On the Estimation of the Number of Persons Entering and Leaving Crime Annually

As time passes, some people start to commit crime for the first time while others drop out of crime. Despite the large amount of data relating to crime and criminals that is collected by official agencies each year, limited attention so far has been paid to such questions as: (1) how many persons actually started to commit crime in contrast to the number of "first offenders" recorded? (2) how many persons actually gave up crime in a given year compared with those who simply avoided arrest? This paper explores the possibility of developing a method of answers to such questions—a method which, if successfully developed, could lead to an improvement in our understanding of the criminal justice system.