Dodgy Statistics

[drplokta]

It says here that "...research for Downing Street in 2000 estimated the number of individual crimes at around 130 million a year."

If we assume that 20 million people drive a vehicle each day, and briefly go above the speed limit once (on average) on their journey, then that's 7.3 billion individual crimes per year, just from speeding. And my numbers are probably under-estimates. So why is Downing Street's estimate only around 1% (or less) of the true number of crimes?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Maybe they don't want to scare us?

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I think your usage of the word crime doesn't match theirs.

[drplokta]

Well, they get to choose whether or not speeding is a crime -- I don't. And their current choice is that speeding is a criminal offence.

[flick.livejournal.com]

But not in the 'have to include it in a list of convictions' sense, iirc.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

I think the word you are looking for is 'arrestable' - not all criminal offences are arrestable.

[armb.livejournal.com]

Since the rest of the article seems to be entirely about violent crime, it's not clear how relevent research that did include speeding numbers would be.
Without a link, it's impossible to tell whether it's the research or the reporting of it that is dodgy.

[armb.livejournal.com]

(Well, not necessarily impossible, but my Google-fu doesn't appear to be up to finding the specific research without a link.)

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

My guess (from California) is that they were considering crimes against property, or crimes against persons (most likely the former, considering their conservative nature), rather than technical infractions.