Many people, including sociologists and criminologists, use official crime statistics in their research. There are many reasons why using official statistics can be useful, as they are readily available and provide detailed data which can often include large numbers of participants giving information. In Australia, the use of information gathered from crime statistics represents much of what we know about crime in general, but the use of crime statistics to measure criminal activity also attracts some criticism . Two of the main criticisms relate to the limitations of statistics in general and the dark picture of crime, which can be described as undetected or unreported criminal activity. The first criticism leveled against the use of statistics to measure criminal activity is that statistics can be very limiting because there is no way to obtain a complete number of crimes or measures of crime. criminal activity in any circumstances. Although using data from many different sources increases the power of statistical analysis, it is also understood that some sources are more reliable than others when measuring certain statistics. In this case, it is very difficult to establish a precise analysis of these statistics. In Australia, national crime statistics generally come from two main sources: administrative data which includes hospital, police, court and corrections records, and criminal victimization surveys which include the survey on Women's Safety (replaced by the Personal Safety Survey), the International Crime Survey and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Crime and Safety Survey. The reliability of these two main sources varies. When Hayes and Pr...... middle of paper ......nzler. “An Introduction to Crime and Criminology,” 3rd edition (2008), 32-48. Altbeker, Antony. “The Dangers of Data: Recognizing the Limits of Crime Statistics” (2005). http://www.issafrica.org/uploads/CQ14ALTBEKER2.PDF (accessed March 29) Binderman, Albert D and Albert J. Reiss. “On Exploring the “Dark Silhouette” of Crime” (ND), http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitsstream/handle/2027.42/67517/10.1177_000271626737400102.pdf;jSessionId 419739C2C3B6BB5ad42240919739C2C3B6BB5ad42 240919739C2C3B6BB5ad42240919739C2C3B6BB5ad422409 March 30) Official statistics (2010) “Limitations of official crime statistics” http://officialstatistics.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/limitations-of-official-crime.html (accessed March 30) Brerenton, David. “Crime Victim Surveys in Australia”. Paper presented at the Australian Crime Victim Survey Researchers Symposium, Griffith, Australia, November 28-29, 1994.