The Uniform Crime Reporting Survey Essay

The purpose of this abstract is to critically review the primary data sources used in the criminological research. The two key factors that measures crime are distinguished: official crime statistics, which are based on the compile data records of offenders and offenses processed by the police, courts, and corrections agencies; and unofficial crime statistics, which are produced by people and agencies outside the criminal justice system whom can add value to the data source (Regoli, Robert M., and Hewitt, John D., 2008, p 62). This abstract will discuss the strengths, weaknesses and differences of both data sources using arrests and self-reports to calculate the prevalence of crime in the United States.

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

Official statistics include the UCR, Uniform Crime Report, and NIBRS, National Incident-Based Reporting System. UCR is a summary based reporting system that collects data on the eight index crimes, murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, auto theft, and arson. The UCR is published annually by the FBI, but the data is collected by law enforcement agencies all around the United States. UCR looks at trends of crime and gives statistics of crime in certain areas. Three weaknesses of the UCR is it only reports the highest crime committed, so if someone commits burglary and murders someone in the process the UCR will only report the murder, it only reports crimes known to the police, and not all crimes are reported to enhance the view of cities and areas. Although the UCR has weaknesses, it also has its strengths. Three strengths of UCR are that it has multiple years of data available, almost all law enforcement agencies use this to report crimes, and helps law

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.

The collection of all this data allows for theoretical explanations by criminologists on the social interactions between the victim and the offender(s).

The Uniform Crime Report, which was developed in the 1930s, is commonly used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a record of crimes committed all across the United States. These crimes, which fall under two categories, Part I and Part II offenses, are reported by local police to the Federal Bureau of Investigation each year. Part I offenses are considered to be the more serious of crimes recognized by society. Such examples of this are homicide, forcible rape, robbery, arson, motor vehicle theft, etc. Part II offenses are those that are considered less serious, such as fraud, simple assault, drug abuse, gambling, stolen property, embezzlement, etc. Part I crimes can also be subdivided into what are known as violent crimes and

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)

The three methods by which crime is measured are the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and self-reporting. While all prove to be a great way to measure crime, there are some limitations to each. For UCR, its limitations are probability, the possibility of someone witnessing the crime, or it being reported. This limitation proves that some crimes may be more underreported than others. For NCVS, it does not report some juvenile victimization. For example, anyone 12 or under will not be part of this survey. It does not gather information on certain important kinds of juvenile victimizations, such as the nonforcible sex offenses of statutory rape and incest. For Self-Report, its limitations

To increase the validity, the alternative measure of Victim surveys (VS), are used to eliminate the dark figures of OCS. This is used to provide a fuller picture of crimes. VS data is collected quantitatively so it is easily recorded, and be easily put into a graph to find trends and patterns. As not all crimes are reported or recorded, it is difficult to get an accurate figure. Some crimes may not be reported as the victim feels the police may not be able to do anything about the crime committed, or possible fear of reprisals. As VS give the opportunity to ask people if they have been the victim of crime within the past 12 months. This gives a gateway for unreported crimes to be recorded and included within the OCS. Problems may arise with the use of

The Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), was the first of the two programs to be developed. “In, 1930 Congress authorized the U.S. attorney general to survey crime in America” (Schmalleger, 2015). Within its first year, the UCR “received reports from 400 cities in 43 states” (Schmalleger, 2015). Since its inception, the UCR has tracked seven types of crimes. These crimes are “murder, robbery, rape, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and vehicle theft” (Sources of Crime Data: Uniform Crime Reports and the National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2009). There was a revision to the UCR in 1979. This is when this system began to report arson as well (Sources of Crime Data, 2009). In the first year of operation, twenty million people were covered under this survey (Schmalleger, 2015). Today, the UCR compiles data from nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies (Schmalleger, 2015). This data comes “from city, county, and state

UCR and NCVS collect information on age, sex, race, and the circumstances surrounding the crime. In the video link, Christopher Ingraham mentioned it is good to rely on the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Neither one is better than the other, both the FBI and BJS report and gather information and data in different ways. Both programs, the Uniform Crime Report and National Crime Victimization Survey has its advantages and disadvantages. The UCR provides a measure of the number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies throughout the country and the NCVS is the primary source of information on the characteristics of criminal victimization incidents and on the number and types of crimes not reported to law enforcement authorities (Planty 2014). UCR and NCVS data can be used in complementary ways to explore why trends in reported and police-recorded crime may differ (Planty

The Uniform Crime Report represents police reported crime statistics. It includes a number of reported offences, actual offences, offences cleared by charge, and offences cleared otherwise (Morden, H. K. and Palys, T., 2015). The police-reported crime statistics best represent the positivist perspective. It is not biased, and complete, accurate, and standardized to facilitate temporal and spatial comparisons (Morden, H. K. and Palys, T., 2015). It also believes that Criminal Code reflects society’s collective social values, and therefore considers crime statistics generated by the criminal justice system and governmental agencies such as Statistics Canada unbiased measures of societal crime and criminality (Morden, H. K. and Palys, T.,

The Uniform Crime Reporting System is a nationally used source of statistics of reported crime. Nearly eighteen thousand police agencies in America voluntarily report to the UCR. This program has been used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1930. The primary objective of the UCR is to aid law enforcement with reliable information, however; it’s data is now one the country’s leading social indicators. Varied research is now collected by multiple forms of students in the country.

During this essay, I will be discussing recorded crime statistics and victimisation surveys as they are our primary techniques of measuring levels and trends of crime. After briefly explaining what is meant by these terms, I will seek to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in order to question the extent to which they are reliable resources that provide us with accurate information.

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.