There are many things that are different about the UCR and the NCVS. Both are meant to serve different purposes. The UCR main goal is to provide a reliable set of criminal justice stats for law enforcement. The NCVS is to be able provide unviable information about crime (even crime that has not been reported to the police), victims and the offenders. UCR are crimes reported to the police in most jurisdictions. The NCVS are both reported and unreported to police. Nation as a whole. Another difference is the collection method. The UCR collection method is the police and departments of the FBI an on the other hand the NCVS collects information by survey. The kinds of information for the UCR is quite different from the NCVS. The UCR is offense counts; crime clearances; person arrests and homicide victims. The NCVS kind of information is details about victims and the crimes committed. Reported use of weapons, injuries and economic effects. To move on they are both sponsored defiantly the UCR is sponsored by the FBI and the NCVS is sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Another one that is major is the methodology side. The NCVS an UCR crimes differ. For example, the UCR defines burglary as the unlawful entry or attempted entry of some type of structure to commit a felony or theft. On the other hand, the NCVS defines burglary as the entry of attempted entry of a residence by a person who had no right to be there. Fourth difference is that the programs calculate the crime rates using different bases. The UCR rates for burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft is per capita, whereas the NCVS rates for these crimes are per household. Besides all these differences both programs are still very important, and have their own strengths. The UCR provides a measure of the number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies throughout the whole entire country. The UCR’s Supplementary homicide reports provide reliable, timely data of the extent nature of homicides in the nation. In addition to providing annual point and change estimates on criminal victimization, The NCVS is the primary source of all information on the characteristics of victimization incidents and all the numbers and types of crimes that are not reported to law enforcement. I think these systems are helpful when it comes to all types of crimes. The fact that some crimes go unreported, it must be something else behind what happen and using the NVCS helps gets all the information you need to get that report. When these crimes go unnoticed it’s hard to get justice of what someone did you to or even something that was in general. It really helps the system get weapons that was used on a certain crime and they can put it together and may be able to catch the person using it. UCR can help put people in jail, get people committing multiple crimes because they never got caught doing it. It plays a big role because if they are not getting caught committing something they are going to keep doing what they are doing and maybe do way more because they’ve got away with it so many times. For example, kidnappers they aren’t getting caught doing that crime so they gather as much kids and get away with it because they are not getting reported to the police to stop them from kidnapping. Also, burglary, they can keep getting to people house because they are not getting caught or even reported to the police and they are not being stopped. But since the UCR data is reliable to the system knows to use this to be able to put those criminals away. But sometimes the police are not reporting these crimes either, so that does play a big role in the data to. Those officers that are going ready to go home or just doesn’t feel like dealing with the problems sometimes just doesn’t care about it. NCVS and UCR data can be used in concert to explore why trends in reported and police recorded crime may differ. NCVS and UCR are great data bases to use to get some of those crimes that are not being reported. -SMILE123&BABYBLUE123
I thought you had some good points about crimes not being reported by the victim or by the police. The stats can help a lot but they are not 1005 accurate therefore police and other law enforcement personnel have to take a second look at some of the crimes like rape. Where circumstances are always different and the chance of it not being reported are alot higher. KLICK123
The NCVS doesn’t provide unviable info due to its many inaccuracies. The NCVS does not even need to collect info on reported crimes because the UCR already does that. So it is a waste of taxpayer money and the surveyor’s time. Unreported crimes are likely to not be reported to some random surveyor on the phone. Also the surveyor has no way of proving a citizens response to be true or false. The UCR is accurate because it has the authority of tens of thousands of law enforcement agencies standing behind it. If we could develop a way to make the NCVS effective in the collection of unreported crimes then we could make it an accurate way to observe data. The NCVS is pretty much obsolete. The UCR is already doing everything that the NCVS is doing but in a much more effective and accurate way. The UCR gives better numbers and accuracy compared to the NCVS based on how they get their data compared with the NCVS. NDIrish123, Fireboy123.
I completely agree with you that the systems work good together especially that the National Crime Victimization Survey helps get the information that is not reported. I definitely agree with the fact that the criminals that do not get caught are going to keep committing. Therefore I think this is where it is great that they work together because the National Crime Victimization Survey could help law enforcement realize if there is a problem in their jurisdiction when nothing is being reported. Just because a crime is not reported does not mean that it is not happening. I also agree with you when you say that the officers that are not reporting crimes is not helping. Just because the officer does not think it should be reported does not mean that they are always correct. That is when you get the differences in the crime reports. Both the UCR and NCVS are extremely important and help our police system gain more knowledge to help create a safer environment for everyone. I believe that doing monthly reports from the UCR and the household surveys will help more people become aware of the crime trends possibly make more people speak up when a crime is committed. Sunshine123 & UofM123
While each of these are useful in their own ways, I agree that these two systems working together are a great combo and do a great job of collecting useful and accurate data. The NCVS is a great way to uncover the crime that goes unreported while allowing the people on the other end of the line to remain comfortable talking about it and without feeling endangered while they discuss any crime that they have encountered. gh_blackhwks123
The UCR and NCVS both programs cover rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft. Rape, robbery, theft, and motor vehicle theft are defined virtually identically by both the UCR and the NCVS. Although rape is defined analogously, the UCR Program measures the crime against women only, and the NCVS measures it against both sexes. It is needed to keep track of the crime rates all over the country. It is for the benefit of the people of the United States to help become a more well informed and keeps everyone informed about the crime rate around them. It will also show whats going on in your local area. It keeps everyone on the lookout for sex offenders, murders, and thieves around you. The results of these reports also helps law enforcement keep track of what areas need more patrol and more protection than other areas. It also shows the more poor neighborhoods and the richer ones. Reason for this is because some poor people are more than likely to steal and commit a crime since they live in a rougher and more dangerous lifestyle than the richer kids. It keeps track also of how the crime rate is month by month and day by day. With this feature, people can feel safe knowing they have a reliable source to see the crime rates around them and in the world. The UCR, uniform crime reports, and the NCVS, national crime victimization survey, are very similar in nature. The UCR began in 1929, it collects the information that is reported by law enforcement on all of the crimes that are committed that they are responded to. In this data base, the crimes are reported monthly from the local law enforcement agencies to the FBI, they are as a region, states, counties, cities, towns, universities, exc. Once a year they present all of these counts of crime as a whole in the “Crime in the United States” In this edition they have everything from court appearances, to the people what where arrested. Even to the age, sex, and even the race of the individual. Which I think is an awesome way of identifying the repeat offenders if possible and even identifying the possible offenders based on what they have done as a kid. The NCVS, which is the National Crime Victimization Survey. This survey provides a detailed picture of the crime incidents Also the victim and person committing the crime. They do this by calling many homes and asking if they have ever been a victim of a crime or if they know anyone that has been a victim of a crime and if they have reported it or not. They do this by calling many homes like I just said. From year to year the amount of homes they have called depends because some years they have called more than others based on funding. They repeat this study usually twice a year. They usually call the same household four times in a year depending or not if they have given information in the past. When they call they can only talk to people who are twelve years or older. Which I think is a great thing because anyone younger might be telling a lie just to act cool or just because they are bored. Also, when they call they ask you more related information if you have been a victim of a crime. They ask you the victim, about the offenders, the crime, also even about the experience with the crime and your past experiences with the criminal justice system. Cavs123 Trojan65
I complete agree with you, having results of some reports can help law enforcement keep track of what areas need more patrol and more protection than other areas. It helps them keep watch on those crimes that are being committed in that area, so can try to put a stop to it catch the person doing those things instead of repeating affecting different people. I also agree, it does show the poorer neighborhoods and the richer ones. Usually the poor neighborhood had the most crimes going on because there looking for money that they can’t get. The richer neighborhood typically doesn’t have as much crime action going on because they have money and things they want but sometimes they can have crime action over there because people from the poor neighborhood are trying to attempt a robbery. And to see those crime rate would help them see what and where it’s safe to live or be at. The using the NCVS is very good because it’s always good to kind of put pressure on the people in the household to get out some crime that has been committed that haven’t been reported. Calling the household at least 4 times in year make it’s so easy for the police to get something out the household because they feel pressured and might want to say something about maybe they know happen to someone. - BABYBLUE123&SMILE123
