Quote Originally Posted by Pete67 View Post
It might be more about "clear-up rate" traffic offences are a great way of increasing these because they are much more likely to be "cleared up"
Eg, a fine for speeding as a result of a camera taking the photo, if you accept the fine, the offence has been "cleared up" because one is admitting the offence, if you go to court and win, then the "crime" is also "cleared up" because it has been proved no offence has been commited!
I would be really interested to hear from any Police on this one, perhaps I'm wrong or just really cynical. btw I'm not anti-police or anything like it, got flashed doing nearly 50 (d'oh) on a deserted seafront road at 6am one summer, it was a 30 zone so a fair cop. I had just finished a 12 hour night shift and wasn't paying attention, good lesson learnt for me, still paid extra insurance for four years though...
I preface this by saying I retired from CID 22 years ago and although I try to keep up, things do change.

For the most part only crime which is reported can be on the list of 'crimes committed.'

The exception is for example possession of drugs, or handling stolen property etc. as they can not exist, as a reported crime, unless someone is arrested, and these in effect distort clear up figures.

Everyone who is arrested for this type of increases known crime by one. Thus if a lot of people are arrested for this type of crime reported crime increases. One might say that would be an insensitive not to arrest anyone in that type of case.

That of course also applies to say speeding. It's not a reported offence unless someone is caught. And (unless the collation of figures has changed) a traffic offence cannot be a 'clear up' for a crime.

A simple example: If no one is arrested, say for handling stolen property then there are no crimes of that type to clear up. If someone is arrested then, whilst it is one clear up it is also one more listed crime.

Generally. For every crime reported, where no one is arrested for that crime, that number cannot be cancelled by an arrest. Example 100 crimes reported and not solved + 100 people arrested for other crimes. Clear up is 100 out of 200, thus a 50% clear-up rate.

This is a 'technical' answer just in response to Pete 67's post.