I. UCR / NCVS strengths and weakness; statistics relating to rape
a. UCR Strengths (Regoli, 2010)
• Reports are collected by the FBI from more than 17,000 police departments.
• The UCR is able to provide the number of crimes that have been reported to law enforcement agencies.
• It is reliable and timely in reporting homicides in the country.
b. UCR Weaknesses (Regoli, 2010)
• Data is reported is voluntary, it is not mandatory to participate in the program.
• These omissions make it difficult to arrange the comprehensive data.
• Challenging determining the accuracy of the data since the information reported on known crimes is what is known by the police.
• Many times, a victim will not report a crime for whatever personal or
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• The collection of all this data allows for theoretical explanations by criminologists on the social interactions between the victim and the offender(s).
• It also provided the true magnitude of crime that was reliable.
• In 1992, the NCVS survey was redesigned and produced betters results in victims recalling and reporting more types of incidents.
d. NCVS Weaknesses
• It has been criticized that it is limited in its scope because the data it collects is a fraction of all crimes committed in the United States.
• Another problem is that murder victims cannot be interviewed, and therefore, no data is collected or submitted for the survey.
• Early surveys by the NCVS were felt that the information obtained in the interview of the victim may not be reliable. Interviewees can be vulnerable to several types of biases including memory errors, errors of deception, telescoping, and sampling errors.
e. Statistics relating to Rape: It has been found that the UCR and NCVS over the past 30 years have reported similar results on the incidence of criminality in the United States
i. UCR: Rape or sexual assault, regardless of age, excluding incest (FBI, 2016):
1. 2013 reported rapes were estimated 79, 770 (in all cities) under the revised definition, 6.3 % lower than 2012, 10.6% lower than 2009, and 16.1% lower than 2004
2. Rates of rapes in 2013 was 25.2 per 100,000 females. ii. NCVS: Violent Victimization had no significant
One of the first problems that this system has to do with the “procedures that captures it,” and this leads to why we must be cautious about this methods. The procedure involves the crime to be initially reported to the police. This beginning procedure already has a problem, and according to James, the problem is, “the NIBRS collect data on the number of offenses known to law enforcement each year. However, not all crimes that occur are known to the police” (2). The procedure that is used in NIBRS to get the number of crimes begins initially with the crime being reported to
The two major sources of crime data used in the United States remain The Uniform Crime Reports and The National Incident-Based Reporting System. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) shows a statistical summary of crimes reported by the police each year. UCR was authorized in 1930 by Congress for the operation of compiling crime data. A reporting system in which police describe each offense in a crime incident including the data describing the offender, victim, and property is considered the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS is put together by two groups: Group A and Group B. Group A consists of 22 specific crimes in reach of 46 offenses and 11 Group B offense categories exclusive for data reported for arrest.
The UCR, also known as the Uniform Crime Reports, is a report put out by the FBI that shows a series of data on crime. It is summary based and a group level of analysis. The FBI gets the information for the UCR through agencies/jurisdictions volunteering the information to them. Some of the positives about the UCR is that it can compare certain agencies and areas in which more crimes were committed. The UCR also is quick, efficient, and easy to acquire the information. One of the drawbacks for the UCR is that it does not encompass all the crimes reported to the police. Since providing the reports is voluntary, jurisdictions vary in the completeness of the data they sent. There can also be clerical or filing problems. Only the most serious crime
After reading the information found on the FBI website about the National Incident Based Reporting System, I found that UCR, NIBRS, and NCVS all have their own strengths and differences but were similar in some ways. When it comes to the uniform crime report ( UCR ), people are able to compare crime rates between different places of their choosing which is strength. Within a year, the data gathered would be ready for the public which is a benefit for us. Every strength has a weakness however, and UCR’s is that it only covers crimes discovered by the police and it can be sometimes lacking in details.