Reading this article and seeing the differences between the two databases and seeing how each one is uniquely special in its own way, but both have problems with them also. The Uniform Crime Report good, but the only bad thing is that we never get to see the crimes that may have never been reported, or if a crime was reported an officer may think that the crime was not worthy of pursuing and may just drop the case without investigating. Also another bad thing about the Uniform Crime Report is that if we have a case that may have been a rape robbery murder, the only crime that is going to go into the UCR system will be the murder because it is the highest penalty crime. The UCR also only has twenty one crime categories for agencies to report in, but the new National Incident-Based Reporting System has forty six different crime categories and it puts every crime into the system even if it is a rape robbery murder case. We can also use the UCR to see how towns that may be the same size are comparing and if one has more crime what can they do to be like the other town.The National Crime Victimization Survey is good for when we want to see the dark unreported crimes that people may be too afraid to go to the police for or if they told the police, but they never did anything about it. We can also see problems with the NCVS because some people who may have just misplaced something or lost it may report this object as being stolen when in reality it could be under their bed. The NCVS may also call someone who may make up stories so that they feel like they can have someone to talk to and not make them feel alone which can also throw off the data and statistics.All in all these two programs are great for us as a nation because we can see what is going on in our communities and how to stop certain crimes or we can find out just how many people are afraid of going to the police for help. The UCR ( uniform crime reports) is administered by the FBI, It started around 1929 the ucr collect data on murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.They collect this data monthly.These crimes counts for nations whole as well for cities,towns,states. UCR crime statistics are used in many ways and serve many purposes.The NCVS began in 1973 and the ncvs collects data on sexual assaut,personal robberys, household bulglarys and thefts but not homicide and commercial crimes.The survery ask all kind of information about the victims like age, race, sex in so on.Two times a year they interview the househlod familys.Both UCR and NCVS are alike but are different in many ways they serva a different purpose. The UCR is to reliable set of criminal justuce statistics for law enforcement administration and the NCVS to provide previously data about crims ,victims,and offenders. I think both the UCR and NCVS are both very good systems to use. I know lots of people that had crimes done to them and they had not reported it because they dont turst in our law and before reading this i had know idea that there are systems like this out this very good to know. Illini123andPizza123
Though they are both important, I personally favor the NCVS. Why? Well, the UCR might be good for logging reported crimes, but the NCVS is good for finding all the dark hidden stuff that people don’t want, or try to, report to the police. It also takes in information about why people don’t necessarily try to report those specific crimes and compares it to the crimes, and reasoning behind, of being reported. I’m sure they had to have heard some interesting reasons. My personal favorite between the two would have had to be that one. I mean, I agree with you that they are both good systems, I just think the UCR lacks part of the crime reporting ability and the NCVS fulfills that part while it lacks the part that the UCR has, you know what I mean? I too have had friends witness or even commit crimes that were never reported and I used to always think to myself, I wonder how that goes unnoticed. If I was a criminal right now and did something illegal and no one reported it, I would probably have the assumption that the criminal justice system just doesn’t work for everything and there must be loopholes. Like you, reading about this made me see that there are things in place, behind the scenes, that are doing more work than we thought they were doing. Maybe the system has better control of the crime than I originally thought. I do agree with you guys when you say it is not right to only report the most harsh crime if it is a 3 part crime. But, even if it's not reported i would think they would still get about the same amount of time. Yes, I feel like all parts of the crime should be reported because the person did all 3 things at the same time. Why don’t the officers report all the aspect of a crime that has happened? I feel like it is a little petty if someone report something stolen but it was really under their bed and they still talk to them about something. Why are they trying to comfort them for something that they just didn’t look for? Should they even be reporting something like that? And, should the officers even be giving their time to something so small and petty. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
I agree that both the UCR and NCVS are alike in many ways but they are also different in some aspect. I think the UCR is more of a reliable source compared to the NCVS but they are both great tools to gather data regards to reported and unreported crimes. I wonder how many crimes are being falsely reported to local police agencies also and if they take in those numbers. Both UCR and NCVS show how much crime is being committed across our nation whether it being reported or unreported and which crimes are happening the most in different areas to try and put a stop to it. This is one of the most informational articles I have ever read. It was interesting to find out where we get crime information from and where law enforcement sends the information about crimes they encounter. I thought it was interesting that each of these methods have some problems with them that are obvious and consistent. I think that the NCVS picks up the UCR's slack. By this I mean the NCVS tells us what the UCR doesn't, such as the crimes that weren't reported and it gives us more in depth information. The UCR is a very good source because it gives us information about crimes that are committed around us. -ZAR123, PIZZALOVER123
Part 1: The criminal justice system over time has developed ways to monitor, track and organize information about crime in the United States. Two of these methods being the UCR program, otherwise known as the Uniform Crime Reports, and the National Crime Victimization Survey. Both were established in the later 1900’s, with a twenty-year development gap between them. The UCR began in 1929 according to this article and was created to collect information on crimes such as murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. Aside from these, there are 21 other crime categories. Now the NCVS is vastly different from the function of a Uniform Crime Report. The NCVS was established twenty years after the UCR, in 1973, and its creation was intended for individual interviews to seek out information about unreported crimes. Now both crime reports are useful in the gathering of arrest information and unreported crimes. The UCR utilizes the hard-work of the police officers and police agencies that monitor crimes. Police officers send in the monthly data that they collect over all the arrests they make and the calls they answer to, if they fall into one of the many categories, that is. Now some of the crimes are lumped together and charged as one specific crime. It usually ends up being the most severe crime of the group of things that individual commits at a single time. For example, rape-robbery-murder would be the crimes committed by the one single person but the only crime that would be reported would be the murder because it is the largest, more hazardous crime committed. I feel that this part of the UCR is flawed because sometimes rape can be just as bad, if not worse, than murder but they don’t account for the rape when the murder is the bigger picture. Over time the definition of rape has changed. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
Part 2: The new definition of rape was update January of 2013. All forms of rape is reported to the UCR. From: forcible, statutory etc… The old definition was The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” I think the old definition is very much effective because it get the point across about what rape is. The new rape definition is “The carnal knowledge of a person, without the consent of the victim, including instances where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity.” I feel like both definitions are great. The UCR also comes up with crime count reports for the entire nation. Aside from just reporting the crimes, it also reports things like the characteristics of the criminal. Ex, race, gender, sex, etc. Over time, the UCR will evolve, and is evolving, into widely national, more detailed crime reporting systems. I personally think this system is good for logging and holding onto crimes that have been reported but it lacks the ability to log the unreported crimes or to even find out about crimes like that. It only applies to reported crimes. One of the things that I think is really weird about it, is that you can not access the crimes about the hate crime and officer assault. Why can’t you access those kind of crimes? I feel like if you are able to access another crime you should be able to access all of them. The hate crimes I feel like are just as important as a murder crime. Although, it’s not as serious as a murder crime, it still has the value of a murder crime in my eyes. As for the National Crime Victimization Survey, it is operated by the U.S Census Bureau that could be considered undercover detective or police work because it finds the hidden information and unreported crimes that police know nothing about. They find this by calling and surveying approximately 43,000 households, or 76,000 people to be more accurate. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
Part 3: The surveys are usually limited to people ages 12 and over and some families can be subjected to this survey for up to three years, but people eventually do get rotated out. The information they collect isn’t just on unreported crimes but it helps summarize the reasoning behind a person’s decision to not report a crime and also gives an estimate on the types of crimes that are normally reported in comparison to the crimes that are not. I think this is a wonderful idea to try to dig up all the crimes that have the curtains pulled over them to be hidden from police sight. It’s important for the police to know this because the public needs to be maintained and controlled based off the amount of crime committed. If there is a lot of crime, clearly the police need to crack down a bit harder but if there isn’t that much crime, the police could relax a bit. Not to mention it affects households too to know how much crime is in their community. If there is a lot of crime you would notice many families being guarded and extra precautions. If they found out there was less crime, they might be more comfortable in their neighborhoods. This survey provides information about victims like age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, income and educational level. Unlike the UCR report, this survey as 46 different crime categories while the UCR has 21. It also tells about offenders and all the same characteristics along with all the crimes from the victim’s point of view as well. The bad part about this survey is that it doesn’t report on the biggest things such as homicide or commercial crimes. It does report all the other usual crimes. This survey only happens two times a year. As you can see there are two very accurate ways, with slight problems from each, that together can be used to log crime rates. The UCR appears to only be updated every fall. You would think the website would be updated more frequently. Another thing would be its ignorance to small towns and cities. Why don’t the smaller towns and and cities get entered in this data? I don't like how they only focus on the bigger towns. The smaller towns would be easier to catch a perpetrator. It would be more likely to catch someone vs trying to catch someone in a much much bigger town. One thing that I was an eye opening thing for me is when they say it is a lot of crime in a city doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a lot of crime. They do not report every crime that happens all the time. There was no surprise to me about how there were so many factors that affect the crime rate. The one that stands out to me the most is the attitude toward crime. Why is that even a factor to someone wanting to commit a crime among their city? I wonder. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
