International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 46

What recent property crime trends in Western Europe tells us about the crime drop
It therefore appears that in the neighboring countries compared here, a decrease
in recorded crime rates took place between the beginning of 2000 and 2008, both for
domestic burglaries and motor-vehicle-related thefts.
After 2008, while the phenomenon continued almost at the same pace in Belgium,
Germany, and metropolitan France for motor-vehicle-related thefts recorded by the police,
the trend reversed in a comparable way for domestic burglary.
In France, it is possible to compare these changes with the annual victimization
statistics provided by the Cadre de vie et sécurité [“Quality of Life and Security”] crime
survey developed by the National Statistics Institute, INSEE, and ONDRP (Observatoire
national de la délinquance et des réponses pénales) [French National Supervisory Body on
Crime and Punishment].
Convergence in Trends between 2006 and 2011
In 2010, the ONDRP was brought to comment, in its bulletin on crimes reported
to the police in 2009, on the end of the drop in reported home thefts with forced entry in
metropolitan France:
Among the detailed categories of thefts that underwent the greatest increase over
one year, cambriolages de locaux d’habitations principales can be cited, for which
the number passed from 151,737 in 2008 to 164,150 in 2009, +8.2%. This variation
does not mean that the number of cambriolages recorded is at an intrinsically high
level: over five years, it dropped by 9% (or −16,229 cases). Nevertheless, it brings
to an end the sequence of drops that began in 2002, the year when 3.3 burglaries
of cambriolages de locaux d’habitations principales were recorded per thousand
inhabitants. In 2007 and 2008, this rate was at 2.4‰, a decrease of nearly one
point. In 2009, it returned to the level of 2006 of 2.6 cases per thousand inhabitants
(Bulletin annuel, ONDRP 2010).
In the introduction to this document, the role of annual victimization surveys in
measuring trends was mentioned:
In the absence of victimization survey results, which became available in
November 2010, we cannot be exhaustive in terms of the evolution of different
crime phenomena. . . . It should be recalled that the cases reported correspond
to the portion of crime that is brought to the knowledge of the police and the
gendarmes. Any assimilation of this portion to the entirety of crimes committed
means ignoring the existence of many infractions that are not followed up with
a complaint. It is precisely by carrying out surveys about victimization, that it
becomes possible to estimate crime rates that are not limited to those reported to
the police (Bulletin annuel, ONDRP 2010).
However, in November 2010, while the results did not diverge, there was no significant
increase between 2008 and 2009, whereas a significant decrease was measured between 2006
and 2008:
45