National Crime Victimization Survey

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

UCR or known as the Uniform crime reports is an annual report published by the FBI in the DOJ, which is meant to estimate most of the major street crimes in the United States.The main purpose of the UCR is basically to collect as many crimes or reliable crimes that come up as crime statistics so it can be used in our law enforcement administration. The Ucr is a very helpful tool for the law. The system was created in 1929. It provided information for criminologists,sociologists, and even the media. The Ucr mostly concentrates on assaults and robberies. The NIBRS or the national incident based reporting system is the system that the government uses for gathering data about recent or past crimes. The system has a lot of purposes but one of the main purposes’ is to evaluate the crimes associated with any current culture of violence theories.

Great post! You have plenty of information regarding the differences between UCR and NCVS. I agree with the book that one downfall to the UCR is the hierarchy rule. The example that is used in the text was, “if a burglar breaks into a home, stabs one of the occupants, and flees in the homeowner’s car, at least three crimes are committed-burglary, aggravated assault, and vehicle theft” (Maxfield and Babbie, 2016, pg. 97-98). All three crimes should be counted in the UCR but they aren’t which is a fault in that system. The NCVS is another great method of recording crimes but it does leave out businesses and crimes towards the homes. The NCVS does give the ability to examine such topics as victimization in public schools, identity theft, and why

While studying Criminology I have gained insight on different techniques used to determine which individuals commit the most crimes. There are three basic methods to measure criminal behavior. These include: Uniform Reporting of Crime, Self- Report and National Crime Victimization Survey. Uniform Reporting of Crime (URC) is a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of more than 18,000 voluntarily individuals reporting data on crimes (“Federal Bureau of Investigation”1). Self-report surveys measure crime by distributing questionnaires to a sample of people, asking if they have committed any crimes during a period of time. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a national source that samples about 90,000 households in order to uncover unreported crime and describes the relationship between the victims and the offender (“Bureau of Justice Statistics” 1).

In 1998, the National Incident-Base Reporting System (NIBRS) was created. The NIBRS is a reporting system that collects data on every crime in further detail than the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR Program). The NIBRS shows information about place of occurrence, weapon used, type and value of property damaged, and relationships between the perpetrator and victim. The UCR Program shows information of the summaries of crimes. Many thing that these programs are separate but the NIBRS is underlying of the UCR Program. These two systems differ from the National Crime Victimization Survey because with this surveys are mailed to households which allow more exposure to unreported

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program has been the beginning spot for law implementation administrators, understudies of criminal equity, analysts, individuals from the media, and general society everywhere looking for data on wrongdoing in the country. The system was considered in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to address the issue for solid uniform wrongdoing insights for the country (UCR, 2016).

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is consisted of two parts, part one and part two. Part one crimes are the eight most serious offenses, which is murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, arson, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Part two crimes are all other crimes except the ones in part one. They also include drug offenses, sex crimes, and vandalism. The UCR is a large database that stores all the information of the crimes that are reported and arrests made each year in the USA. The method used to get the information to the FBI is complex. Each month a law enforcement agencies report the count of part one crimes. The advantage of UCR is that people can see what kinds of crimes happen in a specific area. The disadvantage of UCR is that many of the serious crimes are not reported because the victims think that the crime is unimportant, they don’t trust the police, or involved in something illegal during the time of the crime.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) was intended to Supplement the Uniform Crime Reports Program (UCR) therefore, there are several parallels between them. For instance, both programs have different procedures to collect statistics however, they are both determining outcomes of the same types of serious offences such as, aggravated assault, rape, robbery and motor vehicle theft. Both the NCVS and the UCR define these crimes the same with the exception of rape. The UCR only collects information of rape of woman whereas the NCVS collects statistics of both rape of woman and of men.

The NCVS is produced by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and is a sample of households. The NCVS attempts to give a better understanding of the consequences of violent crimes and the probability of victimization (Sibley, 2015). Similar to the UCR, the NCVS collects data on violent crimes including rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, along with property crimes. Comparable to the NIBRS, the NCVS tries to get the victims’ perspective, however, collects data on non-reported crimes. Manner in which Data is Collected

The Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey were both developed to perform differently. The Uniform Crime Report was a program whose primary goals were to provide a reliable set of criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration, operation, and management. The Uniform Crime Report was developed in 1929. It was developed by the International Associations of Chiefs of Police.

In the National Crime Victimization Survey administered by the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, Truman and Rand (2010) report youth aged 12 to 24 are at greatest risk of being a victim of violence when compared to any other age group. Coker et al. (2014) surveyed 14, 190 students and found 33.4% reported that they had been victimized by a partner and 20% reported using similar behaviors to perpetrate. Black males from low-income neighborhoods were more likely to be victims of crime, but females overall were more likely to be victims of rape and sexual assault violence (Truman & Rand, 2010). The CDC (2014) assessed the prevalence of sexual dating violence among youth, across the United States, and found it was the highest

households. In 2012, for the second consecutive year, violent and property crime rates increased for U.S. resident’s age 12 or older, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The overall violent crime rate (which includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault) rose from 22.6 victimizations per 1,000 persons in 2011 to 26.1 in 2012. The problem is that the majority of crime (approximately half of violent crimes and 40 percent of property crimes) are not reported to law enforcement agencies. Crimes are not reported because victims see the event as a personal matter (a fight between friends or family members) or a theft that the victim considers minor or the victim’s belief that law enforcement cannot resolve the issue (a theft where the likelihood of getting property back or resulting in the arrest of the offender is unlikely). To deal with the crime reporting issue, the Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, under the US Department of Justice created the National Crime Survey. The National Crime Survey collects data from households and individuals (similar to the Census Bureau) to get a picture of total

The UCR is a listing of incidents in a police jurisdiction that are forwarded to Ottawa and grouped together to get a total of the number of crimes reported in Canada. Some criticisms of the UCR are that many incidents are never reported. The NCVS doesn’t involve police or enter official stats. It measures the extent of crimes by focusing on the victims. Some criticisms of the NCVS is that some victims may fail to report or lie and it does not measure victimless crimes such as drug abuse, gambling, etc. Self-Report Surveys ask people to report their own crimes without the use of names. The promise of confidentiality encourages people to accurately describe their illegal activities.

The National Crime victimization Survey (NCVS) collects personal and household criminal data by a consistent ongoing survey. This program is useful for showing how many crimes happened that may have not have been reported to the police. Victims and criminals are a lot more likely to admit to a survey of criminal events that happened rather than to the police themselves. Unlike UCR and NIBRS, NCVS does not include detailed information nor does it provide any specific

Every day we tend to hear that the crime rate is up, or that it seem like crime is taking over America, but is that really true? What do we really know about the crime rate? And what do we understand about violent crime rates, trends, and variations? We will discuss these issues to gain a better understanding about the UCR system.