This morning I answered questions about sample size, normality, and p-values. This afternoon it’s the turn of the questions that come up every time people read crime statistics. Because of my background in criminology, I often get contacted by people who aren’t studying criminology at all: journalists, students from other majors, local government staff, even parents choosing where to live.
The four questions below cover almost everything I’ve ever been asked. The answers draw on BPS (Statistics Indonesia) Crime Statistics 2024.
1. “Which city or regional police area is the safest?”
It sounds like a simple question, but the answer depends on what you mean by “safe.”
If you look at the number of incidents, Metro Jaya Regional Police (Greater Jakarta) ranks highest with 77,261 incidents in 2024, followed by North Sumatra (60,724) and East Java (60,102). But those totals don’t account for population. Using the crime rate (crimes per 100,000 people), the risk ranking becomes North Sulawesi at 540, West Papua at 501, and South Sulawesi at 440, while Metro Jaya drops to 8th place at 316.
So when comparing regions, use a per-population ratio, not raw counts. And remember that the crime rate itself is calculated from recorded incidents, so each region’s reporting rate shapes it too. A region with easy-to-use reporting services can look “more dangerous” precisely because its residents report more often.
2. “Drug cases rose 12%. Does that mean drug trafficking is increasing?”
Recorded narcotics cases rose from 39,496 to 44,295. That fact is correct. The conclusion that “trafficking is increasing” doesn’t necessarily follow.
Narcotics offenses are crimes without a reporting victim. Nobody walks into a police station to report themselves as a buyer. Cases get recorded when officers find, arrest, or investigate. That’s why the numbers depend heavily on enforcement intensity. Step up the operations and the numbers rise. Scale them back and the numbers fall, while the actual trade may stay exactly the same.
The more interesting research question is: what changes that enforcement intensity, and is there comparison data, such as drug-use surveys or rehabilitation service records, that could test our interpretation? For students, this is a rich thesis topic.
3. “Why can police data and survey data be so different?”
The clearest example is West Java. Police data puts it as the province with the lowest crime rate (89 per 100,000), yet the Susenas household survey shows that 1.30% of its residents say they have been victims of crime, the third highest in the country and well above the national average of 0.73%.
Those two numbers don’t cancel each other out. They measure different things in different units. Police data counts reported incidents. The survey counts the percentage of residents who say they were victims, regardless of whether they reported it. The gap is valuable information, not an error: it shows how far official records sit from what people actually experience.
A practical way to compare them is to use rankings rather than raw numbers, then compute the rank correlation between the two measures. If the rankings move in the same direction, both sources “agree” on which regions are more prone to crime. If they move in opposite directions, something needs explaining, such as differences in reporting rates.
4. “What is the dark figure of crime?”
The dark figure of crime is the gap between the crimes that actually happen and the crimes that get officially recorded. Criminologists have used the term for a long time, because it was clear from the start that police records only capture part of reality.
The data is right there in Crime Statistics 2024: only about 20.28% of crime victims reported to the police, down from 23.36% the year before. As a very rough illustration, if a type of crime has 1,000 recorded cases and only 20% of victims report, the actual number of victims could be around 5,000. That calculation rests on many assumptions, such as an identical reporting rate across all regions, which is clearly not true. But it’s enough to show the scale.
Summary of answers
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| Which region is the safest? | Compare per 100,000 people, not raw counts |
| Drug cases up means trafficking up? | Not necessarily: the number also measures how intense enforcement is |
| Why do police and survey data differ? | They measure different things: reported incidents vs. residents’ experience |
| What is the dark figure? | The gap between actual and recorded crime; about 80% of victims didn’t report, per the 2024 survey |
Bonus question: “Are big cities always more dangerous?”
This question usually follows. The criminological answer has layers. Big cities do offer more opportunities for crime: more people, vehicles, and valuables in the same place, plus looser social control than small neighborhoods where everyone knows each other. On the other hand, big cities also tend to have more accessible reporting services, so more incidents get recorded.
As a result, recorded figures in big cities can be high for two reasons at once: more incidents, and easier reporting. Untangling how much each contributes is one of the biggest research challenges in this field, and it’s why researchers are rarely satisfied with a single data source.
Mini exercise: calculate a crime rate yourself
A crime rate is actually a simple calculation: the number of incidents divided by the population, multiplied by 100,000. Here’s an illustration with made-up numbers, just to show the logic.
Suppose Region A records 3,000 incidents with a population of 600,000, and Region B records 6,000 incidents with a population of 2,000,000. Region B has twice as many cases. But Region A’s crime rate is 3,000 ÷ 600,000 × 100,000 = 500, while Region B’s is 6,000 ÷ 2,000,000 × 100,000 = 300. Per resident, Region A is actually the riskier one.
Try it again with data from your own region. Don’t forget to note the year, the source of the population figures, and whether every type of incident is included.
If you want to explore the data yourself
The Crime Statistics publication is available on the BPS website. The most practical way to start: open the latest edition, read the introduction and technical notes first (that’s where definitions and data sources are explained), and only then look at the tables. Compare one table from police registration data with one table from the survey (Susenas), then write down three things: what is being measured, which unit is used, and who isn’t counted. The exercise takes about an hour and sharpens your reading enormously.
A word of caution
Crime statistics are about real people: victims, families, and offenders. When we talk about “numbers,” we’re talking about events that are sometimes painful. That’s why our language should be careful, not sensational, and never blame victims. Good statistics help us understand and prevent, not frighten.
If you have a question about crime statistics you’d like explored in more depth, leave it in the comments.
Read also: Ask a Statistician: 3 Questions I Get Asked the Most and 5 Misconceptions About Official Statistics.
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