Measurement Of Crime And Measuring Crime

Crime measurement and statistics for police departments are very important when it comes to money allotment, staffing needs or termination and it is also used to determine the effectiveness of new laws and programs. There are three tools used to measure major crime in the United States: Uniform Crime Reports, National Crime Victimization Survey and the National Incident Based Reporting System- which is currently being tested to replace the Uniform Crime Reports. Although there different tools used to measure crime, crime rates can be deceiving. Each different tool reports a different type of rate, crime rates, arrest

Law enforcement agencies use three different sources to collect crime statistics. They use official statistics, victimizations surveys, and self-report surveys as their main sources of collecting data. The University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Texas at Austin both have pretty similar crime statistics.

Measuring crime is based on three main measurements; criminal justice system data, crime experience surveys and other sources called administrative data (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Firstly, crime first needs to be categorised into types of crime that is classified under the Australian and New Zealand Standard Offence Classification (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Only the main and select few offences are reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in collecting annual reported crimes (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Through ABS, it collects crime data in different ways such as crime reports, victimisations surveys, administrative data (higher courts, magistrates and policing agendas etc.,) and self-reports (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). Crime reports measure crimes such as homicide, robbery, rape, assault and more but is collected through police jurisdictions (Reid, 2012). The strength of crime reports provides additional information such as arrests, charges, officers assaults and characteristics of homicide victims (Reid, 2012). This helps to measure crime more effectively through gaining descriptions and knowledge of identifying crime and criminal behaviour more accurately (Reid, 2012). Administrative data is often helpful in collating data of sentences and jail sentences but fails to collect the ‘dark figure’ of crime (Hayes & Makkai, 2015). National Crime Victimisation Surveys (NCVS)

Recent surveys have indicated that crime rate in the United States is on the rise. Crime in the U.S. is classified into property crime and violent crime. These criminal activities have a considerable impact on a state’s social and economic growth and development. Different states in the U.S. have developed different strategies to combat crime, which continues to transform in form and frequency. A number of policies, options, and approaches to crime control exist. This report explores some of the policies, options, and approaches that could be used by Florida to enhance crime control.

Although crime has been around for ages, we only started collecting crime data around the 1930’s. Crime statistics show a lot about a country, state, county, etc. Crime can be linked to the environment, behavior of others, and personal experiences, it all depends on how the person deals with the hand they are dealt. Crime data is collected from three sources, which are uniform crime reports (UCR), national incident based reporting system (NIBRS), and national crime victimization survey (NCVS).

The Extent to Which Sociologists Agree that Official Criminal Statistics Do Not Give an Accurate Picture of the Extent in Terms of Crime

How did the gathering of crime data begin in the United States? How has it evolved since that time?

Deviance is not usually a crime, but may be seen as one. Deviance is when someone breaks the norms and values of a society, but the act is not illegal. Crime is where a person beaks the law of land, they either do something they shouldn’t, or they don’t do something they should. Crime and deviance can be measured with the use of Official Crime Statistic (OCS). OCS is the crimes which are reported by the victim, and then further recorded by the Police. Not all crimes are recorded by the Police, which lead to a dark figure in the overall collected OCS. To avoid dark figures there are other methods to measure crime and deviance.

Official crime rates are measured by crimes reported and recorded by the police and criminal justice system, and are collected by the Home Office. Frances Heidensohn (1975) believes that male criminality is 5 times higher than female criminality, which current data supports. However, Otto Pollak (1961) was the first sociologist to argue that crime rates for female crime were inaccurate. He believed that women were treated more leniently by the police and criminal justice system, which highlighted the under representation of female criminality in the official statistics. He argued that women were more likely to commit crimes such as petty theft, prostitution and criminal abortions, which were then likely to be treated more leniently. Pollak’s theories have been widely criticised and may not be relevant today; indeed he failed to take into account the decriminalisation of abortion in many of the

Criminology is the study of crime, those who commit crime and also studies the criminal justice and penal systems. Crime is defined as the act of omission established with the laws of the nation in which it occurred in. However, deviance as Downes and Rock suggested may be considered as the behaviour which is banned or controlled and would more limey attract punishment or disapproval. Not all deviances are crimes it is merely behaviours which do not comply with the norms of societies. It is important to clarify what crime is and how it occurs in order to have accurate measurements of it. There are two opposing views on crime statistics: the realist view and constructivist perspective. The former view has a number of forms, pertinently; left realism and right realism. Basically, realist view sees the official records as an indicator of the state of crime in a society. On the contrary, the latter perspective is related to how officials and others perceive the process as well as how official statistics could be understood by the procedure agencies responsible carry out their work. Crime statistics give an indication of crime occurrences and there are two methods used in constructing crime rates: recorder crime statistics and the national crime victimisation surveys (British Crime Survey). This essay will critically analyse how accurate the measures of crime are with reference to the theories on crime.

Crime has always been a shadow upon societies image, these learned behaviors can be seen in all shapes and sizes, in the cities, in the streets and even in homes. The media has controlled the image of what is perceived as crime. But what truly stalks the streets at night, is it the sadistic men who care so little about human dignity they travel from coast to coast sexually assaulting women?

Firstly, recorded crime statistics are collated through the collection of data by law enforcement agencies, such as the police in England and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in America. It focuses on the crime that is reported by the public and then what is chosen to be recorded by the police. During the mid-late 19th century, these statistics formed the basis of information about crime, however, although they still provide raw data for publications such as the Offenders Index, they are now viewed critically. This is because, according to Mayhew and Hough (1988), the recorded crime statistics are “adequate as a measure of police workload, but because of unreported and unrecorded crime – deficient as an index of crime”.

Crime statistics endeavor to provide statistical measures of crime in societies. They provide a point of analysis and comparison, allow countries to form long-term patterns and trends and can help to develop and reform criminal justice policies as well as being more meaningful than raw numbers. Using the countries of Bahrain and the United States as a comparison point for the following issues which surround crime statistics such as biases, agendas and general influences like education and religion; this essay will be focused around analysing the statistical factors and wider influences which can allow a country to have low or high crime rates.

Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) from 2013/2014 have been used. The CSEW is a face-to-face survey asking households about their perception and experience of crime in the 12 months preceding the interview. The information at my disposal are part of a special unrestricted access teaching dataset produced by the UK Data Archive. Out of a sample of 35,371 households chosen in England and Wales for the actual survey, I had access to a 25% sample of 8,843 households. Representative of households were chosen through the Postcode Address File which excludes aggregative accommodation such as residential halls and prisons.

In my essay I will first talk about crime and what it means, I will