¶ … criminal offender and their motivations, but also gave me some interesting statistics, such as fewer than 1% of crimes are committed by people over 65 years old. I also learned that crime statistics have been around for a long time, and that so many people have studied them effectively. I learned about hate crimes too, and what constitutes hate crimes, and what a fairly recent addition they are to the criminal statistics analyzed and counted today.
I learned that crimes reported are one source of information analyzed and reported on, but that other research tries to determine how many crimes are not reported, and analyzes them with crime data, too. These different research methods were new to me, and the information was quite helpful for future reference. Now, I know that when I hear crime statistics, I will not simply accept them, but I will see what report was used, and what type of data was analyzed and gathered to reach crime statistic conclusions. I think the NCVS data, which uses unreported crimes too, is more representative of what is actually happening with crime and criminal justice in our country. Many of the statistics regarding violent crime were new to me, including that such a big number of crimes go unreported to the police.
Much of this information I already knew, and I have followed crime statistics because of my interest in criminal justice. I knew that crime numbers were going down around the country, even though it might seem, because of the media, that they are more prevalent. The media focuses on crime, especially...
I knew there were patterns to crime, that prisons are overcrowded, and the criminal justice system is not perfect. I also knew many of the numerous definitions of different crimes, but learned more because the definitions here were more detailed and clear. I also knew that far more men commit crimes than women do, and the great cost of crime in our country, both monetary and societal.
It surprised me that so many studies are done each year by different agencies, and that the studies are so comprehensive throughout the criminal justice system. I knew that there were studies done each year, and crime statistics are important for a number of reasons, but it was surprising to discover just how many studies are done, and how much they cover. It indicates there is widespread interest in crime statistics, not just to fight crime, but to discover if the criminal justice system is indeed working, how much it costs, and even which judges are the most effective. It almost seems as if there are so many studies that they may be duplicating efforts, and that less studies, if the researchers worked together, could create more facts that were useable and viable. It was also surprising to me to discover there were so many deviations in how crimes were defined and accounted for. It would seem to make sense to have the same definitions of crimes, and to look at crimes the same way when they are being counted and…
