Comparing the Two Primary Crime Data Sources Used in the US - Term Paper Example

Introduction

The two primary source of crime data in the United States are Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The UCR provides crime data source that is being utilized by the FBI to record and make a decision regarding crime. On the contrary, the NIBRS is a crime data source that is prepared by five thousand, two hundred and seventy-one law enforcement agencies which represent twenty percent of the entire population of the United States. The two crime data have many users which include advocates, researchers, government agencies, policy makers, business representatives to mention just but a few. The crime data sources provide vital information that may help in making crucial decisions on how to minimize different types of crime. It may also assist the police officers to understand nature of offenses and the motives behind these offenses so that they can put in place measures to curb crimes. The crime data source provides vital information that may be needed to carry out public advocacy and also in establishing accountability mechanism. However, it has not been an easier task for ordinary citizens to obtain data on crime due to some regulations that they must observe. Besides, some data that such groups require may not be enough and in some cases it may not be publicly available. The paper focuses on comparing and contrasting two primary crime data sources used in the U.S. The two data sources to use include the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) (Schwartz, & Vega, A2017). The focus of your paper should be centered on the methodological procedures and implications between the two crime data sources.

Comparing and contrasting the two primary crime data sources used in the U.S

Similarities

The two primary data used in the U.S are Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The two can be compared and contrasted by looking at their similarities and differences. Regarding similarities, UCR and NIRBRS are both used as reliable and credible sources that provide the law enforcement agencies, researchers, and the federal government with useful data regarding the occurrence of crime. Also, both UCR and NIBRS measure the same offense subset based on their definition of those crimes. Some of the common types of crimes that they tend to measure include theft, rape, robbery, burglary, and assaults. The two primary data source of crime tends to define the crimes similarly. Besides, the two crime data sources serve the same purpose of providing reliable information about various types of crime that tend to occur in the U.S. The two crime data sources tend to provide similar summaries regarding the rates of manslaughters and homicides victims and do not include homicides incidence that is justifiable. The other similarities between the two sources are that they tend to be used together, because of their complementary nature. NIBRS tend to compliment UCR to provide valid, credible and reliable information to the users. The two programs tend to have long term corresponding trends when trying to compare URC and NIBRS data on robbery rates (Maddan, 2016).

Both UCR and NIBRS are similar in the sense that they tend to be formulated from the same concepts. They contain statistical data that has been collected from all over the US by the FBI. Besides, the two groups are categorized based on the incidences that have happened. The both use report structure to document and report crime incidences that occur in the U.S. The statistical values represented in the two data crime sources tend to be similar. The both use percentages and actual figures to show the occurrence of different types of crime over a period. For example, in 2000 the average index crime rate was 2% while the violent crime was less than 1% in both crime data sources. The other similarities between the two crime data sources are that the data being reported tends to be a subject of human error. The two programs tend to rely heavily on human capital. A person is bound to make errors, and hence their involvement in gathering crime data is essential. Hence the two crime sources are not perfect. For Example, in the UCR reports tends to be more generalized while NIBRS tends to have ten times more definitions and categories as compared and hence both are subject to some human errors (Gruenewald, & Klein, 2016). The two reports tend t be similar because they both retrieve their statistical facts from similar incidence pertaining crime. However, in the NIBRS more methodologies tend to be involved in gathering data pertaining crimes that had occurred. The two crime data sources tend to be similar in the manner in which they represent homicide justifications on crime data.

They tend to have the same context of homicidal data. For example, UCR tends to deal more with homicidal data. It records only murder cases that can be justified, in cases where murder cases have not be founded such incident may not be registered as justifiable homicide in the UCR Reports. On the contrary, NIBRS also do not recognize unfounded murder cases as justifiable homicides and hence forming other fundamental similarities between the two crime data sources. Due to numerous similarities between the two crime data sources, in the U.S there is the likelihood that UCR may soon be entirely replaced by the NIBRS (Maddan, 2016).

The other similarities between the two sources of crime data are about the users of such data. Some of the users of both UCR and NIBRS include law enforcement agencies, legislative team, legal systems, academicians and researchers among many other users. The two crime data sources are similar in the sense that they are both regulated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Besides, the two sources tend to employ the similar concept of collecting, recording and analyzing crimes. However, a slight difference in their concept tends to exist because NIBRS tends to be more detailed as compared to the Uniform Crime reporting. For instance, NIBRS tends to have forty-six crime offenses in group A while UCR tends to have only eight crime offenses in part 1. Besides, UCR does not provide clear differences between attempted and completed crimes as it is the case with NIBRS. Besides, Uniform Crime Reports tends to cover only serious crimes and neglect data on less severe crimes. The UCR determines the seriousness of a crime by UCR by looking on those crimes that have been reported in the same jurisdiction multiple times.

