Official Crime Data

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Recommended: Strengths and weaknesses of official crime statistics

The differences between using official crime data and those using self-reported data varies. While both report crimes, “the self-report and official statistics do not measure the same things” (Mosher et al. 2011 p.139) and the methods used are different, in some cases crimes are not reported to either one, and they both have their own margins of error associated with them. Official crime data is reported by law enforcement organization and only certain types of crimes are accounted for while self-reported is done via surveys, phone calls or even face to face interviews and covers any type of crime. While official crime data is limited to some extent, it has the capability of being able to be an “indicator of criminal activity” (Menard & Covey, 1988, p. 372) in various locations and can share that with other agencies for comparison. One of the main weaknesses with this type of data is that since only serious crimes are reported, it misses a lot of other crimes that could be happening in different areas. Proverbs 19:5 “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way” (Holy Bible ESV). …show more content…

Self-reporting allows for all crimes to be accounted for, not just a certain level of criminal activity. These types of data gathering has a longer reach that the data reported in the UCR as it can reach out to victims of all ages and victims of many different crimes. Just because the police are not called to the scene does not mean that crimes are not happening and “substantial distance remains between citizen “reported” and police recorded crime” (Skogan, 1975, p.28). The two types of data gathering would benefit each other more if they were to work together and incorporate each other’s strategies and

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