The National Crime Victimization Survey is just an okay tool for the Bureau of Justice to utilize. To me it is not much of a tool for anybody to use because of how poorly designed its’ reporting methods are. By calling a limited number of households in the U.S. per year, you are drastically limiting the true number of unreported crimes. Not that many households have a home telephone anymore due to cost and lack of convenience, according to reports it is estimated that less than fifty percent of U.S. households still have home phones. Therefore by calling only households with home phones you have eliminated over fifty percent of your population. I took statistics in high school and if I was to have created the NCVS as a project or whatever I would have received a failing grade. Why? Because the NCVS is what you would call a complete sampling disaster. Also who wants to tell some person on the other end of the phone if they were raped or not? Nobody that was raped would likely want to do so, cause that surveyor has zero (0) credibility as to whom they are or aren’t. I find this NCVS deal to be a complete joke as most people that did not report a crime are not going to suddenly report the crime to some surveyor on the phone. The Unified Crime Reports are a much better collection of data than the NCVS, just because it isn’t a voluntary survey. It gains data via all of the law enforcement agencies in the U.S. which is accurate info. It is similar to the NCVS because of how it categorizes crimes almost exactly the same. The UCR allows agencies to figure out what types of crimes are being committed in all parts of the country and then they can develop plans of action on how to stop them. Of course the UCR fails to find out unreported crimes, but it is also a complete survey of the population (being the law enforcement agencies). The NCVS could be much better if it was to combine something like the UCR and itself; only if someone came up with a better way to collect hidden crime info. The UCR is far more advanced than the NCVS is. The UCR has adapted to today's society and has changed with us as the time has gone on. On the other hand the NCVS has not, for example they still only call house phone number's and many people today don't have house phones do to the advancement in cell phones. Do to that reasoning you are drastically cutting the percent of people you are talking to and how do you even know they are being truthful they could just be embellishing the event to something much larger than it was. The NCVS has zero credibility because most of the time if some very traumatic happens to a person for example Criminal Sexual Assault or a Home Invasion or something along those lines. And who would want to talk to a complete stranger over the phone and talk about these traumatic events. I know I wouldn't want to. The NCVS needs to change it's ways and adapt with today's society before it becomes obsolete. The UCR is so much better than the NCVS but it does lack to find and include those unreported crimes. If the UCR could find a way to figure out what these unreported crimes are or just know how many there are they could include a new area for unreported crimes and list them separate than with other major offenses. If they did this their accuracy would be off the charts and then people would know everything then just what everyone else knows. The NCVS should either join together with the UCR and combine their data and become one and go from there or change and reform their whole system to stay up to date with the rest of the world. If these two where to join one could be in charge of the reported crimes and the other be in charge of finding out the unreported crimes or give a ballpark number of unreported crimes in an area. If that was to happen that would help with giving a more accurate and efficient data then what there was before as these two were separate. NDIrish 123, Fireboy123.
The UCR is indeed a better collection of data that can be relied on for analysis of current rates of crime in our country. While, yes, the UCR does show a much better representation to the population as a whole affected by crime, it does not take into account all the crimes that go unreported so in that sense maybe the UCR has struck its limitations? The NCVS fills these unreported crime gaps, but however, it is a voluntary survey so the UCR can be trusted as far as crime reports just a little bit more because of how it represents the population as a whole and not necessarily just households. It is completely agreeable that if the NCVS and the UCR were to join together as one, it would greatly help out with providing much more accurate and reliable data than if these two programs were to stay seperate. Gymlife123 Ghost123
PART ONE: After reading this report there are multiple similarities and differences between the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey. One of the main differences between these two were that they were created for to serve completely different purposes. One (Uniform Crime Report) was to provide a reliable set of statistics as the other (National Crime Victimization Survey) was to get and provide information that was previously unavailable. The reliable set of statistics is that of crimes that have been reported. The National Crime Victimization Survey is just that, it is a survey that collects data that was not reported. I believe that even though they are very different they are both needed. I say this because not all crimes are reported. Therefore there is a lot of information out there that are not on any reports. By conducting this survey I believe it helps or is needed because it allows for underlying information to be researched and used possibly by others as well. Something else that I thought was very interesting but a difference was that both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey calculate crime rates under different bases. The Uniform Crime Report rates for these crimes are per capita which is the number of crimes per 100,000 people. The National Crime Victimization Survey rates for these crimes are per household which is number of crimes per 1,000 households. I am not sure I completely agree with the way these are both conducted but I can see why. There are times when the data collected about property crimes is not going to be comparable. It stated that the reasoning for this was because the number of households may not grow at the same rate each year as the total population does. If the population increases and the property crimes increase but the household numbers do not that data will not be comparable. It doesn't prove one to be better than the other but that Uniform Crime Report and the National Victimization Survey could both work together and receive possibly more data that is usable in more than just one report. Sunshine123 & UofM123
PART TWO: For the UCR it is monthly law enforcement reports for the nation as a whole. Closely examining these reports could help find large factors that could affect how the system goes about completely certain procedures. The NCVS is more detailed and occurs two times a year by the U.S. Census Bureau. They are interviewing roughly 43,000 households which are rotated throughout the years. The NCVS is trying to get as much information as they can out of these surveys in order to have a complete report. Reports from the UCR and NCVS are extremely important because we are able to find crime trends that are going on in the U.S. When conducting these household surveys it is imperative to have appropriate wording in the questions they are asking. As previously motioned the NCVS is collecting crimes that were reported and crimes that were not reported. It’s essential to have people speak up about the crimes they chose not to report because it is only going to benefit the data collected. Also, it is going to help our system understand what are the crimes that people do not report to the police. There is going to be a trend in the crimes that people do not speak out about. It is vital to remember that the NCVS has a margin of error from the sampling. One major importance of the NCVS is how in depth the characteristics are developed. It is not just focusing on what the crime was, like the UCR, however it is building upon that by getting the details of the victim, crime, and offender. This is going to break down specifics when it comes to who commits what crimes, locations, and specific targets. It is essential to keep records of all these reports and to continue collecting information so we can learn about what is going on in the U.S. We are building our knowledge and skills to help fix procedures and developed a better approach to stopping crimes by examining these crime trends closely. Both the UCR and NCVS are very different yet benefit us greatly. Sunshine123 & UofM123
The most well-known criminal justice data set is the Uniform Crime Report, collected by the FBI since 1930. The UCR includes statistics on seven crimes classified as either violent crime or property crime: murder, rape, assault and robbery fall under the violent crimes category, while arson, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft fall under property crime. The UCR serves many purposes and has many benefits for the people who access it. While the stats can be skewed due to all of the people that don't report violent crimes the stats still help police when doing hotspot policing and other measures used to prevent such crime.According to Joan Petersilia, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, “police accountability data is good because it acts as a crossover issue, it helps people begin to understand” criminal justice data. There are a number of other transaction points in the criminal justice system that create data and can be used for accountability purposes. Ultimately, the goal that Petersilia and many others share is that we be able to take data from all points along the criminal justice system in order to assess the impact of what we do with the criminal justice system, allowing law enforcement to find the programs and practices that create the best possible public outcomes. The UCR is described as benefiting law enforcement in all aspects of operation, from actual policing to budget formulation and to help local community development efforts. Criminal justice researchers use the UCR to study crime trends and find ways to improve the criminal justice system. The national victim survey is also a very useful tool but it also can be skewed due to people not reporting or admitting that hey were a victim of a crime. The NVS is more detailed and gives more of a rounded look on where crime is happening and who it is happening to. It also shows the circumstances of the crime to show if the incident could have been stopped. There are two crime measures in the United States, both of which are extremely crucial to the collection and analyzing of the data. Without crime data, we would not be able to see where there is need for improvement. These techniques of measuring crime will continue to aid in the identification of rising issues, therefore guiding us in the direction we need to go to better the country as far as crime rates go. The first measure of crime is the Uniform Crime Reports, or the UCR. The Uniform Crime Reports is an FBI administered program that collects information on crimes such as murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The UCR is collected by the FBI, but the FBI gathers the criminal information from state and local police departments. All of the data collected is reported crime. As we know as criminal justice majors that many people do not know, is that this reported crime is only about half of all serious crimes that are reported to the police. Half of serious crime is simply never reported. The National Crime Victimization Survey; however, is a survey of homes throughout the United States. This survey takes place twice a year, covering about 43,000 homes each time. This system is in place to uncover as much of the unreported crime crime as possible. Anyone who is 12 years or older in the household will be asked questions about crime they may have experienced over the last year, and that data will be used to uncover the crime that unfortunately goes unreported. With each of these crime measurements in place, we have a great idea of what crime is dominating our cities and will give us a better idea on how to combat those issues throughout the country. gh_blackhawks123, KLICK123
Both the UCR (or the Uniform Crime Report) and the NCVS (or the National Crime Vicimizatiom Survey) help law enforcement in tremendous ways. They both have different purposes, methods, focuses, and they both produce very helpful information. The UCR is administered by the FBI, it began in 1929 and the methods used to compile these reports are quite complex. Each month, law enforcement agencies report the number of crimes they know about to the FBI; the data is collected from victim complaints, officers, or other sources. The UCR provides a reliable set of criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration, operations, and management. The UCR includes reports on crimes such as homicide, arson, commercial crimes, and crimes against women. The NCVS is a comprehensive nationwide survey of victimization, administered to persons age twelve or older from a national representative sample of households. Once selected, households remain in the sample for three years, and eligible persons are interviewed every six months. This survey provides previously unavailable information about crime (including unreported crimes, victims, and offenders). It provides information on frequency and nature of the crimes rape, sexual assault, personal robbery, aggravated and simple assault, household theft, and motor theft. Although these reports are very helpful they can also have some faults and errors. One problem with the UCR is, less than half of all violent crimes and only one third of property crimes are reported to the police. Another problem is that sometimes local law enforcement agencies make intentional and/ or unintentional errors in their reporting practices. The NCVS finds that fewer than half of violent crimes, fewer than one-third of personal theft crimes, and fewer than half of household thefts are reported to police. Some problems with the NCVS include overreporting due to victims' misinterpretation of events, underreporting, sampling errors, and inadequate question format. Although there are errors with these reports they are very beneficial to law enforcement.
