Crime statistics remains an essential component in the field of criminology that helps in formulating effective criminal justice policy. For over four decades, the Uniform Crime Reporting System (UCR), the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and its predecessor National Crime Survey (NCS) has been used in the United States to gather crime statistics. These methods have been used at the national level to estimate the crime and changes in the crime rates in the United States. Such data has helped the policymakers to develop sound policies that help to mitigate the problem of crime in the United States' societies (Weisburd & Britt, 2007). However, collecting the trends of crime rate and other statistics is not an easy task since crime is an ambiguous and complex concept that depends on of various difficult determinations. For instance, people collecting crime data must determine whether the crime involves excessive harm to property or persons, aggravation by the victim and the intent to commit harm (Lynch & Addington, 2006). Therefore, collecting crime statistics requires a strategic approach that can help the criminal justice department derive benefits from such statistics. This study aims to provide an insight of the role of crime statistics in the criminal justice.
Improving policing
One of the significant roles of the crime statistics in the criminal justice is improving policing. Statistical analysis of crime makes a significant contribution to the delivery of an efficient and effective police service and provide a fertile ground on how police and their partners tackle crime. The statistics obtained can be used to determine the nature and prevalence of crime problem, determine the most cost-effective approach to mitigate the problem and evaluate and monitor any initiate established to address the problem (UK Statistics Authority, 2013). The analysis of the scope of the crime problem is usually the initial and crucial step to promote the opportunity to meet the needs of the community. In the 21st century, police are expected to use the available crime data and derive the maximum value from them to facilitate their policing roles. There are various ways in which crime statistics can be used to improve policing.
Using crime statistics for crime reduction
In the criminal justice, the law enforcement approach recognized as "predictive policing" has been using crime data and statistical models to predict the elevated risks of crime. After determining the prevalence of these risks, the law enforcement employs intervention to stop such anticipated crimes from occurring. According to the National Institute of Justice (2014), the predictive policing attempts to capitalize on the power of information, evidence-based intervention models, and geospatial technologies to mitigate crime problems and enhance public safety (Philippe et al. 2009). This approach applies advanced analytics to different data sets and intervention models to help the law enforcement predict where and what crime is prone to happen and arrange resources accordingly. Therefore, criminal statistics play a crucial role in ensuring that that policing approaches such as predictive policing have adequate and reliable information to counter and reduce crime.
An example of the predictive policing in the contemporary criminal justice setting is the Compstat, a data-based policing approach established by NYPD (New York Police Department). This model used crime data to recognize geographic "hot spots" where criminal activities are most prone to occur. Consequently, the approach led to important new data organization and collection in the policing department because it was based on having systematic, real-time access to data regarding arrests, complaints, disorder data, and calls for crime and service. In this case, sufficient crime statistics provides effective geographic information that is utilized to map the crime incidents and hence help the law enforcement make sound decisions on how to utilize resource to reduce crime effectively (Gibbs, 2015).
Improve police-community relation
Another important role of crime statistics in the criminal justice is to help enhance the relationship between police and the community. Such statistics provides data that illustrates some of the loopholes that damage the reputation and trust between the community and police. For instance, crime statistics in the United States have shown the prevailing mistrust between the communities and police. One of the incidents that illustrate the problem between the police and the communities they are entitled to serve is the issues of stop-and-frisk. The analysis of stop-and-frisk data in New York indicated that 90 percent of the people stopped were innocent, and 90 percent of them were non-white (Sibley, Gibbs, & Shaw, 2015). The analysis influences the law enforcement to change their policies to address such issues. Consequently, the stop and frisk practices dramatically decreased from 2011 to 2014 in New York mainly because of the data released to the public. Such incidents illustrate the importance of collecting, analyzing, and releasing data to power solution in policing.
Another policing issue that has demonstrated the usefulness of the crime statistics is the issue of police body-worn cameras. The controversial statistics of officers involved in the shootings has raised concerns of the importance adopting body worn cameras among the police officers to enhance regular practice. Some of the law enforcement actors have also supported the move to adopt body worn cameras to monitor the conducts and behaviors of the police officers. Although there is little evidence illustrating the usefulness of the body cameras in holding police officers accountable and improving police practices, some evidence shows that such cameras have incredible outcomes. Analysis conducted by the Data and Society Research Institute illustrates that use of body cameras have positive outcomes for the departments that embrace the technology. Therefore, such invention is aimed at improving the relationship between the community and police courtesy of crime statistics.
Facilitating the study of criminology
Crime statistics and reports have played a critical role in enhancing the study of criminology. The tools of crime statistic and reports help in the understanding of the kind of crimes that are occurring, the frequency of the crime occurrence, the perpetrators, the victims, and the traits of the offenses. In addition, such analytical and statistical tools act as a significant indicator of the safety of the society. For instance, increasing crime rates indicates that the safety in the society is diminishing and hence term the society as an ailing society (Junge, 2013). In this case, the students in the criminology fields can study the prevalence of the crime from a social angle. The statistic provided help them to determine the roots of crime, how crime affect the society and the individuals involved in the criminal activities.
According to Coomber et al. (2014), when the crime statistics are used appropriately, they provide a great opportunity to revise, test, and improve the theories of criminology. For instance, the theory of social disorganization is one of the fundamental theories in criminology. The theory suggests that places that are more cohesive are less prone to crime while more socially disorganized localities are prone to more crime. In this case, the theory depends on the statistics to test the hypothesis since the researchers can examine crimes variations known to police with measures of disorganization extracted from population or census data. The criminologists tend to utilize the available information at the national and regional levels for independent and dependent variables as a steppingstone for statistical and quantitative approach to research.
