The article considers the problems of Russian and foreign practice of crime registration, its nature, situation with the latent crime and the methodology of the latency calculation. Latency study is one of the areas of crime analysis, with the ultimate goal of improving the law enforcement practice. The comparative nature of this analysis enriches the content of scientific knowledge about these processes and its practical significance. Thus, it is forced to consider that the comparison of statistics of different countries is related to certain limitations, because different legal systems have different understanding of a number of crimes; in addition the specificity of the crime metering in the national statistics has some effects (hence the range of indicators and their comparability). Official data largely do not coincide with the actual crime. There is a significant layer of latency between them. It is hidden and concealed crimes which can not be metered properly. Its magnitude is influenced by many factors, without which it is impossible to give a reasonable assessment and forecast of the situation. In most developed countries the overall level of latency is much lower than in Russia; if it grows it is mainly due to the growth of the «natural» latency, when the population report to the police only about serious crimes. The data on latency in the UK, USA and Japan confirms it. In Russia, a higher latency is mainly related to a significant block of crimes covered up from the metering. So the real crimes are much more than registered crimes. As a result, we have unreal pattern, we have a construction created by the practice of registration and official statistics. The source of this vicious practice can be found in inappropriate criteria of efficiency of activity of internal affairs bodies.
latent, law enforcement, murder, theft, crime, victimization.
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