Uniform Crime Report Essay

Crime is a major problem in the United State and many argues over crime statistics in our neighborhoods and country. For many years, citizens have questioned the importance of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). One particular problem with the UCR is that several victims of crimes do not contact or fellow up with police to make an official report. “The statistics collected in the Uniform Crime Reports entail crimes that have actually been reported to the police. Since submission of such data is voluntary, how can the Uniform Crime Reports be accurate? How are law enforcements able to determine whether there is a trend between crimes?” Although the UCR has bought it is negative and positive aspects, it is still being used as a powerful tool to …show more content…
“The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is a data collection from nationwide law enforcement agencies reporting on national crime statistics. The UCR began being used in the 1930's by the Federal Bureau of Investigation” (Barkan, 2012). Moreover, these crime statistics reported to the FBI by state, local, and federal law enforcement agencies. In the criminal justice system, divided crimes into twenty-nine categories of offenses and eight of these are major crimes. These crimes include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. However, “the UCR reports only the most serious crime committed in a single incident (e.g., if a murderer has raped his victim, and an arrest was made then only murder is reported)” (2009). Some of the factors UCR uses to collect data are geographic locations, age, ethnic group (race), sex, status, etc. “The geographical, temporal, and offense coverage of the UCR program is the most comprehensive of any crime data set. One of the major advantages of the UCR is reported by local law enforcement agencies, which allows for more focused understanding of the crime problems and their diversity”