I am a Specialized Studies major, and I am studying Criminal Justice and Psychology. Statistics is important to Criminal Justice and Psychology in a number of ways. It is important in the field of Criminal Justice because, crime statistics is used in Criminal Justice jobs every day. Statistics are used in victim study, with things such as victimization statistical surveys, which rely on individual memory and honesty. There are also law enforcement reports, also known as police reports. The United States has two major data collection programs, the Uniform Crime Reports from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The National Crime Victimization Survey is the nation’s primary source of information on criminal victimization. …show more content…
Criminal statistics are based on notifiable recorded offences, and can be drawn from aggregate data recorded by official agencies such as the police and courts, but also from criminological research studies. The Uniform Crime Reports from the FBI are important in the field of Criminal Justice because, The Uniform Crime Report 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 crimes. According to the FBI the UCR serves many purposes and has many benefits for those who access it. These crime reports benefit law enforcement in all aspects of operation from actual policing to budget formulation and to help local community development efforts. The Uniform Crime Reports are used to study crime trends and to find ways to improve the criminal justice system. That concludes on how statistics contributes to the every day life in the field of Criminal
The UCR is the Uniformed Crime Rate is a record of crime reported to law enforcement agencies, only crimes that are reported to law agencies are included.
The UCR is a cooperative effort for nation-wide law enforcement agencies to report on national crime statistics. According to the FBI's "Summary of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program," every month, "18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily report data on crimes brought to their attention" (as cited in "Uniform Crime Reports"). The UCR first began in the 1920s and 30s. By 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was made responsible for compiling the data, though the FBI does not and has never collected the crime statistic data itself. The UCR divides crimes into two major categories called Part I offenses and Part II offenses. Part I reports data on "violent and property crimes" ("Uniform Crime Reports"). The list of crimes included under the violent crime classification is "aggravated assault, forcible rape, and robbery" ("Uniform Crime Reports"). The list of crimes classified under property crimes
The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is constructed by the FBI on statistics of crime in the U.S. The FBI consolidates the information it receives from law enforcement officials and integrates all the information into a data that measures crime. This information is compiled by over 18,000 different agencies, from the universities to federal agencies. The information they receive is placed into two different categories, part 1 and part 2 offenses. UCR also measure crime against only women and the NCVS measures against both male and female.
Uniform Crime Report data has many pros, but also many cons that come with it. There are many ways of which the Uniform Crime Report can be superior to, but also inferior to victimization and self-report data studies. According to Balkan (2015), the Uniform Crime Report shows crimes reported to police departments across the nation and is a report produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There are two offense categories in the report: part one and part two offenses. Part one offenses would be your more serious crimes such as homicides, rape, aggravated assaults, and so on. Part two offenses would be more of the property crimes such as fraud, simple assaults, and drug abuse. The Uniform Crime Report does an excellent job presenting the numbers in terms of the part one offenses, however, there are some cons that come with the Uniform Crime
In contemporary society, there are various methodologies for collecting data (Linden 2012). That being said, there are pros and cons to each that are based on reliability and validity; where reliability is consistency of the statistics, and validity is a measure of how accurate the results are in accordance with the research topic. This ties in with how this paper will explore the Uniform Crime Report system (UCR); a measure of crime that is used the most. UCR statistics reflect the crimes that are reported to the police throughout the country. victimization and self-report surveys, which are statistics that reinforce the findings revealed by the UCR, will also be explored. Lastly, the issue of media coverage of crime news will be examined.
