a. What are real crime and registered crime?

To provide a conceptualization on the way to understanding the behavior of statistical crime records, an existing classification considers three types of crime: the real, the registered and the hidden, under which all the countries worldwide, in the last decade, have promoted actions to advance in the knowledge of real crime, and thus reduce the gap between real and registered crime. In fact, it is described below how the Colombian Police and the Attorney General's Office have worked within this guideline, which allows for a greater knowledge of crime.

Real criminality makes reference to the totality of phenomena related to crime; that is, it is the sum of all the crimes that occurred in a society and within a specific time, regardless of whether they were reported to the competent authorities or not. Given the impossibility of knowing the real crime in its entirety, the categories known as registered crime and hidden crime have been developed (^{Restrepo, 2008}, ^{Redondo & Garrido, 2013}).

Registered crime is that part of real crime that is reflected in the records or reports of the authorities, and it is what allows an approximation to real crime. Registered crime has its origin in the decision of a victim or a witness to report a crime, for which they should feel that the grievance has sufficient importance (Center of Excellence for Government, Victimization, Public Safety and Justice Statistical Information ;Cdeunodc;, 2015).

Hidden crime refers to that part of real crime that it is not reflected in official records, either because it is not known by the authorities or because, although being known, it is not recorded in the official or administrative records (^{Restrepo, 2008}; ^{Redondo & Garrido, 2013}).

In this regard, an instrument that allows to reduce the gap between registered and hidden crime are the victimization surveys, taking into account that from the information obtained by these surveys, the proportion of crimes that are not recorded in the official statistics can be calculated.

The victimization surveys are usually conducted in conjunction with the perception of security. Both types of surveys are conducted in Colombia in cities such as Bogotá, Barranquilla and Medellín, and these, in addition to complementing the official criminality figures thanks to questions about different types of victimization, offer information about the perceptions of citizens regarding aspects such as the security of their environments and management of the organizations responsible for citizen security (Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, 2018, Barranquilla how we are doing, 2018, Medellin how we are doing, 2018, amongst others).

a. The Oral Accusatory Criminal System (SPOA)

This system is managed by the FGN, and was created in response to the need to systematize the information of complaints and judicial operations activities collected in compliance with the main function of the Attorney General’s Office, which is "to carry out the exercise of the criminal law-enforcement action and conduct the investigation of the facts that have the characteristics of a crime that comes to their knowledge through the complaint report, special summons, accusation or ex officio, provided there are enough reasons and factual circumstances that indicate the possible existence of it " (Constitution of Colombia,1991).

The system was created under Law 906 of 2004, and began to be implemented starting in the year 2005. The SPOA is one of the information systems that receives reports of crimes that have occurred in Colombian territory. The sources of the complaints that feed the system are: the User Assistance Centers ;SAU;, the Immediate Reaction Units ;URI;, the Early Intervention Program, the Local Units, the Technical Investigation Body ;CTI;, the Support Structures ;EDA;, the Center for Comprehensive Attention to Victims of Sexual Violence ;CAIVAS;, the Center for Comprehensive Criminal Assistance to Victims ;CAPIV; and the allocated offices that receive complaints submitted in writing by citizens. Other entities, such as the National Penitentiary and Imprisonment Institute ;INPEC; and the Family Courts, are also sources of complaint to the SPOA.

The SPOA is also fed with the information contained in the SIEDCO since the year 2005, which gathers information through the SIDENCO¹, a module that the different complaint reception centers of the PONAL have. The SPOA was designed for judicial purposes, which is why the variables contemplated in it are designed to facilitate the criminalization of the offenses, to record the proceedings under the investigation proceedings and to follow up on criminal investigations within the framework of the justice process that the FGN carries out. Currently, the system is being fitted with the incorporation of variables such as victim, victimizer, property, characterization, modalities, motives, weapons, sites of the event, amongst others. This is being done in conjunction with the PONAL for crimes such as theft, homicide, kidnapping, extortion, information technology crimes and assault and battery charges².

i. Background

Since 1958, the National Police initiated the orderly collection of administrative records on criminal behavior and police services³. Initially, the collection process was carried out manually by each one of the country's police units. The collected figures were then collated, analyzed and reported each month by a company hired by the National Police (PONAL, 2015).