I think the UCR and NCVS both serve good purposes regarding how many crimes are being committed throughout the United States but I don’t consider the NCVS to be a reliable source of data compared to the UCR. The UCR shows crime nation that is being devoted rather than a numbered set of households that is being surveyed by the NCVS. It seems as if the NCVS can be inaccurate compared to the UCR by the ways the data is collected per households and the UCR is reported by local and state law enforcement agencies which seems to be a more reliable source of information on how many crimes are being committed throughout these agencies such as murders, thefts, rapes, robbery, assaults, motor vehicle thefts and arson. These reported crimes are then sent to the FBI monthly and is annually published by them while the NCVS is reported two times out of the year and the information isn’t always as accurate because of maybe false reports and victims not reporting their crimes out of fear or being shamed even when it’s anonymous. I believe that both sources of data to gather crime reports are different but similar in some ways. Even though many crimes are unreported or even falsely reported, I still believe that they both serve great purposes as tool to gather what crimes are being committed throughout the US. They both cover a great amount of serious crimes that many people want to know about and a rough estimate of how much crime is taken place throughout their area rather than relying on the news or tv sources that aren’t always accurate. The UCR and NCVS are probably the most truthful sources even if it’s not an accurate number of crimes that are being reported or under reported but it still comes close and shows a good estimate of what’s going on in our country to give people a realistic idea rather than getting information from false sources.
PART 1: The Uniform Crime Report, or UCR, and the National Crime Victimization Survey, or NCVS are statistical data banks that both law enforcement and the public use when analyzing crime hotspots. The UCR focuses on crimes reported by law enforcement during the time of arrest. Only the most serious crime of each charge is collected and this data is then sent to the FBI from local police agencies. Throughout the year this data is collected and analyzed by federal experts within the FBI or its supporting agencies. The following spring this data is isolated and presented in a preliminary report. A more detailed annual report called the “Crime in the United States” is published later on in the following year. This report reflects crime within the nation, but it can be isolated down into states, counties, and cities. Some of the crimes the UCR reports include; robbery, aggravated assault, details of homicides. Law enforcement agencies use this data to help locate hotspots of certain crime and allocate resources and special operations teams to combat the high density crime areas. However, not all crimes are reported and the UCR may not help build an entire picture for officers and citizens alike. This is where the NCVS comes in and helps fill in the gaps. The NCVS is a survey given to around 76,000 people 2 times a year through 43,000 households. Every surveyor must be 12 years or older in order to be interviewed. Within these interviews the Bureau of Justice Statistics collects information on crimes, experiences, and overall crime climates of regions. The NCVS attempts to gather information on crimes not reported as well as victims experiences with the criminal justice system. Occasionally new data points are added in the form of new questions to further analyze certain hotspots of crime. Some of the crimes the NCVS examines includes; sexual assault, personal robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and much more. The NCVS helps isolate and track crimes that may have not been reported to the police, and consequently, provide law enforcement agencies with a more complete picture of the criminal state in their jurisdiction. However, while both data reports share a lot of characteristics they also differ in many ways. Ghost123 Gymlife123
PART 2: The UCR and NCVS are indeed similar in several ways, however there are some ways the both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey differ. One difference that we can find between the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey are different is that the main purpose of the UCR is to provide a reliable set of detailed criminal justice statistics for all law enforcement personnel such as law enfrocement management, operation, and administration. The NCVS was created by the BJS to provide information that was otherwise previously unattainable such as information about crime, victims, and offenders. The second way that the NCVS and UCR are different is that the NCVS crime that is both reported and not reported to local law enforcement authorities. The UCR includes homicide, arson, commercial crimes, and crimes against children under the age of 12, however the NCVS does not include these types of crimes. The third way the Uniform Crime Report and National Crime Victimization Survey differ is that the two have separate definitions as to what defines crime. For property crimes, the two programs calculate crime rates using differing bases. For example, the UCR calculates the rates of these crimes number of crimes per 100,000 persons, while the NCVS calculates this as number of crimes per 1,000 households.The two programs are not exactly comparable when discussing property crimes due to the fact that the number of households might not grow at the same rate as the population. Both the UCR and NCVS have strengths in their own unique ways. The UCR provides a number of reported crime to local law enforcement agencies throughout the country, while the NCVS is the main source of information on the characteristics of criminal victimization and the number of crimes that are not reported to the local police departments. Ghost123 Gymlife123
While reading this article I realized some key differences between the UCR and NCVS. The UCR program began in 1929, administered by the FBI. The UCR was created to collect information on crimes such as, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. While the NCVS, which began in 1973, provides a detailed picture of crime incidents, victims, and trends. The NCVS collects information on crimes suffered by individuals and households, whether or not those crimes were reported to law enforcement. One major difference I realized while reading this article is that the UCR main purpose is to provide a set of criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration, operation and management. The NCVS gives information that is not given or provided by the UCR. So the crimes that are not on the UCR is probably on the NCVS. That's why the Bureau of Justice Statistics came up with the program. They wanted more information about crime and information about crime that wasn't reported. The two programs also classify different crimes differently. For example, the UCR would characterize a burglary as the unlawful entry or attempted entry into a structure to commit a felony or theft. The NCVS would characterize it as an entry or attempted entry of a residence by a person who had no right to be there. It's the same crime but I think the NCVS breaks it down to get it simple and tell you if the person burglarized or attempted to burglarize a place. Also for the data the UCR calculates crime rates using the number of crimes per 100,00. The NCVS calculates crime per 1,000 household.Basically the NCVS is for the crimes that are not reported to law enforcement. “It's the primary source of information on characteristics of criminal victimization and on the number and types of crimes not reported to law enforcement agencies.” The UCR is crime reported, but not with as much detail. “The UCR program presents crime counts for the nation as a whole, as well as for regions, states, counties, cities, towns, tribal law enforcement, and colleges and universities. The UCR permits studies among neighboring jurisdictions and among those with almost the same populations and some common characteristics.DC123
There are many things that are different about the UCR and the NCVS. Both are meant to serve different purposes. The UCR main goal is to provide a reliable set of criminal justice stats for law enforcement. The NCVS is to be able provide unviable information about crime (even crime that has not been reported to the police), victims and the offenders. UCR are crimes reported to the police in most jurisdictions. The NCVS are both reported and unreported to police. Nation as a whole. Another difference is the collection method. The UCR collection method is the police and departments of the FBI an on the other hand the NCVS collects information by survey. The kinds of information for the UCR is quite different from the NCVS. The UCR is offense counts; crime clearances; person arrests and homicide victims. The NCVS kind of information is details about victims and the crimes committed. Reported use of weapons, injuries and economic effects. To move on they are both sponsored defiantly the UCR is sponsored by the FBI and the NCVS is sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Another one that is major is the methodology side. The NCVS an UCR crimes differ. For example, the UCR defines burglary as the unlawful entry or attempted entry of some type of structure to commit a felony or theft. On the other hand, the NCVS defines burglary as the entry of attempted entry of a residence by a person who had no right to be there. Fourth difference is that the programs calculate the crime rates using different bases. The UCR rates for burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft is per capita, whereas the NCVS rates for these crimes are per household. Besides all these differences both programs are still very important, and have their own strengths. The UCR provides a measure of the number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies throughout the whole entire country. The UCR’s Supplementary homicide reports provide reliable, timely data of the extent nature of homicides in the nation. In addition to providing annual point and change estimates on criminal victimization, The NCVS is the primary source of all information on the characteristics of victimization incidents and all the numbers and types of crimes that are not reported to law enforcement. I think these systems are helpful when it comes to all types of crimes. The fact that some crimes go unreported, it must be something else behind what happen and using the NVCS helps gets all the information you need to get that report. When these crimes go unnoticed it’s hard to get justice of what someone did you to or even something that was in general. It really helps the system get weapons that was used on a certain crime and they can put it together and may be able to catch the person using it. UCR can help put people in jail, get people committing multiple crimes because they never got caught doing it. It plays a big role because if they are not getting caught committing something they are going to keep doing what they are doing and maybe do way more because they’ve got away with it so many times. For example, kidnappers they aren’t getting caught doing that crime so they gather as much kids and get away with it because they are not getting reported to the police to stop them from kidnapping. Also, burglary, they can keep getting to people house because they are not getting caught or even reported to the police and they are not being stopped. But since the UCR data is reliable to the system knows to use this to be able to put those criminals away. But sometimes the police are not reporting these crimes either, so that does play a big role in the data to. Those officers that are going ready to go home or just doesn’t feel like dealing with the problems sometimes just doesn’t care about it. NCVS and UCR data can be used in concert to explore why trends in reported and police recorded crime may differ. NCVS and UCR are great data bases to use to get some of those crimes that are not being reported. -SMILE123&BABYBLUE123