Differences between NIBRS and URC

Despite having a few similarities, the two crime data sources tend to have numerous differences. It is evident that the Uniform Crime reports were established prior the National Incident-Based Reporting System whereby, the NIBRS was created after the URC to solve the shortcomings of the UCR. For instance, Uniform Crime reports were found in 1929. The establishment of UCR was pioneered by the International chiefs of police. UCR provide crime data that has been gathered by the FBI on different locations across the U.S. The UCR include two main types of index crimes that are labeled as part 1 and 2. In part 1, all forms of property and violent crimes are included. Example of violent crimes includes force rape, robbery with violence, murder, and aggregate assault. On the contrary, property crime includes theft of motor vehicle, burglary, and larceny. Part 2 crimes that are included in the UCR are those that involve minor assaults. Some of the crimes being include in part two include loitering in the wrong hours at tonight, violation of curfew, drunk driving, sex offenses, vandalism, being in possession of weapons wrongly to mention just but a few. On the contrary, NIBRS was launched in the year 1970’s as part of incident reporting crime. The NIBRS was established to assist law enforcement agencies to gather data on crimes to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The NIBRS is also grouped into two categories namely group A and B. Under the group A, all simple crimes such as bribery, forgery, vandalism of property and other petty crimes are included. On the other hand, group B, covers information on cases of arrest as a result of breaking the law or behaving in a disorderly manner (Rydberg, Stone, & McGarrell, (2016).

The objectives of UCR were a difference with that of NIBRS. For example, UCR was created to provide credible statistical data on crime to the law enforcement agencies while the objective of NIBRS was to provide unavailable data on crime. The NIBRS tends to provide both reported and unreported crimes and hence making it possible for users of the crime report to have detailed information about the offense. UCR tend to be less comprehensive because it only provides only data on reported crimes, and hence the emergence of NIBRS acted as a panacea of short-coming of UCR. The other key difference is how the two crime sources are used to form the final data. It is crystal clear that the UCR does not use all the statistical data on crime to build the final product as it is the case with the NIBRS (Gruenewald, & Klein, 2016).

The two programs differ because they tend to measure similar but overlapping crimes. For example, it is evident that NIBRS tends to provide data on both unreported and reported crime while URC provides data on reported crimes. The two programs tend to have differences in the manner in which they define certain crimes. For example, NIBRS define burglary as a wrongful attempt by a person to enter in a residence where he or she does not have a right to be there. On the contrary, URC defines burglary as unlawful entry by a person into a structure to commit a felony. The two programs tend to differ in the manner in which the calculate crime rates. For example, NIBRS tend to use households as their base for computing crime rates, for instance, it computes the crime rate using a base of 1000 households. On the other hand, URC tends to use 100, 000 persons as their base for computing crime. For example, URC may reports that the rate of rape in a particular state was 28 % per 10,000 persons. The discrepancy in the base used to compute the crime rates making it difficult to carry out proper comparison given that the population rate tend to change each year as the number of people increases in the society. Besides, a lot of sampling variation tends to exist in the two programs. The margins of errors may arise in the NIBRS data because it tends to estimates samples obtained by URC which leads to margin error. The two programs tend to exclude some aspects of crime that are not common to the two programs and hence leasing to trend lines long term variations. Some of the common crimes that trend line variation is more likely to occur among the two methods include burglary, theft of motor vehicles, and robbery. Besides, the two programs tend to have different and unique strength when measuring and providing information on the crime. For instance, URC manages to provide information regarding the number of crimes that are reported by law enforcement agencies throughout the country while UCR’S tends to provide more accurate and credible reports regarding the nature and extent of homicide crimes. The two programs may be compared based on their value and importance; both can be used together to provide greater and comprehensive understanding of various forms of crimes that tend to occur in the United States (Rydberg, Stone, & McGarrell, (2016).