Initially, the National Police consolidated the information related to the crimes established in the Criminal Code, the contraventions of the National Police Code, the cases of suicide, natural disasters and the census of prostitution. Likewise, it registered all the operations activity that the institution carried out. On the other hand, it was not possible to disaggregate the information, according to the variables that currently exist, and it was difficult to store historical information (PONAL, 2015).

In the year 2000, the InterAmerican Development Bank ;IDB; allocated approximately US $ 1,000,000 for the National Police to strengthen the statistical operation. In the year 2002, SIEDCO was launched in Bogotá, as a pilot city. In the same way, the Business Objects tool was implemented in order to process, analyze and extract the consolidated information. In 2003, SIEDCO was placed into operation throughout the country (PONAL, 2015).

In the year 2010, the criminality information system of the National Police initiated a process of reengineering, which allowed for the development of the forms in a web environment, so that greater coverage was obtained and online registration of the decentralized units was allowed. In addition, a geographic viewer was installed for the exact spatial location of crimes and behaviors in the country.

Additionally, in the year 2014, the statistical operation of criminality and operational activity known as "Police Conduct and Services"⁴ was certified before the National Statistics Administration Agency (DANE), the official governing and regulating entity of statistics in Colombia. This certification was given under the rigorous evaluation of an independent expert team from the DANE, which reviewed the thematic, statistical and processes part, so that consistency, comparability and timeliness in the statistical operation was evidenced with respect to its functional structure, its controls in the field and the analysis and dissemination of data.

During the year 2015, the business intelligence tool called SIEDCO Plus was adapted to the police information system, which allows to better visualize the consolidated variables of time, place and mode, as well as to associate the records included in the fields of the system.

The SIEDCO has been a determining factor during the last decade of Colombian events, because it has allowed for the registry of criminal behavior and police actions that have facilitated to the State the design and implementation of public policies on matters of criminality, coexistence and citizen security.

ii. The process of recording information

With the enactment of Law 906 of 2004, Code of Criminal Procedure, it became necessary to implement the module called SIDENCO, which objective was to allow the PONAL to receive citizen complaints, to subsequently bring them to the attention of the competent judicial authority. The complaints registered in the SIDENCO are loaded immediately to the SPOA, with the purpose of assigning and initiating the investigative process at the FGN.

The criminal acts known by the police are taken care of and assigned to the surveillance patrol that knows about the case. This patrol in turn, through written or verbal communications, is responsible for reporting to the Automatic Dispatch Center the data on the case known and its development. The data is recorded in police information bulletins, which are collected and registered daily in the SIEDCO, by the GICRI⁵ officials belonging to the 51 police units that currently exist (^{Buitrago, Rodríguez & Bernal, 2015}).

The SIEDCO registers information related to the characteristics of the victims, the perpetrators and the crimes themselves, in such a way that the registry is organized around the following levels (UNODC, 2015):

Record of the facts. The SIEDCO records information on time, mode and place, such as the date and time of the event, political department, municipality, area (urban or rural), address, particular conduct ;modus operandi;, type of site, basic police unit where the incident occurred, basic police unit that was notified of it, source and means of jurisdiction that support and backup the administrative record in the database (^{Buitrago, Rodríguez & Bernal, 2015}). Since year 2014, the SIEDCO incorporates a geographic viewer that allows to automatically georeferencing criminal events through their location on a map. This generates information about the geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) of the place where the recorded event occurred (Buitrago, Rodríguez & Bernal, 2015).

Record of behaviors. When a crime is registered, the infringed behavior classified in the Colombian Criminal Code can be indicated; in the same way, the modality in which the perpetrator executed the crime, the type of weapon used and the means of transport of the aggressor and the victim (^{Buitrago, Rodríguez & Bernal, 2015}).

Record of interveners. The SIEDCO allows to record biographical data of the people who may be involved in a case, both as complainants as well as witnesses, victims, offenders or suspects. In addition, the system allows associating different behaviors to each one of the participants.

