Brittany Epperly CJS/235 11/23/2014 Cathy Arrowsmith
Crime Reports and Victimization
Crime reporting and victimization go hand in hand. Without victims there would be less reports of crime, and without crime reporting there would not be a valid way of gaging crime rates and number of possible victims. However, not every victim reports the crime, making the reporting of all crimes nearly impossible.
Crime Reporting A crime report is a way of knowing the amount of crime committed in a city, town, state and a way of knowing by which race, age, and gender. The crime report can come different sources. A source of crime reports could be the Uniformed Crime Reports (UCR). Law enforcement on a state, city, and county level report crimes to the UCR. The UCR is a helpful way in letting law enforcement trade information related to crime in the hopes to help prevent future crimes. (Robert, 2013). There is however a negative aspect of the UCR, it only reports crimes reported. If a victim or witness of a crime fail to report the UCR would have no idea of it happening. These kind of crimes are considered the dark figures of crime. There is also the help of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The National Crime Victimization Survey is a way of possibly having those dark figure crimes reported. (Robert, 2013). The NCVS, unlike the UCR, focus more on the victims. Also, the NCVS focus more on rapes, assaults, burglary, car theft, personal and household larceny, and robbery. (Robert, 2013).
Robert (2013) stated, “In addition to tracking and compiling violent crime statistics, the FBI assists local agencies in apprehending violent offenders by operating the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP).”
The Violent Criminal Apprehension
References: Robert, J. M. (2013). Understanding Violence and Victimization (6th ed.). : Prentice Hall The FBI Federal Bureau Of Invesigation . (2014). Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/vicap/homicides-and-sexual-assaults