Measuring Crime Research Paper
Measuring Crime Paper
Tina McCammon
Eileen K. Ritter
Aaron Gutterman
Traniecsia Walker
CJA/204
June 30, 2014
Carlos Zuniga
Measuring Crime Paper
This paper will discuss the different methodology for measuring crime. The topics include the tools used to measure crime and different reporting agencies, purpose and goals. Crime rates, arrest rates, clearance rates, and recidivism rates are measured and categorized for statistical data. The paper will also discuss inaccuracies in data and increase in crime rates throughout the years based on the finding of the interactive learning modules provided for this class. When concluding, there will be a better understanding of how studying and measuring of crime can help combat crime.
Measuring …show more content…
crime is not an easy task, primarily because of unreported crime in the United States. There are two ways to measure crime in the U.S. One is the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). This report, executed by the FBI, gathers dates of crimes reported to the police on the local level. The UCR report can determine the rate of crime in the local area. The report is questionable because of unreported crime. Murder represented and grand theft, but assault crimes, such as rape, domestic crimes and petty theft often go unreported. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a telephone survey given by the U.S. Census. This survey does reflect crimes of assault, robbery, and person theft. The Census does a telephone sampling survey of about 40,000 citizens, questioning whether they had been a victim of crime in the last year. The NCVS is a national survey and is not a determiner of crime rates on a local level.
Crime is measured through statistics in the United States. Statistics help develop and see how new laws and programs are working. The three statistical reports used to measure crime in the United States are the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), ("FBI Uniform Crime Rate", 2012).
It is weird how the government tries to determine the extent and nature of delinquency using three types of measurement, Uniform Crime Reports, victimization surveys and self-report studies.
Each of them has kind of the same purposes of concluding the trends in different crimes and suggesting the attention of issues. Even though, those types of crime measurement all have the similar focus, the result varies a great bit between them. While reading this, keep in mind each type of measurements are ran by different groups that hold their own ways of gathering information. It is often known that in the United States, the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is the most relied upon. Many believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gathers all their information from local law enforcement agencies around the world. Results come from recorded police reports which collect data on about 95% of the population (appendix table 2 in Criminal Victimization, 2012, NCJ 243389, October 2013). The UCR breaks down crimes into Part One and Part Two offenses. Part One offenses include eight crimes being either violent or property offenses (which are the more serious crimes). Meanwhile, Part Two offenses include all other minor crimes except for traffic …show more content…
violations.
The UCR measures the extent of crime through police reports. Victimization surveys view crime through interviewing people about their experiences as victims. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) conducts interviews on a national sample of households. The results for each household remains in the sample for a few years. The victimization survey measures only Part One Index Crimes and excludes homicide and arson because the victims are impossible to interview or very difficult to account for (Shannan M. Catalano, Ph.D. September 30, 2010 NCJ 227379).
Crime rates are established by how many crimes are committed in a certain area or population.
There are many variables that occur to determine the changes in crime rates such as new laws or procedural changes. One must be a critical thinker in order to determine accurate criminal statistics. Arrest rates, clearance rates, and recidivism rates are all considered when figuring out the rates of crime, so one must be specific when figuring out what to look for. For instance with arrest rates, crime statistics takes into consideration how many arrests are made, but not necessarily include whether or not the alleged offender was booked. Clearance rates also need to be considered due to the amount of crimes that are cleared or solved. Another statistic to consider is recidivism rates. Recidivism rates need to be considered when figuring out accurate crime rates as well, due to the amount of offenders that may be incarcerated multiple times. With all of these factors, you can see how crime rates can definitely be deceiving. Another way crime rates can be deceiving are when crimes are made but are not reported. These crimes, along with crimes that were committed and reported but arrests were not made, are all deceiving to the actual facts of determining crime
rate.
A better solution to improving the correlation between crime rates, arrest rates, and clearance rates in the effort of combating criminal activity I thought of, would be to hire someone to determine these areas specifically in each police station. When the criminal statistics are received from local police stations, there can be other hires to determine the statistics in counties, regions, states, and so on. This way, there would be more accurate overall statistics in crime rates, as well as creating jobs.
Recidivism is criminal activity that results in the re-arrests, reconviction, or the return to prison within a three year period following the release of a prisoner. According to the National Institute of Justice (2008) recidivism is a core concern of the criminal justice system. Many times once prisoners are released from prison they return to their old community and continue previous habits and socialize with the same individuals as they were before they became incarcerated, which results in recidivism. In 2007 over one million persons on parole were at risk of re-incarceration. Of those parolees about 16% returned to prison in that year ("FBI Uniform Crime Rate", 2012).
Recidivism will likely go up as a necessary consequence of falling crime rates (Terrie E. Moffitt explains in her classic 1993 article in Psychological Review, there are roughly two types of criminals: adolescence limited and life-course persistent). Some people like Terrie E. Moffitt believe crime rates have gone down since the early 1990s in all the major western nations of the world. Concluding, in my opinion while doing research on measuring crime I have developed a lot of knowledge about Uniform Crime Reporting that I never had a clue about. I personally have never thought about looking into the statistics of arrest but now I know that should be very important to a law enforcement officer.
References
Schmalleger, F. J. (2010). Criminal Justuce Today. Pearson. unknown. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.andrew.cmu.edu.
FBI uniform crime rate. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr.
University of Phoenix. (2011). CJi Ineractive Multi-Media. Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/UC/CJ/index.html.
Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2007, Aug). Recidivism. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov.
Schmalleger, F. (2011). Criminal Justice Today. Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.
