Prior to 1982 in West Germany, offense recording rules required police to record separately every person charged with crime whenever a new law enforcement procedure was initiated. Within one procedure, rules provided for one "count" for every separate criminal act with which one person was charged. Thus, the number of separate police investigations determined the gross number of officially recorded offenders in the country. Under the new counting procedures, a computer program combines all the data of the multiple investigative procedures within the same police authority or among different police agencies throughout the country. This enables the police to identify offenders who were involved in multiple investigations as the same persons. Regarding multiple offending and the criminal career paradigm, the new data show that repeat offenders are distributed among all age groups. Chronic offenders commit a high percentage of all registered offenses for most age groups. Belonging to this offender group, however, does not imply serious offending in terms of offense severity nor does it inevitably produce an extended criminal career. 2 tables and 19 references