Uniform crime reporting is the process by which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) collects data on crime and crime rates in the United States and uses these data sources to predict crime trends (FBI, 2010). It gathers crime statistics from various law enforcement agencies and then publishes the official reports for further national analysis and comparison. It is a program originally created by the Social Science Research Council and the International Association of Chiefs of Police in the 1920s. Uniform crime reporting is based on the assumption or premise that crimes such as forcible rape, murder, manslaughter, motor vehicle theft, burglary and aggravated assault are fundamental to comparison of crime rates. The UCR program was started with the aim of providing reliable uniform crime statistics for the United States. The reporting is done with the cooperation of tribal, college, university, city, state and county law enforcement agencies that report data on crime rates on jurisdictions on a voluntary basis.
Further, the UCR program aims primarily at generating reliable data and information on crimes that are then used in law enforcement operation, management and administration. According to the FBI (2010), the data generated by the FBI’s UCR serves the criminal justice system in that it is used by criminologists, legislators, students of criminal justice, the media and municipal planners for research and planning process. Additionally, the UCR serves the criminal justice system by helping the law enforcement agencies such as the FBI to predict trends in crime rates and hence enable them to devise strategies for combating them. The UCR program also serves the criminal justice system by providing law enforcement officials and agencies with the relevant information on various crimes which helps in analysis and comparisons. Moreover, according to the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, NACJD (2010), the UCR provide periodic national assessment or evaluation of reported crime and arrests made over a period of time.
References:
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2010). About the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Retrieved June 22, 2016, from https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/leoka- 2010/aboutucrcrmain
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. (2010). Uniform crime reporting program resource guide: About the FBI’s uniform crime reporting program. Retrieved June 22, 2016, from www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/content/NACJD/guides/ucr.html