Record of assets. The system registers different personal and real property elements associated with a case, with the appropriate detail for each one of them, indicating the type and kind of asset, the quantity, the value, the unit of measurement and their identification data (brand, line, model, color, amongst others). This registry is important, because it allows quantifying the value of the assets involved in the commission of a crime or those belonging to the offended or complainants.

a. Consequences of integrating information from SIEDCO and SPOA

The process of integrating the 2016 and 2017 information contained in SIEDCO and SPOA resulted in the consolidation of a figure of crimes significantly greater than the figure reported by SIEDCO prior to the aforementioned integration. Figure 2 gives an example of the difference between the two figures. As can be seen in it, the number of high-impact⁹ crimes occurred during 2016, according to the consolidated figure after the integration of the databases, is 37.2% greater than the number of crimes of the same type occurred in said year, according to the figure reported by SIEDCO before integration. This difference becomes greater in the year 2017. As the same graph shows, the number of crimes for that year, according to the consolidated figure after the integration of the databases, is 48.9% greater than the number reported, according to the figure consolidated by SIEDCO before integration.

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration

Figure 2 Number of high impact crimes according to source of the information, Colombia, 2014-2017 (annual) 

b. Consequences of the creation of “¡ADenunciar!”

Figure 3 shows the number of complaints reported through “¡ADenunciar!” between July of 2017 and July 2018. As can be seen, the number of complaints registered in the application has followed an upward trend, going from 487 in July of 2017 to 15,570 in July of 2018. It is also important to add that the number of complaints made through “¡ADenunciar!”, during the period of time indicated (154,769), corresponds to 41.2% of the total complaints made in the country for crimes that can be reported on the platform.

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration.

Figure 3 Number of complaints received through “¡ADenunciar!”, Colombia, July 2017-July 2018 (monthly) 

Table 2 shows the number of offenses for the years 2015, 2016 and 2017 currently registered in the SIEDCO¹⁰ database. In addition, the table disaggregates the number of crimes according to the source of the information and indicates the participation of each source in the total of crimes of each of the three years. As can be seen, all the crimes for 2015 registered at present in the SIEDCO database were known by the National Police. On the other hand, due to the integration of the information systems of the PONAL and the FGN, 60.6% of the offenses for 2016 currently registered in the database had as their source the latter agency. Finally, the table indicates that of the total of crimes for 2017 currently contained in the aforementioned database, 18.6% had as their source the recently created application “¡ADenunciar!”; 49.8% came from the FGN, and 31.6% from the PONAL.

Table 2 Number of crimes reported through “¡ADenunciar!”, according to information source, 

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration.

The possibility of disaggregating the criminality information, according to its source of origin (PONAL, FGN and “¡ADenunciar!”), allows to understand how the integration of the information affects the number of registered complaints, and what are their implications on the comparability of the figures through time.

On the other hand, product of the integration of figures and the implementation of “¡ADenunciar!” as of July 26, high-impact crimes grew by 79.8% with respect to the SIEDCO database, which does not have the methodological changes (see figure 4).

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration.

Figure 4 Number of high-impact crimes according to the source of the information and “¡ADenunciar!”, Colombia, 2014-2017 (annual) 

When disaggregating the number of high-impact crimes for 2017, currently registered in the SIEDCO database (330,178) according to their source of the information, it is observed that 16.8% of the cases (55,564) come from complaints made through the application “¡ADenunciar!” and the remaining 83.2% (274,614) result from complaints filed through the National Police or the Nation’s FGN. It is important to note that the large number of cases reported through “¡ADenunciar!” contrasts with the fact that the application only worked during the last five months of 2017.

As figure 5 shows, the criminality information currently available in the SIEDCO database, corresponding to the period 2014-2015, comes exclusively from the records compiled by the National Police. On the other hand, the information corresponding to the period between July 2016 and July 25, 2017 comes from both the National Police and the Attorney General's Office (due to the integration of SIEDCO and SPOA). Finally, the graph shows that the information for the period after July 26, 2017 comes from both the National Police and the Attorney General's Office records, as well as the complaints received through the “¡ADenunciar!” App.

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration.

Figure 5 Number of crimes reported in the virtual complaint according to their source of the information, Colombia, 2014-2018 (monthly). New complaint and substitution effect generated by “¡ADenunciar!” 

It is important to add that the moments of integration of the aforementioned information sources coincide with changes in the trend of the time series of the crimes established¹¹ in the virtual complaint. This shows that the increase in the number of crimes is due to the integration of the registered crime data and not the increase in real crime.

