A United Nations paper on crime trends and crime prevention strategies recognized the apparently insurmountable difficulties involved in gathering reliable worldwide crime statistics that can be used to accurately assess crime trends. Crime prevention planning must begin with the recognition that 100 percent accurate data cannot be gathered. Each country should have some agency or coordinating body to obtain available information and use it as a tentative basis for crime prevention policies. Among the strategies for effective crime prevention planning generous funding from any source available, ti insure internal coordination and cooperation of a country's crime-fighting agencies. The United Nations, which has allocated funds for the prevention of crime and treatment of offenders in such areas as the Far East and Latin America has been unable to continue the financing and must now rely on host countries (e.g., Japan and Costa Rica). International crime statistics sources are discussed, with International Criminal Police Organization cited as the most reliable. Crime prevention planning can be started even on the basis of the crime figures presently available, with followups to accompany plan implementation at each step. Criminological research can assist in crime prevention planning by identifying crime causes, patterns, and extent, despite the changing fashions in criminological theories. Cost-benefit analysis and evaluative research must also be used in crime prevention planning to interpret the past and set goals for the future, while improving plan implementation and rationalizing resource allocation.