Two Primary Crime Data Sources in the US - Essay Example

A Comparative Analysis on the Two Primary Crime Data Sources in the US In a society where truth relies heavily on hard evidence, data plays a crucial role, as it could speak by itself. For example, official crime statistics can quantitatively illustrate the magnitude of crime and the efficacy of crime control. But gathering data is never a simple matter, much more for crime data, which relies heavily on police report that is prone to human frailty. This, maybe, is one of the reasons why solving crime has never been easy. With crime data used as the prime basis in crime analysis for purposes of convictions, policy making, peace and order, funding priorities, program evaluation, etc., accuracy is of the highest importance, because accuracy spells reliability. And here lies the problem, because in reality there is no perfect way of measuring crime, as statistics could be manipulated, especially so that reporting crimes could be influenced by varied factors. For example, as commonly depicted in crime movies – be they fictional or documentary – police, classically, under-reports or over reports crime due to any or convergence of the following reasons: political pressures, need for greater resources, image building, sets of beliefs or values, training and expertise, etc. It is in this context that the two primary crime data sources in the US: the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) are to be compared and analyzed focusing on their specific characteristics, purposes and methodology. Much of the basic information regarding the UCR and NCVS are mainly taken from government documents, while insights are taken from books and peer-reviewed articles. The UCR, a crime reporting program that began in 1929 under the direct supervision of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been collecting crime and arrest data from the monthly summary crime reports voluntarily submitted by the 17,000 out of the 18,000 police agencies in the US nationwide for 69 years now focusing mainly on ‘Index crimes’ such as, in hierarchical order: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson – incidents which due to their seriousness, witnesses instantly knew that these are criminal acts prompting them to most likely report these incidents to police authorities. Thus, the crime data UCR possesses are only reported crimes. (Maltz, 1999, p.1) Aside from crime counts and trends, crime data from UCR also includes data on the following: crimes that are already cleared; individuals who are arrested as to their name, age, sex, and race; personnel of law enforcement; and distinct characteristics of homicides as to the victims’ and perpetrators’ age, sex, and race; the relationship of the two parties; weapons used; and the circumstances of the crime (U.S. Department of Justice - FBI, 2009, p.1-2). However, although the scope of UCR’s crime data is nationwide, its voluntary nature makes it inaccurate and incomplete for the obvious reason that not all police agencies submit their monthly crime report to the FBI. But since the primary purpose of UCR is to provide the public with the national and state trends on crime, it perceived that augmenting this limitation by imputing missing data with estimates through the use of a new reporting system – the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) – is enough to achieve its purpose (Op cit., p. 2). The NBIRS, although an attempt to address the limitations of UCR as introduced in 1985 against the challenge of the 21st century to law enforcement is not different from UCR in the sense that it also uniformly categorizes crimes following a standard disregarding state categorization. It improves UCR in two ways: by enriching UCR’s crime statistical data quantitatively (tracking additional types of crime), qualitatively (treats cases not aggregately but individually) and with timeliness (allows updating of incidents as new data emerges); and by bettering UCR’s methodology in gathering, sorting out, analyzing, and publishing said data (Beltramo, 1997, p.1; Akiyama & Propheter, 2005, p.3-4). But more importantly as the oldest crime data source in the US, the UCR, with its basic limitation inherent in its method of collecting data – voluntary submission of aggregated data, addresses the accuracy and validity of its data by making sure that individual law enforcement agencies report are accurate and by enabling its data quality control which dimensions are as follows: before reporting, education and training are conducted to minimize errors due to incompetence; during the processing of data, the validity of data is assessed using logical edits and statistical reasonableness test; during the aggregation of data, the reliability of the statistical result is reviewed; and lastly after data are processed, using the Quality Assurance Review (QAR) process, the accuracy of data is examined. (Akiyama, et al., p.1) On the other hand, the NCVS, the other crime data source in the US, which operation began in 1973 directly under the administration of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), does not simply count crimes but presents thorough picture of the crime incidents, victims and trends focusing on the victims’ experiences – exact date, location and physical setting of the crime; the victims’ characteristics as to their sex, race, income, extent of their injury, self-protective actions and their consequences, and the victim-perpetrator/offender relationship. Aside from this, NCVS is meant to provide “a window on criminal activity beyond the FBI reports” (Is Crime Profiling a Reasonable Premise? 1999, p. 12). Thus, it gathers information on crimes that are seldom reported, for example rape and domestic violence. In short, unlike the UCR, the NCVS is interested with crimes committed against individuals and households, be these are reported to the police or not. (U.S. Department of Justice - FBI, 2009, p.2-3) In fact, the primary purpose of the creation of NCVS is to address the UCR’s problem of non reporting issue because it accounts for a significant portion of crime data. For example, UCR reports that over 90,000 rapes or attempted rape cases happen yearly, as against NCVS estimation of more or less 200,000 annually (Siegel, 2009, p. 36). The NCVS gathers its crime data by conducting an annual survey to a large nationally representative sample. Twice a year, a nationally representative sample of more or less 45,000 households (80,000 individuals) are thoroughly interviewed by the US Census Bureau personnel, while annually, more or less 160,000 individuals aged 12 and above are similarly interviewed (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009, p. 2). But just like the UCR, the NCVS has been found to suffer from some methodological problems that if not treated with caution would impact negatively on its accuracy and reliability. One of the problems is the victim’s misinterpretation of events that may result to over reporting. For example if the victim is paranoid, a man who looks weird walking after her in an alley may be viewed as attempted rape. Another problem is underreporting due to varied reasons such as: embarrassment (for example, if the victim had been fooled into the offender’s prey), fear of getting involved and consequently got into trouble, or simply forgetting what happened because of varied reasons, too. Additional problem is the failure of the interviewer to account for the personal criminal activity of those being interviewed. And one more problem is the problem in sampling errors, wherein the group of respondents is not representative of a nationwide sample. (Op cit) Both the UCR program and NCVS program are statistical programs meant to measure the extent, nature, and effect of crime in the nation, which are both useful bases of decision making in varied aspects of governance, specifically in the enhancement of law enforcement for the achievement of peace and order. The information that these programs produce together does not negate or meant to invalidate each other’s data but rather complements each other by filling up the missing data. For example, the UCR is primarily useful in presenting the overall crime rate that spells out the overall peace and order situation of the nation, thus, the UCR crime data is most commonly used by the law enforcement agencies as they are tasked to reduce crime rate in the country. Meaning, as the law enforcement agencies are concerned in lowering the figures, they are most likely to use the UCR, since it presents crime data in aggregates, regardless of the why. On the other hand, the NCVS provides us an explanation on the reasons and conditions why these common crimes are being committed to the victims by the offenders who are both profiled as to their age, race, and sex. Thus, the NCVS crime data is mostly used by social scientist as they are concerned in understanding man’s social behaviors believing that it is in addressing the root cause of the problem that crime rate could be reduced. Even with the defined purposes, different focuses and distinct methodologies used by each program, they still share many similarities. One is the coverage of crime. Both programs cover the same types of crime such as rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft. Although in rape the two treat it quite differently because the UCR program counts rape as an offense against women only, while the NCVS program considers rape as an offense against both men and women. (Op cit, p. 3) Since the two programs are addressing two different needs, consequently they use different methodology in bringing about the data required of them. So, the UCR simply collect crime data from all over the nation in aggregates depending heavily on police reports. Although data are provided in voluntary manner, which causes some problems in the UCR’s crime data statistics, the manner of its data collection is nevertheless consistent and stable, which on the other hand accounts for the accuracy of its data collected. On the other hand the NCVS collects its data from a large national survey that includes the victims themselves in order to understand crime from the point of view of the victims. NCVS method although just like the UCR’s method carries with it a problem is in fact treatable by ensuring that careful sample techniques are sued and that data treatment are also cautiously analyzed. In other words, both programs use methodology most appropriate to the data they are required to collect. In addition, both programs, aware of the problems that their methodologies have are responsible enough to have their own way of correcting those problems, thus in the end resulting to a more accurate and valid data than not. Meaning to say, both programs are producing reliable crime data. Another difference of the two programs as inherent in their nature is that both measure an overlapping yet not duplicative set of crimes. For example, the NCVS, although deals with the same set of crimes includes both reported and unreported crimes, while UCR only represents reported crimes. Another thing, the UCR includes some crimes which the NCVS excludes such as homicide, arson, and commercial crimes. Also, the NCVS deals only with crimes committed against children above 12 years old, but UCR considers them. Moreover, both programs because of the different methodology that they utilize also define crimes quite differently. For example, if the UCR defines burglary as an illegal entry to steal, the NCVS simply defines burglary as an attempted entry of a residence by someone who is not authorized or who has no right to enter. Lastly, the two programs also calculate some crimes using different bases. This is especially true for property crimes. For example, for the crime of motor vehicle theft, the UCR rates this crime as against the number of motor vehicle theft per 100,000 persons, while the NCVS rates this crime per 1,000 households. (US Department of Justice, pp. 3-4) Observably however, that although the crime figures that both crime data sources present are not comparable and are not in harmony, they in fact oftentimes record similar crime patterns and trends showing whether or not crime rate in the country is declining or increasing. Noting the differences, similarities, and usefulness of these two primary crime data sources in the US, it could therefore be concluded that it is inappropriate to compare one against the other as both programs has clearly defined purposes which do not mean to negate the other but in fact to complement. So, both are useful reliable sources of information to beat crime. References Akiyama, Yoshio and Propheter, Sharon K. (2005). Methods of Data Quality Control: For Uniform Crime Reporting Programs. Criminal Justice Information Services Division, FBI. Available at http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/data_quality_control.pdf (Accessed on 15 November 2009). Beltramo, Michael N. (1997). “Cost issues of implementing the National Incident-Based Reporting System in Local Law Enforcement Agencies.” An Interim Staff Report for the ‘National Incident-Based Reporting System Reporting in Major Law Enforcement Agencies’ Project. The National Consortium for Justice Information and Studies: California. Available at http://www.search.org/files/pdf/costs.pdf (Accessed on 15 November 2009). “Is crime ‘profiling’ a reasonable premise?” (1999). USA Today, 128 (2651) p. 12. Maltz, Michael D. (1999). “Bridging gaps in police crime data.” A Discussion Paper from the BJS Fellows Program. US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs: Washington, DC. Siegel, Larry J. (2009). Chapter 2: The nature and extent of crime. In Criminology, pp. 28-64. Thomson Learning, Inc: Canada. Available at http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=9nH0kSUMwGIC&pg=PT67&lpg=PT67&dq=importance+of+crime+data+source&source=bl&ots=6gAjIx8Rq7&sig=5EQtfyBlBnFkLnBwiaO3uNRtaec&hl=tl&ei=w28FS-nXIdeikAWk7K3ICw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBoQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=importance%20of%20crime%20data%20source&f=false (Accessed on 15 November 2009). U.S. Department of Justice – Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2009). Crime in the United States. Available at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/documents/crime_measures.pdf (Accessed on 15 November 2009). Read More