Tina McCammon
Eileen K. Ritter
Aaron Gutterman
Traniecsia Walker
CJA/204
June 30, 2014
Carlos Zuniga
Measuring Crime Paper
This paper will discuss the different methodology for measuring crime. The topics include the tools used to measure crime and different reporting agencies, purpose and goals. Crime rates, arrest rates, clearance rates, and recidivism rates are measured and categorized for statistical data. The paper will also discuss inaccuracies in data and increase in crime rates throughout the years based on the finding of the interactive learning modules provided for this class. When concluding, there will be a better understanding of how studying and measuring of crime can help combat crime.
Measuring …show more content…
crime is not an easy task, primarily because of unreported crime in the United States. There are two ways to measure crime in the U.S. One is the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). This report, executed by the FBI, gathers dates of crimes reported to the police on the local level. The UCR report can determine the rate of crime in the local area. The report is questionable because of unreported crime. Murder represented and grand theft, but assault crimes, such as rape, domestic crimes and petty theft often go unreported. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a telephone survey given by the U.S. Census. This survey does reflect crimes of assault, robbery, and person theft. The Census does a telephone sampling survey of about 40,000 citizens, questioning whether they had been a victim of crime in the last year. The NCVS is a national survey and is not a determiner of crime rates on a local level.
Crime is measured through statistics in the United States. Statistics help develop and see how new laws and programs are working. The three statistical reports used to measure crime in the United States are the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), ("FBI Uniform Crime Rate", 2012).
It is weird how the government tries to determine the extent and nature of delinquency using three types of measurement, Uniform Crime Reports, victimization surveys and self-report studies.
Each of them has kind of the same purposes of concluding the trends in different crimes and suggesting the attention of issues. Even though, those types of crime measurement all have the similar focus, the result varies a great bit between them. While reading this, keep in mind each type of measurements are ran by different groups that hold their own ways of gathering information. It is often known that in the United States, the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is the most relied upon. Many believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gathers all their information from local law enforcement agencies around the world. Results come from recorded police reports which collect data on about 95% of the population (appendix table 2 in Criminal Victimization, 2012, NCJ 243389, October 2013). The UCR breaks down crimes into Part One and Part Two offenses. Part One offenses include eight crimes being either violent or property offenses (which are the more serious crimes). Meanwhile, Part Two offenses include all other minor crimes except for traffic …show more content…
violations.
The UCR measures the extent of crime through police reports. Victimization surveys view crime through interviewing people about their experiences as victims. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) conducts interviews on a national sample of households. The results for each household remains in the sample for a few years. The victimization survey measures only Part One Index Crimes and excludes homicide and arson because the victims are impossible to interview or very difficult to account for (Shannan M. Catalano, Ph.D. September 30, 2010 NCJ 227379).
Crime rates are established by how many crimes are committed in a certain area or population.
There are many variables that occur to determine the changes in crime rates such as new laws or procedural changes. One must be a critical thinker in order to determine accurate criminal statistics. Arrest rates, clearance rates, and recidivism rates are all considered when figuring out the rates of crime, so one must be specific when figuring out what to look for. For instance with arrest rates, crime statistics takes into consideration how many arrests are made, but not necessarily include whether or not the alleged offender was booked. Clearance rates also need to be considered due to the amount of crimes that are cleared or solved. Another statistic to consider is recidivism rates. Recidivism rates need to be considered when figuring out accurate crime rates as well, due to the amount of offenders that may be incarcerated multiple times. With all of these factors, you can see how crime rates can definitely be deceiving. Another way crime rates can be deceiving are when crimes are made but are not reported. These crimes, along with crimes that were committed and reported but arrests were not made, are all deceiving to the actual facts of determining crime
rate.
A better solution to improving the correlation between crime rates, arrest rates, and clearance rates in the effort of combating criminal activity I thought of, would be to hire someone to determine these areas specifically in each police station. When the criminal statistics are received from local police stations, there can be other hires to determine the statistics in counties, regions, states, and so on. This way, there would be more accurate overall statistics in crime rates, as well as creating jobs.
Recidivism is criminal activity that results in the re-arrests, reconviction, or the return to prison within a three year period following the release of a prisoner. According to the National Institute of Justice (2008) recidivism is a core concern of the criminal justice system. Many times once prisoners are released from prison they return to their old community and continue previous habits and socialize with the same individuals as they were before they became incarcerated, which results in recidivism. In 2007 over one million persons on parole were at risk of re-incarceration. Of those parolees about 16% returned to prison in that year ("FBI Uniform Crime Rate", 2012).
Recidivism will likely go up as a necessary consequence of falling crime rates (Terrie E. Moffitt explains in her classic 1993 article in Psychological Review, there are roughly two types of criminals: adolescence limited and life-course persistent). Some people like Terrie E. Moffitt believe crime rates have gone down since the early 1990s in all the major western nations of the world. Concluding, in my opinion while doing research on measuring crime I have developed a lot of knowledge about Uniform Crime Reporting that I never had a clue about. I personally have never thought about looking into the statistics of arrest but now I know that should be very important to a law enforcement officer.
References
Schmalleger, F. J. (2010). Criminal Justuce Today. Pearson. unknown. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.andrew.cmu.edu.
FBI uniform crime rate. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr.
University of Phoenix. (2011). CJi Ineractive Multi-Media. Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/UC/CJ/index.html.
Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2007, Aug). Recidivism. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov.
Schmalleger, F. (2011). Criminal Justice Today. Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.