The URC mainly comprise of national wide crime data tabulations which range from murder, violent offenses, and manslaughter. The URC aims at providing clear facts about crime and provides tools for controlling criminal activities. However, reporting crime data on the FBI is not compulsory as in the case with NIBRS. One of the primary sources of strength of UCR is that it represents 94 percent of the entire population. URC tends to report only serious crimes that occur in the US while NIBRS tends to report both serious crimes and those that are not severe reports. NIBRS take keen consideration all forms of reports such and hence makes it more comprehensive as compared to UCR. The NIBRS reports tend to be more detailed and complete as compared to UCR reports because they tend to include information that is not covered in the UCR reports. The UCR reports 94 percent of crimes in the US while NIBRS tend to cover 41 percent of the U.S populace. The other discrepancy between the two programs is based on the dependency. It is evident that UCR tends to be independent of NIBRS. On the contrary, NIBRS tend to mine some of the data from UCR. For example, 28 percent of the UCR data tends to be integrated into the NIBRS reports. UCR tends to differ with the NIBRS based on the manner in which it groups its data. It is evident that UCR tends to group data based on categories such as murder cases, robbery burglary to mention just but a few. UCR involves two main categories of crime cases namely part 1 and two whereby part one focuses on murder and robbery offenses. The second category is part two which focuses mainly on petty offenses like prostitution, vandalism, and larceny (Rydberg, Stone, & McGarrell, 2016).

On the contrary, NIBRS tends to use different groupings; in most case, NIBRS uses group A to categorize various forms of crimes. On the other hand, UCR tends to give an overall data regarding crime data. Besides, NIBRS does not provide much emphasize on the hierarchical occurrences of crimes like in the case with UCR. NIBRS reports crime based on their alphabetical order in both group A and B which is not the case with UCR. Group A reports include those crimes that are serious while group B include less severe crimes in the US such as violation of curfews. The data collection between the two crime data sources tends to be different. For example, UCR tends to report only the criminal acts while NIBRS tends to go a step further by assigning each act of crime a particular number. Some of the information that tends to be included in those codes includes data on weapons, drug use, offender motivation to mention just but a few. The NIBRS also include data on the offender’s identification, and the officer who arrested the offenders, the race, color and age of the offender is also included. The reports further include the relationship that existed between the victim and the criminal. In case the property that was destroyed or stolen was identified the NIBRS tends to include such data in its reports which consequently makes it easier for the users to have an easy time in analyzing crimes (Stogner, 2016).

The two crime data sources differ in the manner in which they collect data. For example, when there are multiple occurrences of certain offenses, UCR tends to include only the highest acts in the report. For instance, if multiple offenses occurred such as theft, robbery, larceny, and murder, the UCR report will only include murder incidences in its report and excludes all the other offenses. On the contrary, NIBRS tends to take into consideration each offense and report it individually. Placing more emphasize on the manner in which the data is collected and reported in the NIBRS is imperative when documenting country criminal offenses. The two crime data sources also differ in the populace they use to report crimes. It is evident that UCR tends to comprise of extensive information that makes up to 98 percent of the offenses reported in the U.S. On the contrary, the NIBRS tends to include coverage of 28 percent of the UCR data in its systems. UCR and NIBRS tend to differ in the manner in which the two indicates Whitener the criminal acts have been fully completed and documented. In UCR it is evident that there is not a clear indication of the crime acts that have been completed and those that have not yet been completed. On the contrary, NIBRS tends to provide a clear indication of the crimes acts that have been completed and those that have not yet been completed. For example, in the NIBRS those crime acts that have been finale are marked and coded with letter “C” while those that have been attempted and have not yet been completed are indicated by letter “A.” The two data crime source tends to have some similarities in their crime statistics. For instance, by looking at them, it can be scrutinized that they tend to utilize similar percentages in presenting crimes. However, the tow crime sources tend to differ by 15 percent in their reporting statistics. Such differences tend to affect researchers and their attempts in preventing crimes (Stogner, 2016).

Conclusion

It can be scrutinized that the two crime data sources in the U.S are UCR and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The Uniform Crime reports is a data source comprises of crime data collected by the Federal Bureau of investigation and include only reported crimes. On the other hand, NIBRS was established to improve on the UCR reports. The two crime data sources tend to have both similarities and differences. Some of the similarities are that they are considered to be credible and reliable crime data sources in the U.S. Besides, they tend to use similar incidence of crime to provide data about the various types of crimes that occur in the US. The two crime sources are formulated from similar concepts. Besides, the methodologies used to collect and present the data among the two sources tends to be similar in some aspects. However, the two crime data sources tend to have some differences. For instance, they URC were established before the NIBRS. Also, URC tends to provide only crime data on reported cases while NBRS tends to provide crime data on both reported and unreported crimes. Besides, the manner in which data is collected and communicated between the two data crime sources also tends to be different as discussed.