Measuring crime in the United States is a hefty endeavor, it requires all crimes to be reported and it requires each crime be analyzed for patterns and statistics to be reported. There are many crime reporting programs that are utilized but there are three that stand out as the most effective. UCR, NIBRS and NCVS are the ones we are going to be discussing. Each of the three are very beneficial but they also have some flaws. I will explain what each does, how they are used, how effective they are and whether or not they are an appropriate method of measuring crime.
Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program is a reporting program run by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) division. The program publishes crime in the United States which includes a summary of the incident and the rate of reported crimes in the United States. Law Enforcement gives the crime information to the UCR division and they publish the data into a document. This system has been effective in the past but with the evolution of crime some of the reporting’s need updating like the following:
• Only records one offense per incident
• Does not distinguish between attempted and completed crimes
• Records Rape of females only
• Provides counts on arrests in 8 major crimes and 21 other offenses
These stats for the UCR need to be updated to be in line with the crime rates and types of today. 10 to 15 years ago these reporting statistics could have been sufficient but in today’s world these statistics make this reporting system obsolete and inaccurate.
National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is starting to replace the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program. NIBRS is an incident based reporting system that collects detailed data on every occurrence of crime. The goal of NIBRS is to enhance quantity, quality and timeliness of crime data collection. This system is used much the same way as UCR is used, Law enforcement hands over detailed data of crime and NIBRS processes the information into a document. NIBRS is a much more effective system then UCR:
• Records each offense occurring in an incident
• Distinguishes between attempted and completed crimes
• Records rape of male and females
• Provides details on arrests for 8 major crimes and 49 other offenses
The updated reporting statistics make the NIBRS program much more accurate and detailed in its reports and that’s why this is a more efficient program and reporting crime statistics.
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is an annual survey of selected American households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to determine the extent of criminal victimization in the United States. BJS sends a survey to select households in the U.S, each survey is detailed with questions asking the user to list any crimes that they have been a victim of. The survey is not mandatory and is solely based on the participation of the user. The effectiveness of this method is not very good because a lot of people do not fill out the survey or give the greatest amount of details when filling out the questions. This is not a great system for recording crime statistics due to discretion of the user.