A more detailed analysis of the behavior of crime records reveals that the “¡ADenunciar!” application had a substitution effect on the use of complaint filing channels. After the start-up of “¡ADenunciar!”, the number of complaints received by the National Police and the Attorney General's Office through traditional channels began to fall, while the number of complaints filed through the application began to increase.

The above is explained by the fact that “¡ADenunciar!” reduces transaction costs incurred by citizens to file complaints. Since this application is accessed through the Internet, citizens avoid costs, such as transport to the physical locations authorized to receive complaints.

The substitution effect is quantifiable under a series of assumptions. One of these consists in supposing that, had not it been implemented, “¡ADenunciar!”, the number of complaints that would have been registered during the period between July 2017 and July 2018, through the traditional complaint filing channels, would have been equal to average number of complaints registered during the period between January and June 2017 through these channels. If the above is presumed, it is possible to infer that of the total number of complaints filed through ¡ADenunciar!”, during the period between July 2017 and July 2018 (154,769), 24.5% corresponds to complaints that would not have been filed through the traditional channels of filing complaints (new complaint), and 16.7% corresponds to complaints that stopped being made through the aforementioned channels (substitution effect). Likewise, 58.8% of the complaints were received through the traditional complaint filing channel.

c. Consequences of the integration of information from SIEDCO and SPOA, and the creation of “¡ADenunciar!”, on the comparability of the theft data to people.

One of the crimes which behavior allows to better understand the consequences of the integration of information and the creation of “¡ADenunciar!” regarding the comparability of criminality figures, is the crime of theft to people.

Figure 6 shows the monthly time series of the number of robberies to persons registered in the country, corresponding to the 2014-2017 period. The series has two moments in which there are significant leaps in the number of recorded thefts, which coincide exactly with the beginning month of each one of the methodological changes described in this document. The first one is January of 2016, the month after which, due to the integration of SIEDCO and SPOA, the data correspond to both systems. The second moment is towards the end of July 2017, just when “¡ADenunciar!” App began operation.

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration.

Figure 6 Amount of thefts to people, Colombia, 2014-2017 (monthly) 

If it is not taken into account that the above-mentioned leaps are explained by the integration of the FGN and PONAL records, as well as by the creation of a new complaints filing channel, it could be erroneously concluded that between 2015 and 2016 the theft to people increased by 44.8%, and between 2016 and 2017 it did so by 42.8%.

Figure 7 disaggregates the time series of the theft to people accordingly to the source of origin of the records. The blue line corresponds to the complaints registered through the National Police; the orange line, to the complaints filed through the National Police and those registered by the Nation Attorney General’s Office. Finally, the gray line shows the complaints received through the application “¡ADenunciar!”.

Source: National Police (2018). Internal elaboration.

Figure 7 Number of thefts to people according to the source of their information, Colombia, 2014-2017 (monthly) 

As noted above, the consequences of integration and aggregation of information can be separated into two stages: one between 2015 and 2016, when the change in crime figures corresponds to the SIEDCO-SPOA integration, and between 2016 and 2017, when the effects are mainly attributable to the aggregation of complaints received through the “¡ADenunciar!” Application.

d. Contrast of the SIEDCO figures and those of other sources of information

One of the questions that may arise due to the changes observed in the criminality figures of the country is whether these are the result of the integration and aggregation of information or increases in the real crime. Beyond warning - as it was already done - that there is a correlation between the increase in the crime figures and the introduction of the aforementioned changes, the previous question can be answered by contrasting the SIEDCO figures with those of other sources of information that register similar criminal variables and which have not had changes in their forms of measurement during the last three years.

For this purpose, this subsection contrasts SIEDCO figures with those of the following sources: 1) some victimization surveys from the main cities of the country; 2) the database of cell phone theft of ‘El Corte Inglés - The English Cut’ Department Store, and 3) the interpersonal violence database of the Colombian Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.

i. The incidence of crime according to victimization surveys

Victimization surveys¹² offer information about the crimes that individuals are victims of. Taking into account that the theft to people is one of the crimes that has the highest incidence amongst the population, it is possible to use information on the percentage of people who report having been victims of a crime during the last year (according to the victimization surveys), to compare the data registered in the SIEDCO¹³. If the increase of 42.8% in the records of robbery to persons for 2017, currently registered in the SIEDCO, was associated with increases in the criminality, this increase should be reflected in an increase in the percentage of people who report having been victims of crimes.