ReplyDeleteI thought you had some good points about crimes not being reported by the victim or by the police. The stats can help a lot but they are not 1005 accurate therefore police and other law enforcement personnel have to take a second look at some of the crimes like rape. Where circumstances are always different and the chance of it not being reported are alot higher.
DeleteKLICK123
The NCVS doesn’t provide unviable info due to its many inaccuracies. The NCVS does not even need to collect info on reported crimes because the UCR already does that. So it is a waste of taxpayer money and the surveyor’s time. Unreported crimes are likely to not be reported to some random surveyor on the phone. Also the surveyor has no way of proving a citizens response to be true or false. The UCR is accurate because it has the authority of tens of thousands of law enforcement agencies standing behind it. If we could develop a way to make the NCVS effective in the collection of unreported crimes then we could make it an accurate way to observe data. The NCVS is pretty much obsolete. The UCR is already doing everything that the NCVS is doing but in a much more effective and accurate way. The UCR gives better numbers and accuracy compared to the NCVS based on how they get their data compared with the NCVS. NDIrish123, Fireboy123.
DeleteI completely agree with you that the systems work good together especially that the National Crime Victimization Survey helps get the information that is not reported. I definitely agree with the fact that the criminals that do not get caught are going to keep committing. Therefore I think this is where it is great that they work together because the National Crime Victimization Survey could help law enforcement realize if there is a problem in their jurisdiction when nothing is being reported. Just because a crime is not reported does not mean that it is not happening. I also agree with you when you say that the officers that are not reporting crimes is not helping. Just because the officer does not think it should be reported does not mean that they are always correct. That is when you get the differences in the crime reports. Both the UCR and NCVS are extremely important and help our police system gain more knowledge to help create a safer environment for everyone. I believe that doing monthly reports from the UCR and the household surveys will help more people become aware of the crime trends possibly make more people speak up when a crime is committed. Sunshine123 & UofM123
DeleteWhile each of these are useful in their own ways, I agree that these two systems working together are a great combo and do a great job of collecting useful and accurate data. The NCVS is a great way to uncover the crime that goes unreported while allowing the people on the other end of the line to remain comfortable talking about it and without feeling endangered while they discuss any crime that they have encountered. gh_blackhwks123
DeleteThe UCR and NCVS both programs cover rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft. Rape, robbery, theft, and motor vehicle theft are defined virtually identically by both the UCR and the NCVS. Although rape is defined analogously, the UCR Program measures the crime against women only, and the NCVS measures it against both sexes. It is needed to keep track of the crime rates all over the country. It is for the benefit of the people of the United States to help become a more well informed and keeps everyone informed about the crime rate around them. It will also show whats going on in your local area. It keeps everyone on the lookout for sex offenders, murders, and thieves around you. The results of these reports also helps law enforcement keep track of what areas need more patrol and more protection than other areas. It also shows the more poor neighborhoods and the richer ones. Reason for this is because some poor people are more than likely to steal and commit a crime since they live in a rougher and more dangerous lifestyle than the richer kids. It keeps track also of how the crime rate is month by month and day by day. With this feature, people can feel safe knowing they have a reliable source to see the crime rates around them and in the world. The UCR, uniform crime reports, and the NCVS, national crime victimization survey, are very similar in nature. The UCR began in 1929, it collects the information that is reported by law enforcement on all of the crimes that are committed that they are responded to. In this data base, the crimes are reported monthly from the local law enforcement agencies to the FBI, they are as a region, states, counties, cities, towns, universities, exc. Once a year they present all of these counts of crime as a whole in the “Crime in the United States” In this edition they have everything from court appearances, to the people what where arrested. Even to the age, sex, and even the race of the individual. Which I think is an awesome way of identifying the repeat offenders if possible and even identifying the possible offenders based on what they have done as a kid. The NCVS, which is the National Crime Victimization Survey. This survey provides a detailed picture of the crime incidents Also the victim and person committing the crime. They do this by calling many homes and asking if they have ever been a victim of a crime or if they know anyone that has been a victim of a crime and if they have reported it or not. They do this by calling many homes like I just said. From year to year the amount of homes they have called depends because some years they have called more than others based on funding. They repeat this study usually twice a year. They usually call the same household four times in a year depending or not if they have given information in the past. When they call they can only talk to people who are twelve years or older. Which I think is a great thing because anyone younger might be telling a lie just to act cool or just because they are bored. Also, when they call they ask you more related information if you have been a victim of a crime. They ask you the victim, about the offenders, the crime, also even about the experience with the crime and your past experiences with the criminal justice system. Cavs123 Trojan65
ReplyDeleteI complete agree with you, having results of some reports can help law enforcement keep track of what areas need more patrol and more protection than other areas. It helps them keep watch on those crimes that are being committed in that area, so can try to put a stop to it catch the person doing those things instead of repeating affecting different people. I also agree, it does show the poorer neighborhoods and the richer ones. Usually the poor neighborhood had the most crimes going on because there looking for money that they can’t get. The richer neighborhood typically doesn’t have as much crime action going on because they have money and things they want but sometimes they can have crime action over there because people from the poor neighborhood are trying to attempt a robbery. And to see those crime rate would help them see what and where it’s safe to live or be at. The using the NCVS is very good because it’s always good to kind of put pressure on the people in the household to get out some crime that has been committed that haven’t been reported. Calling the household at least 4 times in year make it’s so easy for the police to get something out the household because they feel pressured and might want to say something about maybe they know happen to someone. - BABYBLUE123&SMILE123
DeleteReading this article and seeing the differences between the two databases and seeing how each one is uniquely special in its own way, but both have problems with them also. The Uniform Crime Report good, but the only bad thing is that we never get to see the crimes that may have never been reported, or if a crime was reported an officer may think that the crime was not worthy of pursuing and may just drop the case without investigating. Also another bad thing about the Uniform Crime Report is that if we have a case that may have been a rape robbery murder, the only crime that is going to go into the UCR system will be the murder because it is the highest penalty crime. The UCR also only has twenty one crime categories for agencies to report in, but the new National Incident-Based Reporting System has forty six different crime categories and it puts every crime into the system even if it is a rape robbery murder case. We can also use the UCR to see how towns that may be the same size are comparing and if one has more crime what can they do to be like the other town.The National Crime Victimization Survey is good for when we want to see the dark unreported crimes that people may be too afraid to go to the police for or if they told the police, but they never did anything about it. We can also see problems with the NCVS because some people who may have just misplaced something or lost it may report this object as being stolen when in reality it could be under their bed. The NCVS may also call someone who may make up stories so that they feel like they can have someone to talk to and not make them feel alone which can also throw off the data and statistics.All in all these two programs are great for us as a nation because we can see what is going on in our communities and how to stop certain crimes or we can find out just how many people are afraid of going to the police for help. The UCR ( uniform crime reports) is administered by the FBI, It started around 1929 the ucr collect data on murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.They collect this data monthly.These crimes counts for nations whole as well for cities,towns,states. UCR crime statistics are used in many ways and serve many purposes.The NCVS began in 1973 and the ncvs collects data on sexual assaut,personal robberys, household bulglarys and thefts but not homicide and commercial crimes.The survery ask all kind of information about the victims like age, race, sex in so on.Two times a year they interview the househlod familys.Both UCR and NCVS are alike but are different in many ways they serva a different purpose. The UCR is to reliable set of criminal justuce statistics for law enforcement administration and the NCVS to provide previously data about crims ,victims,and offenders. I think both the UCR and NCVS are both very good systems to use. I know lots of people that had crimes done to them and they had not reported it because they dont turst in our law and before reading this i had know idea that there are systems like this out this very good to know.
