Instruments Used to Measure Crime in the United States
Abstract
Different agencies across the world employ different methodologies to analyze organized crime, and these evaluations help the law enforcement managements to make rational analysis. The objective of the paper is to look at the various instruments used to measure crime in the United States that assist in making decisions about organized crime. This essay explores how law enforcement agencies assess organized crime-related harm with the help of these tools to measure crime. An accurate crime measurement is necessary to describe the social and spatial distribution of crime as well as for evaluating the efficiency of numerous crime control policies.
Introduction
When endeavoring to understand and control any social problem, such as crime, it is essential to measure it. How much of the crime is there, where and when it occurs the most, helps the law enforcement managements to study the patterns and trends of the problem. The queries to whether the crime is increasing or decreasing can only be addressed adequately once there is a reliable data about the extent of the problem. Crime statistics is collected from different sources and in a diverse way in the US so as to come to grips with the crime issues. The different methods of measuring crime (Chilton & Spielberger, 1972) help to assess its extent and social distribution and shed light on the crime trends and patterns. Several general conclusions are made on the prevalence and nature of criminal activity based on the examination of the crime data derived from these methods collectively.Different instruments that measure crime There are different tools used in measuring crime in the United States and provide statistical information on crime. However, there is a difference between crime rates, clearance rates and arrest rates. The information however can be inaccurate at times and can be misleading. The media reports related to crime have a direct influence society perception of crime and can lead to unrealistic opinion on crime. Thus, the statistic data obtained by the various measuring tools (Shulman, 1966) for crime can provide a better and accurate view on the amount of crime. These reports may not be 100% accurate, but still provide a much better understanding of the amount and types of crimes, along with the frequency of those crimes than any other source. As the crime data helps in shaping the policy and allocating federal funding, it is essential to comprehend how each program collects data and look at the limitations of each program used to measure crime.
Major crime reporting programs The major crime measuring programs in the United States are Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (Whitworth, 2013).The UCR was the first effort by the government to create a standardized measure of the crime and provide data to the local law enforcement to help fight crime. UCR data are is used widely by government, researchers and the media to evaluate the crime statistics in the United States. Lillie has changed in the content of UCR ever since its beginning in the year 1930. FBI and its agents all across the country are encouraged continuously by the local police departments to participate in the program. The NCVS is the chief source of information related to the characteristics of criminal victimization, and the number and kinds of crime that have not been reported to law enforcement.
The purpose of major crime reporting programs The UCR offers a yearly report of incidents and rate of the reported crime that occurs throughout the nation. The final crime is figured by totaling the chief crimes that are reported to the police. These crimes are reported to the F.B.I, who circulates the findings in the UCR and create a crime index for an individual area or state. The UCR provides the most commonly cited crime statistics in the United States and there are efforts already to replace the UCR with the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which is a more detailed version of the UCR.
There are different objectives of NCVS. It helps to cultivate detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime and evaluate the number and types of crimes that have not been reported to police. The purpose is to offer uniform measures of crimes and make proper comparisons over time on the selected types of crimes in the rural, urban and suburban population. The population is asked if they have been the victim of the robbery, pickpocketing, rape and sexual assault, burglary, theft, purse snatching, or simple and aggravated assault. Details of each incident of victimization is collected by NCVS and updated as warranted report.
As discussed above, both the UCR and the NIBRS gather data on the number of crimes known to law enforcement each year. However, not all crimes are conveyed to the police. The majority of crimes known to the police are those that have been reported by either the victims or the witnesses of the crime. Both the UCR and NCVS thus do not have the actual amount of crime that occurred. As the as local law enforcement agencies get more efficient, the number of reported crimes may rise in the data collected. The law enforcement agencies need to develop a better relationship with the local population and win their confidence. Better record-keeping systems can help improve the effeminacy of the crime measurement tools.
Although contribution in the UCR program has been more than 90%, the Federal law does not require local law enforcement agencies to submit crime data to the UCR program. This can lead to missing data at times among law enforcement agencies in the country. Like the UCR program, study on NCVS surveys finds that more crime is being committed than was being reported to law. Non-reporting varies according to the kind of offense. For example, a higher number of consumer frauds do not get reported as compared to vehicle thefts. People chose not to report a crime as they believed it was a private matter (Baumer & Lauritsen, 2010). As NCVS is a sample survey, it is subjected to sampling and non-sampling errors that will not reflect the actual victimization rate accurately.
The crime rate is calculated by applying the crime rate in the agency’s population group to the agency’s population. The crime rates are estimated by studying the state rate for the population group from the current year, and the estimates at agency-level estimates are always combined into bigger geographic areas.
The statistics on crime in the United States based on the crime measurement programs reveal that there is a great deal of rise in crime in industrial societies. When compared to other Western countries, the volume of crime is certainly higher in the United States. According to the most recent UCR data and NCVS surveys, about 2% of all U.S. residents (Beattie, 1960) have experienced a violent crime. The crime rates have changed in the last four decades in the country. Another typical pattern found relates to the victim-offender relationship and the offence sis known to occur among known parties and acquaintances. Majority of violent crimes situations involve attack on a sole victim and these offenses often involve victims and offenders belonging the same race. Across all results of measuring crime and the data revealed, the offenders have been found to be young males and members of certain ethnic or racial groups.
References
Chilton, R. J., & Spielberger, A. (1972). Increases in crime: The utility of alternative measures. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, 63(1), 68-74.
Shulman, H. M. (1966). The measurement of crime in the United States. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, 57(4), 483-492.
Beattie, R. H. (1960). Criminal statistics in the United States. 1960. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, 51(1), 49-65.
Baumer, E. P., & Lauritsen, J. L. (2010). Reporting crime to the police, 1973-2005: A multivariate analysis of long-term trends in the national crime survey (ncs) and national crime victimization survey (ncvs). Criminology, 48(1), 131-185.
Whitworth, A. (2013). Local inequality and crime: Exploring how variation in the scale of inequality measures affects relationships between inequality and crime. Urban Studies, 50(4), 725-741.
