An Analysis of Crime Rate Narratives in Police Annual Reports

• In Event: Narrative Criminology IV: What Narratives of the State Do, and Doing Resistance

Abstract

Data on reported crime are not only important in criminology; they are also important for criminal justice agencies such as the police. In order to create and assign meaning to the data, the police must provide a narrative, and in my paper I will present the crime rate narratives in the Oslo Police annual reports from 1950 to 2015. The “same” statistics - data on reported crime - have been narrated in various ways under different social, political and ideological circumstances. In the first decades, the police did not include themselves in the narratives. They were reluctant both to establish causality and suggest any solutions to the increasing crime rate. The crime rate was seen as living a life of its own, at least a life independent of the police and policing activities. Gradually, the police become an active participant in the crime rate narratives, both as part of the diagnosis and prognosis. They attach themselves to the crime rate by explaining decreases and increases as a direct result of policing activities. This new narrative reduces the scope of crime policy initiatives. Other factors influencing the crime rate in society become invisible when the crime rate is seen as the result of police activity.

Author

• Heidi Mork Lomell, University of Oslo