Uniform Crime Report

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Crime data in the United States is reported through three systems, UCR, NIBRS, and NCVS. One crime data that is used is UCR. It stands for Uniform Crime Report. This is a nationwide database on crime from monthly law enforcement reports that is reported by the FBI. This gives an understanding of crime and crime behavior that is only reported to the police. Another crime data that is used is NIBRS, which stands for The National Incident Bases Reporting System. This is a set of data that is collected by the FBI on every incident of crime. This allows a better report of crime in the United States. The last set of data that is reported is NCVS, which stands for National Crime Victimization Survey. This is the largest survey that is given …show more content…

“UCR data represents statistics on only those crimes reported to the police.” (Mallicoat, 2012, p. 3). If an individual does not report a crime then the crime becomes unreported in the statistics. If multiple crimes are reported, only the most serious one is then recorded. The categorizations of crimes are divided into two different types of crimes; violent crimes and property crimes, and the hierarchy of the crimes is reported. Unlike the UCR, NIBRS show a better understanding of crime that is going on. It contains information on every crime incident there is. Instead of UCR showing a category of only 4 violent crimes and 4 property crimes, NIBRS shows a broader category of 46 group A offenses and 11 group B arrest data only offenses. NCVS is known as the dark figure of crime, because it fills in the gaps of the reported crimes as well as the non-reported crimes. “NCVS gathers additional data about crimes committed and gives criminologist a greater understanding of the types of crimes committed and victim characteristics.”(Mallicoat, 2012, p. 4). NCVS can explore the issues of gender and crime that are not reflected in crime

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