Crime Statistics

Introduction to Criminal Justice

Colorado Technical University

Justin Dodson

25 Nov 2012

Crime statistics as stated by the FBI’s Crime in the United States 2008 can paint a picture of crime in America; unfortunately, the picture is not 100% reliable. It is important for all users to become as well educated as possible about how to understand and quantify the nature and extent of crime in the United States and in any of the more than 17,000 jurisdictions represented by law enforcement contributors to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Some factors that are known to affect the volume and type of crime occurring from place to place are: * Population density and degree of urbanization. * Variations in composition of the population, particularly youth concentration. * Stability of the population with respect to residents ' mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors. * Modes of transportation and highway system. * Economic conditions, including median income, poverty level, and job availability. * Cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics. * Family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness. * Climate. * Effective strength of law enforcement agencies. * Administrative and investigative emphases of law enforcement. * Policies of other components of the criminal justice system (i.e., prosecutorial, judicial, correctional, and probational). * Citizens ' attitudes toward crime. * Crime reporting practices of the citizenry.
The main differences of the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is that the NCVS includes crimes both reported and not reported to law enforcement, but it excludes homicide, arson, commercial crimes, and crimes against children under age 12, while the UCR does record these while capturing crimes reported to law enforcement, while excluding simple assaults from the Crime Index. It’s hard to decide which one is more useful because of the information that is not accounted for in both reports. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network there is an average of 54% of rape cases over the past five years that have not been reported to authorities. There will always be cases that do not get reported for personal or religious reasons and in saying these reports will never be 100% accurate, but in that neither of them claims to be.
The general outlook of the people has been slightly daunted by the fact that the prisons are being overrun by people that haven’t even been tried yet, and are just waiting to be sentenced. The justice system is overburdened with repeat offenders and given the location some public defendants are carrying at least 400 cases a year while being understaffed are leading to unjust convictions and lawyers not being able to fully give a person his sixth amendment right to proper legal representation. I believe that there will be a change in the outlook of crime in America over hopefully the next generation. There are many state court systems that are trying to revamp their habitual offender laws and altering the punishments for them to be more cost efficient and hopefully more effective. I think the courts should step back and rethink how criminals should be punished. There are more and more repeat offenders out there because in their mind the punishment was not severe enough to make them want to not repeat it and possibly other crimes.
References
United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. (September 2009). Crime in the United States, 2008. Retrieved from http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/about/index.html.
Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. (n.d). Reporting Rates. Retrieved from http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates

References: United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. (September 2009). Crime in the United States, 2008. Retrieved from http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/about/index.html. Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. (n.d). Reporting Rates. Retrieved from http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates