Criminology 1 question dark figure of crime - Essay Example

Dark figure of crime Dark figure of crime Dark figure of crime is a criminology idiom in regards to crime statistics showing the number of unreported as well as undiscovered crimes within given governance. The term is also useful to sociologists in regards to crime level and dispute on the assessment of reliability within the official crime statistics departments. However, dark figure crime may be figured as a crime that has not been discovered by the police force within a given nation and this led to being undiscovered by official crime statistics (Miller & Shelden, 2007).

Dark figure crime possesses a threat to a given society. Many of undisclosed as well as unreported crime to the authority lead to unresolved issues within a society hence portraying unreliability both in the governance as well as to a given society. Crime data collection in the US The United States of America uses two major crime data collection in their statistics. These methods include the national Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the uniform crime reports. The FBI crime department in United States of America majorly uses the Uniform Crime Reports system of data collection of crime.

The FBI to detect crimes on murder, rape cases, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, as well as theft of vehicles uses this system of data collection. However, UCR data collection system has been re defined by FBI agency in United States of America. Meanwhile National Incident-Based Reporting system crime information system is another system that is used by FBI, having been revised from UCR as from 1980s.It majorly works based on justice systems characteristics, public attitudes on crime, persons arrested, known offenses, judicial defendant processes as well as supervision correction (Russell & Milovanovic, 2001).

Comparison and Contrast of NIBRS and UCR The ability of UCR system is that it only allows eight tracks of crimes to be detected while NIBRS tracks 46 crimes simultaneously. However, the arrests within UCR system have specific report on the incident that has happened while the counterpart contains more information arrests on each of the incident done per timeline. Meanwhile, UCR system of crime data collection mostly reports domestic violence giving less concern on simple assault unlike in the NIBRS system of crime data collection.

The worse of all in the UCR system is that if a matter is about murder, the system only reports a single incident while the other system reports multiple offenses in relation to the victims and offenders. NIBRS system of crime data collection in regards to dark figure of crime is a new methodology of uniform crime report that collects information that is more detailed on a given crime as compared to UCR. The strengths of NIBRS in crime data collection is that; the system provides a strong relationship between the offender and the victim hence using 22 figurative categories.

From point of view we find that UCR reports less crimes in one incident making the system pose a weakness in crime data collection procedural (Miller & Shelden, 2007). Meanwhile, NIBRS system of crime data collection lacks police agencies in various parts of the country and this creates a limitation on the access of its database. The other weakness in the NIBRS system is that the system has only particular jurisdictions that are involved in the reporting of crimes. ReferencesMiller, K, & Shelden, R. (2007). Crime and criminal justice in American society.

United Kingdom: Waveland Pr Inc. Russell, K, & Milovanovic, D. (2001). Petit apartheid in the U.S. criminal justice system: The dark figure of racism. USA: Carolina Academic Pr.