In Massachusetts alone, there were “2,337 unduplicated incidents of sexual assaults reported to rape crisis centers in Massachusetts between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012. 1in 8 adolescent girls will be forcibly raped. 50% will experience long-term mental distress. 44% will experience a second assault in her lifetime. 78% will be acquaintances or relatives. Strangers assault 22%. 16% will report to the police. 1% of the offenders are sentenced to less than one year in jail” ("Sexual Assault Statistics,"
Another measure of crime is the NCVS. The NCVS or the national crime victimization survey is a primary measure of crime in the U.S. it is collected not only by the DOJ but also the Census Bureau. The main purpose of the NCVS was to gather information that was not reported to the law. The NCVS was acknowledge and founded in 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center. An interesting fact about the NIBRS is that the survey is done twice a year at random.Measuring crime is essential believe it or not. How are we going to know which crimes have risen and which crimes have not. We measure crime for various reasons. One of those reasons’ is explanation. how are we going to know what happened at the crime scene. It is also used for evaluation, that addresses criminal activity. Crime statistics are commonly known to be used for political purposes. NCVS has a lot in
National Incident-Based Reporting System, crime data from NIBRS (as of 2004) comes from 5,271 law enforcement agencies that represent about 20 percent of the total U.S. population. NIBRS was enacted as the result of the FBI's efforts in the 1980s to revise the UCR. The program has provided a nationwide view of crime based on the submission of information by law enforcement agencies through the country. The crime data are
Every part of our research statement has been defined now, and the purpose of defining each aspect ourselves was to not be over or under inclusive. The reason we have narrowed down the definition of sexual assault to just forced intercourse is because among a crime that is not often reported, rape is the aspect that females will most commonly report to authorities. We chose seventeen as our minimum age because it is the legal age of consent in Texas, and any female older than seventeen is also at risk of being raped on a campus. It may seem over inclusive to add every age over seventeen, but all sexual assault crimes, regardless of age, are reported in the Clery Act. Just studying females is important because they are the most likely population to be victims of sexual assault. Finally, public campuses are the only Universities we are using because data is more readily available and representative of actual crime rates.
The annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) has been the primary method for gathering data and providing these staggering statistics. The NCVS provides information gathered from the victim, which includes information on crimes that went unreported to the police. The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is also a valid reference for gathering crime information within the United States. The UCR only has information regarding crimes that were reported to the police, as well as arrests. Both forums are used by the FBI. In addition, researchers use this information for their research. Even Taylor and
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, “there is an average of 237,868 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year.” It is estimated that “out of every 100 rapes, 40 get reported to the police, 10 lead to an arrest, 8 get prosecuted, 4 lead to a felony conviction” and “3 rapists will spend even a single day in prison.” Furthermore, “about 95% of” the four percent of felony “convictions are obtained by way of a plea agreement” rather than through trial. In some states, like “California, there is a higher acquittal rate for rape than for any other felony" (926).
However, measurements of crime using the Uniform Crime Report are not completely accurate either. Local police officers often do not report crimes that they think are not substantial enough. Only the more serious crimes (Part I crimes) are the ones that they feel deserve the time and effort doing paper work for to be reported in the Uniform Crime Report. This means that a lot of Part II cases go unreported by police and, once again, the white-collar crimes are over looked meaning the Uniform Crime Report is not accurate (Barkan, 2012).
The National Crime victimization Survey (NCVS) collects personal and household criminal data by a consistent ongoing survey. This program is useful for showing how many crimes happened that may have not have been reported to the police. Victims and criminals are a lot more likely to admit to a survey of criminal events that happened rather than to the police themselves. Unlike UCR and NIBRS, NCVS does not include detailed information nor does it provide any specific
The FBI’s UCR data shows that a forcible rape occurs every 6.2 minutes and that there were 84,767
Bureau of Justice Statistics: Rape Trends: The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports the stability rape trends in recent years.
I choose this topic because sexual assault is one of the most offensive crimes committed in our society. Not only is it a threat to the community, but it has a physically and psychologically effect on the victim in many ways. For the last couple of decades, sexual assault, rape, and child molestation has become the focal point of public concerns today. According to a 1993 National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, about 500,000 rapes or sexual assaults occur each year (Statistics, March 2010). The Department of Justice states that, “rape crimes have risen nearly three times as fast as the total crime rate”, although other studies have shown statistics that are in