In developed countries, crimes against property constituted 82 percent of all crimes, crime against persons accounted for 10 percent, and drug offenses accounted for 8 percent. The changing ratio of property to person offenses is seen by some scholars as an indication of development.19 The less developed a country, the greater is the percentage of person crime, and as a country moves toward development, the percentage of person crimes drops and the percentage for property crimes increases. A rough generalization, then, is that in developed countries, property crimes are by far the dominant form of criminality. In developing countries, property crimes are prevalent but not much more common than person crimes. In socialist countries, property crimes constitute the plurality of reported crimes, with order violations a close second, while person crimes account for about 15 percent of the total mix.
Crime seems to be increasing everywhere, but at different speeds.
Another way to look at crime data is to see who are the offenders and who are the victims. Without going too much into detail, two generalizations on offenders and victims stand out. In all societies, not everyone is equally involved as offender or victim. Offenders in all countries tend to be young males from marginalized groups in that society, and so typically are the victims. Since both come from the same population group, that makes sense.