Crime and Penal Measures

Abstract

This chapter deals with national, as distinct from local, trends in (i) Judicial Statistics for Criminal Proceedings: i.e. appearances in criminal courts and their outcome, whether this takes the form of an acquittal or a sentence. (ii) Prison Statistics: i.e. admissions to prisons, their populations and the lengths of prison sentences. (iii) Statistics of Recidivism: i.e. of persons who are convicted more than once. (iv) Criminal Statistics Proper: i.e. statistics of offences committed, in so far as these are officially known. (v) Clear-up Statistics: i.e. statistics of officially known crimes which are ‘cleared up’. ‘Clearing up’ means tracing the crime to an offender, even if the offender is not always convicted of it. This is the nearest equivalent — although in most ways superior — to the statistics of ‘arrests’ which are published in some other countries (e.g. the U.S.A.). (vi) Police and Probation Manpower Statistics: i.e. the number of persons employed by police forces and probation and aftercare committees. KeywordsBRITISH SocietyPrison SentenceJuvenile CourtHigh CourtCriminal StatisticsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.