gang, even juvenile gang, activity. The social and financial costs of criminality are great enough to warrant information sufficiently detailed to provide an improved basis for preventive action and repressive meas ures.—Ed.