ABSTRACT
The hope of being able to compare the criminal statistics of one country with another has been maintained ever since the first statistics appeared in France in the mid-nineteenth century. In juvenile delinquency, the tendency was first to use juvenile court statistics. But so many different courses of action are open to the police that the police statistics are today agreed to be the best. Since 1950, the seventy or so countries and territories that are members of the organization have supplied statistics of crime of limited scope, but of a type which is designed to afford some broad comparability. They comprise statistics for eight groups of offences: homicide; sex offences, grand larceny, and petty larceny; major larceny; minor larceny; fraud; counterfeiting; offences connected with drugs; and total offences. Countries with very high homicide rates report few sexual crimes. Apart from homicidal attacks and sex crimes, a third most interesting aspect of the statistics refers to offences involving drugs.