Figure 8 shows the behavior of victimization and theft to people in the four main cities of the country during the period 2010-2017. In the graph it can be seen that while official records of theft to people grew in all cities, between 2016 and 2017, the victimization did not increase systematically. For example, while in Bogota and Medellín the number of registered thefts to persons grew, in their order, 102.6% and 32.7%, between 2016 and 2017, the percentage of people surveyed who said they had been victims of a crime remained more or less stable in both cities (at levels close to 32% and 15%, respectively).

Source: National Police (2018), Bogotá how are we doing, Medellin how are we doing, Cali how are we doing, Barranquilla how are we doing. Internal elaboration, 2018.

Figure 8 Victimization and theft to people, Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla, 2010-2017 (annual) 

The foregoing is evidence that the increases in the numbers of theft to people are the result of the integration and aggregation of information, but not increases in real crime.

ii. The theft of cell phones according to ‘El Corte Inglés - The English Cut’ Company

At the national level, the most stolen object to people is the cell phone: 55% of the reports of theft to people are for cell phone theft. Before the integration of SPOA and SIEDCO information, as well as the creation of the “¡ADenunciar!” App, the number of cell phone theft records increased by 2% between 2013 and 2014, and by 15% between 2014 and 2015. After the aforementioned changes, the number of records of this type of theft increased by 33% between 2015 and 2016, and by 127% between 2016 and 2017.

In compliance with the government's strategy against cell phone theft, and pursuant to article 106 of Law 1453 of 2011 and Resolution CRC (Communications Regulation Commission) 3128 of 2011, the companies providing mobile communications services in Colombia register cell phones stolen in the Negative Data Base¹⁴, through the computer company ‘El Corte Inglés S.A. - The English Cut Inc.’

The cited database constitutes a valuable source of alternative information, due to the fact that it has not had variations in its structure or in the methodology through which the compiled information that is recorded in it is collected on cell phone theft, reported by the users of the different operators.

Taking into account the above, if the increase in the number of cell thefts registered in the SIEDCO database is the result of an increase in real crime, it is to be expected that the number of thefts registered in the database of ‘El Corte Inglés - The English Cut’ has also had an increase.

Contrary to the above, figure 9 shows that the behavior of the number of mobile theft records between 2016 and 2017 is different in one and another database. While the records of the SIEDCO database increased by 127%, those of the ‘El Corte Inglés S.A. - The English Cut Inc.’ database. decreased by 6%. This confirms that the increases in the figures recorded in the SIEDCO database are due to the integration of the information and the creation of “¡ADenunciar!”, and not to an increase in real crime.

Source: National Police (2018) and ‘El Corte Inglés - The English Cut’, Internal elaboration.

Figure 9 Number of cell thefts according to their source of the information, Colombia, 2014-2017 (annual) 

iii. Interpersonal violence according to the Colombian Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences

During the last four years, the behavior of personal injuries due to assault and battery registered in the SIEDCO database has shown a trend opposite to the behavior of interpersonal violence registered by the IMLCF.

In the SIEDCO, personal injuries have shown an upward trend from 2014 through 2017, with a high increase of 46% between 2015 and 2016, as a result of the integration of information from SIEDCO and SPOA¹⁵.

On the contrary, the INMLCF¹⁶ records show that interpersonal¹⁷ violence has followed a downward trend during the last four years, with a decrease of 1% between 2015 and 2016 (figure 10).

Source: National Police (2018) and INMLCF. Internal elaboration.

Figure 10 Number of personal injuries and cases of interpersonal violence, Colombia, 2014-2017 (annual) 

Following the logic indicated above, if the increase in the SIEDCO personal injury records, which is observed between 2015 and 2016, were the result of an increase in real crime, it is to be expected that the interpersonal violence figures of the INMLCF would also show an increase during the indicated period. However, as shown in figure 10, the figures for interpersonal violence do not increase, which confirms that the increase in personal injury records in the SIEDCO database is due to the integration of the SIEDCO information and the SPOA, described throughout this article.