Counting crime? A review on the production of crime data

Abstract

This literature review is aimed at providing an overview of the arguments, concerns, and issues raised by criminologists, sociologists, and psychologists regarding crime data and their quality. Given the increasing, widespread use of (crime) data to serve analytical purposes (e.g., predictive policing) and global discussions and measures on big data (policing), this review presents relevant and timely insights. It assists our understanding of how crime data are produced, handled, and influenced by first laying out its development and historical background. The main finding of this review is that while crime data are biased and commonly of ‘low quality’, knowledge on how they are produced, manipulated, and influenced by various actors and factors remains limited and difficult to obtain. As opposed to ‘zooming into’ crime data to ameliorate it, the findings indicate the necessity and urgency to ‘zoom into’ the practices of those who create and curate them.