Reported Criminal Offences (Quarterly)

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Population and education, Social Statistics
Iben Birgitte Pedersen
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Reported Criminal Offences (Quarterly) 2023 Quarter 4

The purpose of the statistics is to show the number of criminal offenses in violation of the penal code and the special laws (except those contained in the Danish Road Traffic Act) to the police. The statistics on reported criminal offences date back to 1921, but are in its present form comparable from 1995 onwards.

Statistical presentation

The statistics are a quarterly statement of the number of offences of penal code and special laws/legislation reported to the police or discovered by the police itself. The reported criminal offences can be broken down by type of offenses and geographical on regions and municipalities.

Statistical processing

The source of the statistics is The Central Register of Reported Criminal Offences - administered by the National Commissioner of the Danish Police. Data are delivered quarterly via System-to-system-transmission. The data go through a probability check in form of a comparison with data from the previous year, key variables are checked for valid values and irrelevant offences are deleted.

Key series are seasonal adjusted. Seasonal adjustments are made for sexual offenses, crimes of violence, offence against property and other offences, as well as selected subcategories where there may be registered seasonal variations. Be aware that the effect of COVID-19 has made data more uncertain than usual.

Relevance

The statistics are used broadly by the authorities, organizations, researchers, the press etc. as a basis for public and private planning, training, research and public debate. Views and suggestions from key users are taken into consideration in the preparation of the statistics.

Accuracy and reliability

The statistics are made based on the data recorded at the time the extract is made. There is also produced an annual statistics for this area which is more complete. Comparisons between the quarterly statistics and the annual statistics reveal that the quarterly statistics under-estimate the number of reported criminal offences with approximately 8 percentages. There is, from quarter to quarter, a shift in the data; part of the registered reported crimes in a given quarter may refer to a previous quarter.

The statistics do not include information on the hidden criminality, i.e. committed criminal offences not reported to the police.

Timeliness and punctuality

The publishing time for the statistics is about 20 days. The statistics are usually published without delay in relation to the scheduled date.

Comparability

The statistics have been prepared on the same basis since 1995. Due to changes in the grouping of the criminal offences caution should be shown by comparing figures over time before this year.

Accessibility and clarity

The statistics are published in News from Statistics Denmark. In StatBank the numbers on reported criminal offences are published in the tables STRAF10, STRAF11 and STRAF12.

Furthermore the numbers are included in the publication Kriminalitet (Criminality). Se more on the statistics Subject Page.