ReplyDeleteIllini123andPizza123
Though they are both important, I personally favor the NCVS. Why? Well, the UCR might be good for logging reported crimes, but the NCVS is good for finding all the dark hidden stuff that people don’t want, or try to, report to the police. It also takes in information about why people don’t necessarily try to report those specific crimes and compares it to the crimes, and reasoning behind, of being reported. I’m sure they had to have heard some interesting reasons. My personal favorite between the two would have had to be that one. I mean, I agree with you that they are both good systems, I just think the UCR lacks part of the crime reporting ability and the NCVS fulfills that part while it lacks the part that the UCR has, you know what I mean? I too have had friends witness or even commit crimes that were never reported and I used to always think to myself, I wonder how that goes unnoticed. If I was a criminal right now and did something illegal and no one reported it, I would probably have the assumption that the criminal justice system just doesn’t work for everything and there must be loopholes. Like you, reading about this made me see that there are things in place, behind the scenes, that are doing more work than we thought they were doing. Maybe the system has better control of the crime than I originally thought. I do agree with you guys when you say it is not right to only report the most harsh crime if it is a 3 part crime. But, even if it's not reported i would think they would still get about the same amount of time. Yes, I feel like all parts of the crime should be reported because the person did all 3 things at the same time. Why don’t the officers report all the aspect of a crime that has happened? I feel like it is a little petty if someone report something stolen but it was really under their bed and they still talk to them about something. Why are they trying to comfort them for something that they just didn’t look for? Should they even be reporting something like that? And, should the officers even be giving their time to something so small and petty. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
DeleteI agree that both the UCR and NCVS are alike in many ways but they are also different in some aspect. I think the UCR is more of a reliable source compared to the NCVS but they are both great tools to gather data regards to reported and unreported crimes. I wonder how many crimes are being falsely reported to local police agencies also and if they take in those numbers. Both UCR and NCVS show how much crime is being committed across our nation whether it being reported or unreported and which crimes are happening the most in different areas to try and put a stop to it. This is one of the most informational articles I have ever read. It was interesting to find out where we get crime information from and where law enforcement sends the information about crimes they encounter. I thought it was interesting that each of these methods have some problems with them that are obvious and consistent. I think that the NCVS picks up the UCR's slack. By this I mean the NCVS tells us what the UCR doesn't, such as the crimes that weren't reported and it gives us more in depth information. The UCR is a very good source because it gives us information about crimes that are committed around us.
Delete-ZAR123, PIZZALOVER123
ReplyDeletePart 1: The criminal justice system over time has developed ways to monitor, track and organize information about crime in the United States. Two of these methods being the UCR program, otherwise known as the Uniform Crime Reports, and the National Crime Victimization Survey. Both were established in the later 1900’s, with a twenty-year development gap between them. The UCR began in 1929 according to this article and was created to collect information on crimes such as murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft and arson. Aside from these, there are 21 other crime categories. Now the NCVS is vastly different from the function of a Uniform Crime Report. The NCVS was established twenty years after the UCR, in 1973, and its creation was intended for individual interviews to seek out information about unreported crimes. Now both crime reports are useful in the gathering of arrest information and unreported crimes. The UCR utilizes the hard-work of the police officers and police agencies that monitor crimes. Police officers send in the monthly data that they collect over all the arrests they make and the calls they answer to, if they fall into one of the many categories, that is. Now some of the crimes are lumped together and charged as one specific crime. It usually ends up being the most severe crime of the group of things that individual commits at a single time. For example, rape-robbery-murder would be the crimes committed by the one single person but the only crime that would be reported would be the murder because it is the largest, more hazardous crime committed. I feel that this part of the UCR is flawed because sometimes rape can be just as bad, if not worse, than murder but they don’t account for the rape when the murder is the bigger picture. Over time the definition of rape has changed. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
Part 2: The new definition of rape was update January of 2013. All forms of rape is reported to the UCR. From: forcible, statutory etc… The old definition was The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” I think the old definition is very much effective because it get the point across about what rape is. The new rape definition is “The carnal knowledge of a person, without the consent of the victim, including instances where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her age or because of his/her temporary or permanent mental or physical incapacity.” I feel like both definitions are great. The UCR also comes up with crime count reports for the entire nation. Aside from just reporting the crimes, it also reports things like the characteristics of the criminal. Ex, race, gender, sex, etc. Over time, the UCR will evolve, and is evolving, into widely national, more detailed crime reporting systems. I personally think this system is good for logging and holding onto crimes that have been reported but it lacks the ability to log the unreported crimes or to even find out about crimes like that. It only applies to reported crimes. One of the things that I think is really weird about it, is that you can not access the crimes about the hate crime and officer assault. Why can’t you access those kind of crimes? I feel like if you are able to access another crime you should be able to access all of them. The hate crimes I feel like are just as important as a murder crime. Although, it’s not as serious as a murder crime, it still has the value of a murder crime in my eyes. As for the National Crime Victimization Survey, it is operated by the U.S Census Bureau that could be considered undercover detective or police work because it finds the hidden information and unreported crimes that police know nothing about. They find this by calling and surveying approximately 43,000 households, or 76,000 people to be more accurate. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
ReplyDeletePart 3: The surveys are usually limited to people ages 12 and over and some families can be subjected to this survey for up to three years, but people eventually do get rotated out. The information they collect isn’t just on unreported crimes but it helps summarize the reasoning behind a person’s decision to not report a crime and also gives an estimate on the types of crimes that are normally reported in comparison to the crimes that are not. I think this is a wonderful idea to try to dig up all the crimes that have the curtains pulled over them to be hidden from police sight. It’s important for the police to know this because the public needs to be maintained and controlled based off the amount of crime committed. If there is a lot of crime, clearly the police need to crack down a bit harder but if there isn’t that much crime, the police could relax a bit. Not to mention it affects households too to know how much crime is in their community. If there is a lot of crime you would notice many families being guarded and extra precautions. If they found out there was less crime, they might be more comfortable in their neighborhoods. This survey provides information about victims like age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, income and educational level. Unlike the UCR report, this survey as 46 different crime categories while the UCR has 21. It also tells about offenders and all the same characteristics along with all the crimes from the victim’s point of view as well. The bad part about this survey is that it doesn’t report on the biggest things such as homicide or commercial crimes. It does report all the other usual crimes. This survey only happens two times a year. As you can see there are two very accurate ways, with slight problems from each, that together can be used to log crime rates. The UCR appears to only be updated every fall. You would think the website would be updated more frequently. Another thing would be its ignorance to small towns and cities. Why don’t the smaller towns and and cities get entered in this data? I don't like how they only focus on the bigger towns. The smaller towns would be easier to catch a perpetrator. It would be more likely to catch someone vs trying to catch someone in a much much bigger town. One thing that I was an eye opening thing for me is when they say it is a lot of crime in a city doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a lot of crime. They do not report every crime that happens all the time. There was no surprise to me about how there were so many factors that affect the crime rate. The one that stands out to me the most is the attitude toward crime. Why is that even a factor to someone wanting to commit a crime among their city? I wonder. SomethingProfound123 and WS123
ReplyDeleteThe National Crime Victimization Survey is just an okay tool for the Bureau of Justice to utilize. To me it is not much of a tool for anybody to use because of how poorly designed its’ reporting methods are. By calling a limited number of households in the U.S. per year, you are drastically limiting the true number of unreported crimes. Not that many households have a home telephone anymore due to cost and lack of convenience, according to reports it is estimated that less than fifty percent of U.S. households still have home phones. Therefore by calling only households with home phones you have eliminated over fifty percent of your population. I took statistics in high school and if I was to have created the NCVS as a project or whatever I would have received a failing grade. Why? Because the NCVS is what you would call a complete sampling disaster. Also who wants to tell some person on the other end of the phone if they were raped or not? Nobody that was raped would likely want to do so, cause that surveyor has zero (0) credibility as to whom they are or aren’t. I find this NCVS deal to be a complete joke as most people that did not report a crime are not going to suddenly report the crime to some surveyor on the phone. The Unified Crime Reports are a much better collection of data than the NCVS, just because it isn’t a voluntary survey. It gains data via all of the law enforcement agencies in the U.S. which is accurate info. It is similar to the NCVS because of how it categorizes crimes almost exactly the same. The UCR allows agencies to figure out what types of crimes are being committed in all parts of the country and then they can develop plans of action on how to stop them. Of course the UCR fails to find out unreported crimes, but it is also a complete survey of the population (being the law enforcement agencies). The NCVS could be much better if it was to combine something like the UCR and itself; only if someone came up with a better way to collect hidden crime info. The UCR is far more advanced than the NCVS is. The UCR has adapted to today's society and has changed with us as the time has gone on. On the other hand the NCVS has not, for example they still only call house phone number's and many people today don't have house phones do to the advancement in cell phones. Do to that reasoning you are drastically cutting the percent of people you are talking to and how do you even know they are being truthful they could just be embellishing the event to something much larger than it was. The NCVS has zero credibility because most of the time if some very traumatic happens to a person for example Criminal Sexual Assault or a Home Invasion or something along those lines. And who would want to talk to a complete stranger over the phone and talk about these traumatic events. I know I wouldn't want to. The NCVS needs to change it's ways and adapt with today's society before it becomes obsolete. The UCR is so much better than the NCVS but it does lack to find and include those unreported crimes. If the UCR could find a way to figure out what these unreported crimes are or just know how many there are they could include a new area for unreported crimes and list them separate than with other major offenses. If they did this their accuracy would be off the charts and then people would know everything then just what everyone else knows. The NCVS should either join together with the UCR and combine their data and become one and go from there or change and reform their whole system to stay up to date with the rest of the world. If these two where to join one could be in charge of the reported crimes and the other be in charge of finding out the unreported crimes or give a ballpark number of unreported crimes in an area. If that was to happen that would help with giving a more accurate and efficient data then what there was before as these two were separate. NDIrish 123, Fireboy123.
