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Crime, Fear, And The Cost Of Crime

Decent Essays

Crime, Fear, and the Cost of Crime in Society

There are two systems mentioned in the textbook that measures crime in the United States, the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). These systems provide statistics to see how new laws and programs are working. The UCR is a computer-based program used by law enforcement to report crimes into a database within the United States for statistical purposes. This system is broken down into parts, part I being violent crimes and part II being the other crimes. The three major issues with this system voluntary of data collection, ability to adjust the crime rate, and many offenses are not brought to the attention of the police. These three issues give police departments the ability change their numbers to justify their jurisdiction, an officer can choose to make an arrest and do the report, and crime is not allows reported on time making the police a reactive force rather than proactive. The NCVS is a panel survey of a household that is repeated over a period of time ranging from six months to three years, where members of that household are interviewed numerous times during that time period to see how or if the crime rate in the area of occupation has changed. There are also issues with this system ranging from lack of knowledge of what is a crime, losing contact with the household being surveyed, and the way the questions are asked or answered.
Fear is an emotional reaction to danger and

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