The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) System

1090 Words5 Pages
UCR/NCVS The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) system is a voluntary program that examines national crime rates based on data submitted by law enforcement agencies across the United States. This report is compiled and published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation which provides a national view of crime, enabling criminal justice officials to track trends in crime rates and develop appropriate enforcement measures. This system does not collect information on convictions or other criminal court proceedings. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2011) The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) collects detailed information on the frequency and nature of crimes. Interviews are conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau personnel with all household…show more content…
There are also disadvantages with this program. Because the program was reconstructed in 1992 using different methods, data is not able to be compared accurately (ICPSR). Another disadvantage is it only measures crimes that are considered personal or property related, it does not measure business, or commercial crimes and it does not report crimes on individuals under 12 years old. Personal crimes include crimes such as rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, while property crimes consist of such crimes as burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. Classification also presents difficulties. Less focused surveys shift responsibility for the definition of the events to the respondent, and without the equivalent of police procedures the resulting reports are far from uniform. In addition victims determine whether the incident was a crime, not the law. The survey only provides information about the experience of victims, not information about the crime. There is no way to validate whether an individual’s account is true or false. There are cases in which victims may not be able to remember crimes as they occurred. There are a variety of reasons why people choose not to report crimes. An individual may not think the crime that happened to them is important, so they may disregard that…show more content…
The hidden nature of many crimes means that the victim may be unable to provide key details about the victimization and may not even be aware that a crime has been committed at all. There is no reliable way to measure the number of crimes that might be falsely reported or of the number of crimes that might be underreported in the NCVS data. (Office of Justice Programs,

More about The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) System

Open Document