ReplyDeleteThe UCR is indeed a better collection of data that can be relied on for analysis of current rates of crime in our country. While, yes, the UCR does show a much better representation to the population as a whole affected by crime, it does not take into account all the crimes that go unreported so in that sense maybe the UCR has struck its limitations? The NCVS fills these unreported crime gaps, but however, it is a voluntary survey so the UCR can be trusted as far as crime reports just a little bit more because of how it represents the population as a whole and not necessarily just households. It is completely agreeable that if the NCVS and the UCR were to join together as one, it would greatly help out with providing much more accurate and reliable data than if these two programs were to stay seperate. Gymlife123 Ghost123
DeletePART ONE: After reading this report there are multiple similarities and differences between the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey. One of the main differences between these two were that they were created for to serve completely different purposes. One (Uniform Crime Report) was to provide a reliable set of statistics as the other (National Crime Victimization Survey) was to get and provide information that was previously unavailable. The reliable set of statistics is that of crimes that have been reported. The National Crime Victimization Survey is just that, it is a survey that collects data that was not reported. I believe that even though they are very different they are both needed. I say this because not all crimes are reported. Therefore there is a lot of information out there that are not on any reports. By conducting this survey I believe it helps or is needed because it allows for underlying information to be researched and used possibly by others as well. Something else that I thought was very interesting but a difference was that both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey calculate crime rates under different bases. The Uniform Crime Report rates for these crimes are per capita which is the number of crimes per 100,000 people. The National Crime Victimization Survey rates for these crimes are per household which is number of crimes per 1,000 households. I am not sure I completely agree with the way these are both conducted but I can see why. There are times when the data collected about property crimes is not going to be comparable. It stated that the reasoning for this was because the number of households may not grow at the same rate each year as the total population does. If the population increases and the property crimes increase but the household numbers do not that data will not be comparable. It doesn't prove one to be better than the other but that Uniform Crime Report and the National Victimization Survey could both work together and receive possibly more data that is usable in more than just one report. Sunshine123 & UofM123
ReplyDeletePART TWO: For the UCR it is monthly law enforcement reports for the nation as a whole. Closely examining these reports could help find large factors that could affect how the system goes about completely certain procedures. The NCVS is more detailed and occurs two times a year by the U.S. Census Bureau. They are interviewing roughly 43,000 households which are rotated throughout the years. The NCVS is trying to get as much information as they can out of these surveys in order to have a complete report. Reports from the UCR and NCVS are extremely important because we are able to find crime trends that are going on in the U.S. When conducting these household surveys it is imperative to have appropriate wording in the questions they are asking. As previously motioned the NCVS is collecting crimes that were reported and crimes that were not reported. It’s essential to have people speak up about the crimes they chose not to report because it is only going to benefit the data collected. Also, it is going to help our system understand what are the crimes that people do not report to the police. There is going to be a trend in the crimes that people do not speak out about. It is vital to remember that the NCVS has a margin of error from the sampling. One major importance of the NCVS is how in depth the characteristics are developed. It is not just focusing on what the crime was, like the UCR, however it is building upon that by getting the details of the victim, crime, and offender. This is going to break down specifics when it comes to who commits what crimes, locations, and specific targets. It is essential to keep records of all these reports and to continue collecting information so we can learn about what is going on in the U.S. We are building our knowledge and skills to help fix procedures and developed a better approach to stopping crimes by examining these crime trends closely. Both the UCR and NCVS are very different yet benefit us greatly. Sunshine123 & UofM123
ReplyDeleteThe most well-known criminal justice data set is the Uniform Crime Report, collected by the FBI since 1930. The UCR includes statistics on seven crimes classified as either violent crime or property crime: murder, rape, assault and robbery fall under the violent crimes category, while arson, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft fall under property crime. The UCR serves many purposes and has many benefits for the people who access it. While the stats can be skewed due to all of the people that don't report violent crimes the stats still help police when doing hotspot policing and other measures used to prevent such crime.According to Joan Petersilia, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, “police accountability data is good because it acts as a crossover issue, it helps people begin to understand” criminal justice data. There are a number of other transaction points in the criminal justice system that create data and can be used for accountability purposes. Ultimately, the goal that Petersilia and many others share is that we be able to take data from all points along the criminal justice system in order to assess the impact of what we do with the criminal justice system, allowing law enforcement to find the programs and practices that create the best possible public outcomes. The UCR is described as benefiting law enforcement in all aspects of operation, from actual policing to budget formulation and to help local community development efforts. Criminal justice researchers use the UCR to study crime trends and find ways to improve the criminal justice system. The national victim survey is also a very useful tool but it also can be skewed due to people not reporting or admitting that hey were a victim of a crime. The NVS is more detailed and gives more of a rounded look on where crime is happening and who it is happening to. It also shows the circumstances of the crime to show if the incident could have been stopped. There are two crime measures in the United States, both of which are extremely crucial to the collection and analyzing of the data. Without crime data, we would not be able to see where there is need for improvement. These techniques of measuring crime will continue to aid in the identification of rising issues, therefore guiding us in the direction we need to go to better the country as far as crime rates go. The first measure of crime is the Uniform Crime Reports, or the UCR. The Uniform Crime Reports is an FBI administered program that collects information on crimes such as murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The UCR is collected by the FBI, but the FBI gathers the criminal information from state and local police departments. All of the data collected is reported crime. As we know as criminal justice majors that many people do not know, is that this reported crime is only about half of all serious crimes that are reported to the police. Half of serious crime is simply never reported. The National Crime Victimization Survey; however, is a survey of homes throughout the United States. This survey takes place twice a year, covering about 43,000 homes each time. This system is in place to uncover as much of the unreported crime crime as possible. Anyone who is 12 years or older in the household will be asked questions about crime they may have experienced over the last year, and that data will be used to uncover the crime that unfortunately goes unreported. With each of these crime measurements in place, we have a great idea of what crime is dominating our cities and will give us a better idea on how to combat those issues throughout the country. gh_blackhawks123, KLICK123
ReplyDeleteBoth the UCR (or the Uniform Crime Report) and the NCVS (or the National Crime Vicimizatiom Survey) help law enforcement in tremendous ways. They both have different purposes, methods, focuses, and they both produce very helpful information. The UCR is administered by the FBI, it began in 1929 and the methods used to compile these reports are quite complex. Each month, law enforcement agencies report the number of crimes they know about to the FBI; the data is collected from victim complaints, officers, or other sources. The UCR provides a reliable set of criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration, operations, and management. The UCR includes reports on crimes such as homicide, arson, commercial crimes, and crimes against women. The NCVS is a comprehensive nationwide survey of victimization, administered to persons age twelve or older from a national representative sample of households. Once selected, households remain in the sample for three years, and eligible persons are interviewed every six months. This survey provides previously unavailable information about crime (including unreported crimes, victims, and offenders). It provides information on frequency and nature of the crimes rape, sexual assault, personal robbery, aggravated and simple assault, household theft, and motor theft. Although these reports are very helpful they can also have some faults and errors. One problem with the UCR is, less than half of all violent crimes and only one third of property crimes are reported to the police. Another problem is that sometimes local law enforcement agencies make intentional and/ or unintentional errors in their reporting practices. The NCVS finds that fewer than half of violent crimes, fewer than one-third of personal theft crimes, and fewer than half of household thefts are reported to police. Some problems with the NCVS include overreporting due to victims' misinterpretation of events, underreporting, sampling errors, and inadequate question format. Although there are errors with these reports they are very beneficial to law enforcement.
