Crime Reporting Systems

Crime Reporting Systems

Abstract

Law enforcement agencies across the United States rely upon data in crime reporting for a number of reasons. For instance, a good deal of information obtained is used in crime prevention strategies, obtaining funding for special projects, assignment of special patrols, and investigative methods. With the purpose of attaining the most precise information, law enforcement agencies must gather data from other local, state, and federal agencies. This essay will provide a more in-depth look into two of the most commonly relied on crime reporting systems known as the Uniform Crime Report and the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

Crime Reporting Systems

Measuring crime has always been one of the most difficult challenges facing criminal justice researchers (Maxfield, 1999). As far back as the 1920's, law enforcement agencies foresaw the importance of developing a uniform system to record and track criminal statistics. In fact, it was the International Association of Chiefs of Police, who formed the Commission on Uniform Crime Report, for the purpose of developing a uniform system of reporting criminal statistics. This program would be known as the Uniform Crime Report (Wallace & Roberson, 2011).

The Uniform Crime Report program is a nationwide statistical computation involving more than 1,600 city, county and state law enforcement agencies that voluntarily provide data on reported crimes. The UCR is run by the FBI who releases periodic estimations based on the number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies by citizens and the number of arrests made yearly. Because the UCR factors only crimes reported to the police, some have questioned the reliability of the data. For example, since personal thefts are the least likely crimes to be reported to the police, the UCR tends to underestimate the frequency of offenses. In other words, if a crime goes unreported to the police, it is also unreported by the UCR. With the disadvantages of the UCR in mind, a more modernized system known as the NIBRS was created (Wallace & Roberson, 2011).

The National Incident-Based Reporting System collects data on every single incident and arrest within twenty two offense categories made up of forty-six specific crimes called Group A offenses. In addition to the Group A offenses, there are eleven Group B offense categories that only includes arrest data. Unlike the UCR, the NIBRS report contains data, such as types of crime, victim characteristics, and offender characteristics. The purpose of this system