UCR takes note of all crimes in the Criminal Code annually recorded by the ‘dark figure’ of policing, whereas GSS on Victimization only sources eight types of offences self-reported via phone interviews quinquennial for the past year. The loose ends of both surveys tie together to provide an accurate overall trend of crime rates in Canada. UCR and GSS on Victimization are equally important to the study of crime. They are able to compare crime rates by geographical regions, crime severity, and characteristics of victimization. Criminologists require this information obtained from the surveys to study the causes, effects, and social impact of crime and victimization, in order to determine how to predict, deter, and prohibit criminal activity. They provide a more robust measure of the extent and impact of criminal activity in Canadian society. Together they provide an accurate measurement of crime through police reports and self-reporting of broad social surveys, rather than alone since both are lacking in their own ways. As a difference in timing is a key characteristic in the differences in the polls. UCR is annually conducted, whereas GSS on Victimization is processed every five years for the forgoing 12
For decades now, including the years 1994 and 1995, the time of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, American law enforcement has used two major data sources to measure crime. First, there is the Uniform Crime Report or UCR. The UCR is compiled data from reported crimes, it is a very accurate system used for murder and those crimes that cannot go unnoticed. Next, we have The National Crime Victim Survey or NCVS which is a unanimous survey, better at accounting for the crimes that may not get reported, crimes such as rape or assault.
The individuals within our society have allowed we the people to assess and measure the level of focus and implementation of our justice system to remedy the modern day crime which conflict with the very existence of our social order. Enlightening us to the devices that will further, establish the order of our society, resides in our ability to observe the Individual’s rights for public order.
This measure of crime in America depends on reports to the police by victims of crimes. The UCR Program was developed by the FBI for the purpose of serving law enforcement as a tool for operational and administrative purposes (Steven D. Levitt, 1998, 61). The Uniform Crime Reports have both positive and negative aspects. The Uniformed Crime Reports are crucial to the determination of the amounts of crimes solved. This is important because it can help determine social tendencies pertaining to crime (Rodrigo R. Soares, 2004, 851). These crime tendencies can lead to theories about crimes that are on the rise, or crimes that are
Criminal profilers are primarily employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most commonly known as the FBI. (Walker) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) are a few other agencies that also employ criminal profilers. Although there are other employers that hire criminal profilers, the FBI is the most prominent. In order to be considered as a potential member of these programs, having an advanced degree in behavioral or forensic science is recommended. However, the most important qualification is an agent’s overall experience as an investigator of violent crimes. John Douglas, a famous FBI profiler, believes that “degrees and academic knowledge [are not] nearly as important as experience and certain subjective qualities” (Muller 250). Since a specific degree program has yet to be created for criminal profiling, extra training and classes must be taken in order to be a profiler for the FBI. The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit was formed to investigate serial rape and homicide cases in 1974. From 1976 to 1979, several FBI agents, most famously John Douglas and Robert Ressler, interviewed 36 serial killers to help develop theories and categorize different types of offende...
Rosen, Lawrence. “The Creation of the Uniform Crime Report: The Role of Social Science.” JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2011.
The Uniform Crime Report is the first method that is usually called upon, as it measures official crime data as submitted by law enforcement agencies. The UCR collects detailed information on the terminology and definitions of criminal offenses, which considers violent crimes to include rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault. Although it is not limited to just official government programs, as colleges and universities in the United States often volunteer information and statistics towards the UCR in an attempt to give further detail and more accurate accounts of criminal activity.
The FBI uses Statistics to solve hundreds of cases, statistics allow the FBI to make predictions to solve a case before they have evidence enough to solve it. Since the FBI is the United States largest law enforcement agency focused mainly on United States soil the FBI needs a way to stay organized so the FBI built a computer program called ViCAP. ViCAP is a database to hold all of the FBI’s crimes. This program can be used to find a similar case in years passed and look back to see what kind of person the statistics point to. The FBI uses advanced statistics compiled by using the mean (average), and looking at the type of person who committed the crime, the severity of the crime, and the age of the person who committed the crime. While out in the field, FBI agents take notes on even the smallest thing that could give a hint to solving a case such as if the crime scene is organized denotes multiple offenses. Statistics are also compiled when looking for a stolen item such as money from a bank, for example, if money is stolen; statistics might tell you where to look, the age, gender, ethnicity, and type of person (down to the car they might drive). Statistics are especially important wh...
5. U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 2010a. “Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2008 Statistical Tables.” Table 14. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC. http://www.bjs.gov/ content/pub/pdf/cvus08.pdf.