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Crime Trends in Western Europe according to Official Statistics from 1990 to 2007

  • Chapter
The International Crime Drop

Part of the book series: Crime Prevention and Security Management ((CPSM))

Abstract

The so-called crime drop observed in the United States since the beginning of the 1990s led to an impressive number of publications in which different criminologists provide various and sometimes contradictory explanations for an evolution of crime that they had not foreseen. 1 Since 2006, some authors (e.g. van Dijk, 2006; van Dijk, van Kesteren and Smit, 2007; Rosenfeld and Messner, 2009; Farrell et al., 2011) suggest that there is also a crime drop in Europe. However, analyses of victimization studies, police statistics on offences recorded by the police and conviction statistics on persons convicted by the courts show that there is no general crime drop, because property crime and violent crime are following different trends (Aebi and Linde 2010, 2012a). As a consequence, the European debate — summarized by Tonry (2010) — should focus first on establishing the actual evolution of crime trends and, only after that, on providing explanations for that evolution.

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Authors
  1. Marcelo F. Aebi
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  2. Antonia Linde
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Human Security and Safety, International Victimology Institute, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

    Jan van Dijk (Professor of Victimology) (Professor of Victimology)

  2. Nottingham Trent University, UK

    Andromachi Tseloni (Professor of Criminology) (Professor of Criminology)

  3. Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies, Canada

    Graham Farrell (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor) (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor)

  4. School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Canada

    Graham Farrell (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor) (Senior Research Fellow, Visiting Professor)

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© 2012 Marcelo F. Aebi and Antonia Linde

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Aebi, M.F., Linde, A. (2012). Crime Trends in Western Europe according to Official Statistics from 1990 to 2007. In: van Dijk, J., Tseloni, A., Farrell, G. (eds) The International Crime Drop. Crime Prevention and Security Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137291462_3

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