Uniform Crime Report

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Getting reliable statistics on crime is usually difficult. In cases where an individual has been able to get the data, the statistics are known to be unreliable. Several reasons can be attributed to the unreliability of the statistics of crime. First, the nature of crime changes over time. An incident which can be considered a crime in one location may not be a crime in another jurisdiction or after some time. These changes make it difficult to keep tabs of the number of crimes committed which leads to the second reason why statistics of crime is difficult and unreliable. It is nearly impossible to enumerate the actual number of crimes committed. This is true for both major crimes and minor crimes that individuals in the society commit. Lastly, …show more content…

The program began in 1929, and it collects information on crimes which have been reported to law enforcement authorities. The data is collected by law enforcement agencies in the country then transmitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigations for compiling on a monthly basis. The crimes which are recorded include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, burglary, and arson (UCR, 2017).
Several advantages can be identified when using UCR as a source of crime data. First, UCR program provides the crime count of the entire nation. The data is subdivided into regions, states, counties, cities, town, tribal law enforcement, and universities and colleges. The national wide count for crime enables an individual to study tends among various jurisdictions or those with common characteristics. Secondly, the report provides details about crimes such as those which were unlawful and those that were cleared by the Justice system (UCR, 2017). Lastly, the data reports on the profile of various crimes such as the perpetrator and weapons …show more content…

First, it only compiles information on crimes which have been reported to law enforcement agencies. Some people tend not to report crimes committed against them. Hence, the program is unable to provide the real picture of crime in the nation. Secondly, crimes such as rape are only measured against women in UCR program. As a result, males who experienced this crime are not accounted in the report. Lastly, UCR data is prone to human error in recording (UCR, 2017).
People can impact on the validity of the data in the collection process. UCR program uses law enforcement agencies to collect data on reported crime. The person responsible for recording his crimes might make a mistake which may affect the credibility of the data collected. Therefore, human error can result to unreliable data being collected by UCR.
National Crime Victimization

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