Crime Pattern Discussion Response

A. & B.

Uniform Crime Report (UCR) uses official records provided by government agencies including the police, the courts, or the prisons to collect data. The Uniform Crime Report is a publication of the Federal Bureau of Investigation where crime record data is collected on a yearly basis. The report reports on the number of arrests made by police agencies every year. The number of offenses are tallied and published according to specific locations such as city, county, and metropolitan areas for serious crimes (Siegel-2 2). The UCR divides crimes into Part I and Part II crimes. Part I cries include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson. These elements are reported in line with data relating to age, gender, and race (Siegel-2 2). Part II crimes include drug trafficking, vandalism, and sex crimes (Siegel-2 2). All offenses are reported regardless of arrests, recovery, or prosecution.

National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) collects data on each reported crime incident (Siegel-2 7). In this approach, local police agencies are required to provide a brief account of every incident and arrest, including the incident, victim and offender information. Additionally, the NIBRS provides information on most criminal justice issues facing law enforcement today, such as, terrorism or white-collar crimes (Siegel-2 7). In this method, information on whether the offender was suspected of using drugs/narcotics, or alcohol during incident, and whether the offender use computer equipment to perpetrate the crime are all captured.

In the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) approach, information is collected on cries suffered by people and households, regardless of whether or not the crimes were reported to law enforcement agencies. The NCVS enquire directly from victims about rape and sexual assault experiences, and using computer-assisted interview techniques. Further, information about victims (age, sex, race, etc.), offender (sex, race, age, victim-offender relationship) and crimes (time/place of occurrence) are provided by the NCVS (Siegel-2 9). The greatest advantage of the NCVS is that it can estimate the total amount of annual crimes, not just those that are reported to police.

Self-Report is an approach that ask people to describe (in detail) their recent and lifetime participation in criminal activity. They are given in groups, and respondents are promised anonymity. Most self-report surveys contain questions related to the subjects’ background & history: family make-up, upbringing, income, school performance & personal beliefs (Siegel-2 11). The intention of this approach to criminologists is to establish links between personal history, characteristics & criminal behavior.

C.

One of the main weaknesses of self-reports is that it is unreasonable to expect people to candidly admit illegal acts. Additionally, people may exaggerate their criminal acts, forget them or be confused about what is being asked. For the UCR method, it is likely that victims fear reprisal from offenders. Additionally, law enforcement has yet to gain the full confidence of the people. Lastly, it is likely that the police reports may include systematic errors in reporting.

D.

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) approach appears to be the standard unit of analysis on which most criminological research is based. Despite the weaknesses in the approach, it provides the most reliable form of information relating to arrests and other important data on crime.

Works Cited

Siegel 2 (Nature and Extent of Crime). PPT Dcument