ReplyDeleteI think the UCR and NCVS both serve good purposes regarding how many crimes are being committed throughout the United States but I don’t consider the NCVS to be a reliable source of data compared to the UCR. The UCR shows crime nation that is being devoted rather than a numbered set of households that is being surveyed by the NCVS. It seems as if the NCVS can be inaccurate compared to the UCR by the ways the data is collected per households and the UCR is reported by local and state law enforcement agencies which seems to be a more reliable source of information on how many crimes are being committed throughout these agencies such as murders, thefts, rapes, robbery, assaults, motor vehicle thefts and arson. These reported crimes are then sent to the FBI monthly and is annually published by them while the NCVS is reported two times out of the year and the information isn’t always as accurate because of maybe false reports and victims not reporting their crimes out of fear or being shamed even when it’s anonymous. I believe that both sources of data to gather crime reports are different but similar in some ways. Even though many crimes are unreported or even falsely reported, I still believe that they both serve great purposes as tool to gather what crimes are being committed throughout the US. They both cover a great amount of serious crimes that many people want to know about and a rough estimate of how much crime is taken place throughout their area rather than relying on the news or tv sources that aren’t always accurate. The UCR and NCVS are probably the most truthful sources even if it’s not an accurate number of crimes that are being reported or under reported but it still comes close and shows a good estimate of what’s going on in our country to give people a realistic idea rather than getting information from false sources.
-ZAR123 PIZZALOVER123
PART 1: The Uniform Crime Report, or UCR, and the National Crime Victimization Survey, or NCVS are statistical data banks that both law enforcement and the public use when analyzing crime hotspots. The UCR focuses on crimes reported by law enforcement during the time of arrest. Only the most serious crime of each charge is collected and this data is then sent to the FBI from local police agencies. Throughout the year this data is collected and analyzed by federal experts within the FBI or its supporting agencies. The following spring this data is isolated and presented in a preliminary report. A more detailed annual report called the “Crime in the United States” is published later on in the following year. This report reflects crime within the nation, but it can be isolated down into states, counties, and cities. Some of the crimes the UCR reports include; robbery, aggravated assault, details of homicides. Law enforcement agencies use this data to help locate hotspots of certain crime and allocate resources and special operations teams to combat the high density crime areas. However, not all crimes are reported and the UCR may not help build an entire picture for officers and citizens alike. This is where the NCVS comes in and helps fill in the gaps. The NCVS is a survey given to around 76,000 people 2 times a year through 43,000 households. Every surveyor must be 12 years or older in order to be interviewed. Within these interviews the Bureau of Justice Statistics collects information on crimes, experiences, and overall crime climates of regions. The NCVS attempts to gather information on crimes not reported as well as victims experiences with the criminal justice system. Occasionally new data points are added in the form of new questions to further analyze certain hotspots of crime. Some of the crimes the NCVS examines includes; sexual assault, personal robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and much more. The NCVS helps isolate and track crimes that may have not been reported to the police, and consequently, provide law enforcement agencies with a more complete picture of the criminal state in their jurisdiction. However, while both data reports share a lot of characteristics they also differ in many ways. Ghost123 Gymlife123
ReplyDeletePART 2: The UCR and NCVS are indeed similar in several ways, however there are some ways the both the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey differ. One difference that we can find between the Uniform Crime Report and the National Crime Victimization Survey are different is that the main purpose of the UCR is to provide a reliable set of detailed criminal justice statistics for all law enforcement personnel such as law enfrocement management, operation, and administration. The NCVS was created by the BJS to provide information that was otherwise previously unattainable such as information about crime, victims, and offenders. The second way that the NCVS and UCR are different is that the NCVS crime that is both reported and not reported to local law enforcement authorities. The UCR includes homicide, arson, commercial crimes, and crimes against children under the age of 12, however the NCVS does not include these types of crimes. The third way the Uniform Crime Report and National Crime Victimization Survey differ is that the two have separate definitions as to what defines crime. For property crimes, the two programs calculate crime rates using differing bases. For example, the UCR calculates the rates of these crimes number of crimes per 100,000 persons, while the NCVS calculates this as number of crimes per 1,000 households.The two programs are not exactly comparable when discussing property crimes due to the fact that the number of households might not grow at the same rate as the population. Both the UCR and NCVS have strengths in their own unique ways. The UCR provides a number of reported crime to local law enforcement agencies throughout the country, while the NCVS is the main source of information on the characteristics of criminal victimization and the number of crimes that are not reported to the local police departments. Ghost123 Gymlife123
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this article I realized some key differences between the UCR and NCVS. The UCR program began in 1929, administered by the FBI. The UCR was created to collect information on crimes such as, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. While the NCVS, which began in 1973, provides a detailed picture of crime incidents, victims, and trends. The NCVS collects information on crimes suffered by individuals and households, whether or not those crimes were reported to law enforcement. One major difference I realized while reading this article is that the UCR main purpose is to provide a set of criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration, operation and management. The NCVS gives information that is not given or provided by the UCR. So the crimes that are not on the UCR is probably on the NCVS. That's why the Bureau of Justice Statistics came up with the program. They wanted more information about crime and information about crime that wasn't reported. The two programs also classify different crimes differently. For example, the UCR would characterize a burglary as the unlawful entry or attempted entry into a structure to commit a felony or theft. The NCVS would characterize it as an entry or attempted entry of a residence by a person who had no right to be there. It's the same crime but I think the NCVS breaks it down to get it simple and tell you if the person burglarized or attempted to burglarize a place. Also for the data the UCR calculates crime rates using the number of crimes per 100,00. The NCVS calculates crime per 1,000 household.Basically the NCVS is for the crimes that are not reported to law enforcement. “It's the primary source of information on characteristics of criminal victimization and on the number and types of crimes not reported to law enforcement agencies.” The UCR is crime reported, but not with as much detail. “The UCR program presents crime counts for the nation as a whole, as well as for regions, states, counties, cities, towns, tribal law enforcement, and colleges and universities. The UCR permits studies among neighboring jurisdictions and among those with almost the same populations and some common characteristics.DC123
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