It is evident that every criminological research topics and theories rely heavily on the statistical examination. Criminologist required access to the crime statistics to facilitate both quantitative and qualitative research. For instance, the researchers in the criminology field have to use statistics as the foundation of the strain theory. Coomber et al. (2014) argue, "most criminologists who conduct research on strain theory, for instance, use surveys to measure the difference between respondents' perceptions that their life chances are blocked or constrained in some way" (p.41). Critical criminological perspective can be used to statistically examine the occurrence of crime and violence such as violence against women through the National Criminal Victimization Survey. In addition, conflict theories provide insight on the social class among other characteristics of the social structure to understand crime. From this perspective, the statistical studies that utilize conflict approach depend on a Gini coefficient, for instance, to quantify the inequality in the distribution of wealth and income in the society.
The use of UCR and NIBRS statistics
One of the renowned statistical tools in the criminal justice is the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), which has been utilized since 1930. This tool includes a wide range of crime statistics involving violent crimes such as rape, murder, assault, racism, and robbery. FBI perceives that UCR serves various purposes and has a wide range of benefits for the people who utilize it. From the UCR statistics, the law enforcement is in the position of accessing data that can be used in planning, budget formulation, assessment of the officer operations, and resource allocation. Consequently, this information helps the law enforcement to prepare and address the crime problem at distinct levels (CJIS, 2009). In addition, the legislator can formulate anti-crime measures using the recommendations and findings of the law enforcement administrators, private and public entities, and planners on the problem of crime. In addition, the media platform utilizes the crime statistics from the UCR to report the crime trends and inform their audience about the prevalence of crimes in various localities. The tourism and tourist industry also utilizes the UCR statistics to determine the safety of a specific area and advice the tourism accordingly.
In addition to the UCR, various police departments communicated to the FBI concerning the prevalence of crime through a system known as National Incident-Based Report System (NIBRS). This system is effective in the criminal justice as it offers a more inclusive perspective of the committed crimes. The information gathered by this system include types and nature of the precise offenses that happened during the crime, traits of offenders and victims, values and types of property stolen, and the traits of people arrested due to their association with crime. According to the FBI, when the society and agencies are involved in the NIBRS system, they benefit in various ways (Sibley, 2015).
One of the roles played by the NIBRS system is the furnishing of information that is associated with criminal justice issue challenging the law enforcement in the contemporary world (Sibley, 2015). Such issues include white-collar crime, terrorism, missing children, weapon offenses, drug involvement, drug abuse, child abuse, spousal abuse. Hate crimes, domestic violence, and organized crimes among others. therefore, when the legislators, academicians, municipal administrators, public, and sociologists utilizes NIBRS, they get the opportunity to access more inclusive crime information compared to the information provided by the customary summary reporting approach (Sennewald & Christman, 2008). In addition, this system offers more accurate, detailed, and meaningful data than the traditional reporting systems. Consequently, the system provides vital information to the law enforcement to help them make better decision on acquiring the resources needed to mitigate crime problem.
NIBRS system also offers interactive tool between the law enforcement agencies and help them work together to achieve a common goal. According to Sibley (2015), different agencies compares their crime-fighting problems, and if they identify similarities, they collaboratively work to come up with a solution or formulate strategies to address the crime issues. In addition, participation in this system allows the better relationship between the police and the community (Harrendorf & Heiskanen, 2010). The statistic acquired helps the law enforcement agency to focus fully and address the nature of the public safety in the jurisdiction to the sheriff, director, chief, or police commissioner. Therefore, the crime statistics derived from the NIBRS system not only enhances the relationship among the police agencies but also between the police agency and the community.
Limitations of the role of crime statistics
One of the factors that limit the usefulness of the crime statistics is the inability to provide both approaches to study criminological phenomena. Similar to other statistics, crime statistics provide support to only quantitative and fail to support the qualitative approach adequately. Although the qualitative approach is usually non-statistical, it can be equally helpful in gaining more insight and advancing scholarship in the study of criminology. Another loophole of the role of crime statistics is that the statistical tools do not capture all the crime incidents because not all offenses are reported to law enforcement. In such situation, the sources of crime statistics might be incomplete and provide the inaccurate information. Therefore, when using such information to improve policing or social safety, inaccurate or ineffective measures might be formulated.
In addition, crime statistics are prone to abuse because most of the criminological phenomena that cannot be quantified easily are ignored. Usually, the criminologists tend to ignore the basic conceptual issues, and the prevailing assumptions of the theory, and hence fail to perceive crime statistics as an alternative way to facilitate research concerning criminological issues. Therefore. Crime statistics require theories and concepts to enhance scientific meaning to the numbers.
Conclusion
It is evident that crime statistics play a critical role in the criminal justice in various ways. One role of statistics is to enhance policing because police are expected to use the available crime data and derive the maximum value from them to facilitate their policing roles. This research has also indicated that crime statistics are used for crime reduction, to improve police-community relation, and facilitate the study of criminology. In summary, the crime statistics are essential in enhancing the relationship between the police agencies and the community and provide a stepping stone for the formulation of measures to mitigate crime problem. Several source of crime statistics includes Uniform Crime Reporting System (UCR), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), National Crime Survey (NCS), and National Incident Based Report System (NIBRS). However, several limitation of the crime statistics prevails and need to be addressed to enhance the effectiveness of such statistics.
References
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