Crime statistics attempt to provide statistical measures of the crime in societies. Given that crime is usually secretive by nature, measurements of it are likely to be inaccurate.

Several methods for measuring crime exist, including household surveys, hospital or insurance records, and compilations by police and similar law enforcement agencies. Typically official crime statistics are the latter, but some offences are likely to go unreported to the police. Public surveys are sometimes conducted to estimate the amount of crime not reported to police. Such surveys are usually more reliable for assessing trends. Public surveys rarely encompass all crime, rarely procure statistics useful for local crime prevention, often ignore offences against children, and do not count offenders brought before the criminal justice system.

Crime statistics are gathered and reported by many countries and are of interest to several international organizations, including Interpol and the United Nations. Law enforcement agencies in some countries, such as the FBI in the United States and the Home Office in England & Wales, publish crime indices, which are compilations of statistics for various types of crime.

Donald James "Don" Weatherburn PSM (born 14 May 1951) has been Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in Sydney since 1988 and is an Adjunct Professor with the School of Social Science and Policy at the University of New South Wales.

Weatherburn attended Newington College (1964-1969) and the University of Sydney where in 1974 he received his BA with first class honours. He completed a Ph.D in 1979 and lectured in the School of Justice Administration at Charles Sturt University.

In 1983 Weatherburn was appointed Senior Research Officer at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and four years later he was appointed Foundation Director of Research at the NSW Judicial Commission. He has held his current position since 1988.

For his long and dedicated service, he was award the Public Service Medal in January 1998.

Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (born Piers Stefan O'Meara; 30 March 1965), known professionally as Piers Morgan, is a British journalist and television presenter. He is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children.

Morgan branched into television mainly as a presenter, but has become best known as a judge or contestant in reality television programmes. In the UK, he was a judge on Britain's Got Talent. Morgan is best known in the United States as a judge on the show America's Got Talent, and as the winner of The Celebrity Apprentice. On 17 January 2011, he began hosting Piers Morgan Tonight for CNN in the timeslot previously occupied by Larry King Live after the retirement of host Larry King.

Morgan has authored eight books, including three volumes of memoirs.

Piers Morgan was born on 30 March 1965, in Guildford, Surrey, England, to Eamon Vincent O'Meara, a dentist, of Dorking, Surrey, and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (née Oliver). His father died when he was one year old; his mother subsequently remarried. He has three older siblings. His ancestry includes Irish, Portuguese, Scottish, and English. Morgan was raised Catholic. Named Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan by his stepfather, Morgan attended an independent school called Cumnor House from the ages of seven to thirteen, and then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, near Lewes, East Sussex, followed by Lewes Priory School for VI form. Morgan studied Journalism at Harlow College. After a brief career at Lloyds of London, he joined the Surrey and South London Newspaper Group in 1985, where he worked as a reporter on the South London News, and the Streatham and Tooting News. Morgan was recruited (he says headhunted by editor Kelvin MacKenzie) to join The Sun newspaper, specifically to work on the Bizarre column.