Crime Data Sources in the United States
The collection of crime data in the United States is carried out through different approaches including Uniform Crime eports and the National Incident-Based eporting System, which also act as the two primary sources of crime data for crime reporting. The data obtained from these sources are used for research and documentation of crime status at the county, state, and national levels. Notably, the National Incident-Based eporting System emerged as an advancement of the conventional summary of Uniform Crime eports that were used to track crime in the country. In addition, the Congress uses data from these sources together with those from the National Crime Victimization Survey to guide policy decisions and create suitable responses to crime. While the use of these sources helps in dealing with crime in the United States, they have some similarities and differences between them with regards to methodological processes…...
mlaReferences:
Addington, L.A. (2008, February). Assessing the Extent of Nonresponse Bias on NIBRS
Estimates of Violent Crime. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 24(1), 32-49.
"Data Collection Guidelines." (2000, August). National Incident-Based Reporting System.
Retrieved from U.S. Department of Justice website: https://www.fortworthpd.com/docmgmt/NIBRS_Volume1_Major_Differences.pdf
Crime maps offer a visual component to crime data and statistics. It allows criminologists, law enforcement analysts, and sociologists to understand the connections between demographic data and criminal incidents. However, sociologists and criminologists must be careful to refrain from drawing illogical conclusions or inferring a false causal relationship. In some cases, crime maps are more useful in terms of helping law enforcement officials allocate resources than they are in making assumptions about demographic components in crime. Crime maps can also be used to help public policy officials create more effective programs for a target demographic. In the case of iverside, there is no clear relationship between race and crime. Criminal incidents are scattered throughout the county. However, there are a few core regions of concern and both contain high numbers of non-blacks. This information suggests that African-American neighborhoods in iverside have lower rates of crime than non-black neighborhoods. Law enforcement…...
mlaReferences
Maps of Riverside
Riverside Police Department (2014). Crime statistics. Retrieved online: https://www.riversideca.gov/rpd/crstats/
Crime Trends in Indiana, 1981-2011
With an economy founded on agriculture and industry, and few blighted urban centers, Indiana's crime rates in all indexed categories have historically been lower than the national average. However, data collected between 1995 and 2005 shows a disturbing trend: the crime rate for many categories is declining in the rest of the country faster than in the state of Indiana. This data is shown in Figure 1, below.
Indiana Crime Index ate per 100,000 esidents Compared to National. From Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.
Currently, Indiana's cities are suffering from the loss of jobs in the state and the region, especially the northern cities like Gary and Hammond. Trends in urban crime are different from trends in rural crime, and it is also helpful for business owners and community leaders to understand the answer to the question "who commits crimes?" Community members and prospective Indiana homebuyers need to be…...
mlaReferences
Agnew, R. & White, H. (1992). "An Empirical Test of General Strain Theory." Criminology 30(4): 475-99.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011). Labor Force Overview. Retrieved from August 15, 2011.http://www.stats.indiana.edu
Checkpoint (2010). The Global Retail Theft Barometer, 2010 Edition. White paper retrieved from August 15, 2011.http://globalretailtheftbarometer.com
Federal Bureau of Investigation (2010). Uniform Crime Report. Retrieved from August 19, 2011.http://www.fbi.gov
Crime a Socially Constructed
One's conduct or deeds turn into a crime or an offence via a progression of societal or communal conditioning. The same deed can be regarded as wrong in one community and act of valor in another or in the same community at a different point in time. The lawful status of a deed-whether it is an offense-does not depend on its substance, but on the communal reaction to that deed or to the individual who does it (osenfeld, 2009). Shifts in the lawful status of a particular deed can be due to communal changes or may be part of serious communal differences. The latest debates and confrontations over assisted suicide and abortion policy are two fine examples in the U.S. Lastly, the communal reaction to crime, social science theories on illegal behavior included, is founded on the significance of the deed and also the communal and ethical…...
mlaReferences
1)
Rosenfeld, R. (2009). The Social Construction of Crime . Available: Last accessed 9 Mar, 2015.http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195396607/obo-9780195396607-0050.xml .
2)
Henry. (2009). Social Construction of Crime. Available: Last accessed 9 Mar 2015.http://www.sagepub.com/haganintrocrim8e/study/chapter/handbooks/42347_1.2.pdf .
The common characteristics of all property crimes
Property crime can encompass aspects of burglary, theft, or motor vehicle theft and this also includes attempted as well as completed crimes. In accordance to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (2010), property crime comprises of the wrongdoings of motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, burglary, as well as, arson. In particular, the object of the theft-kind transgressions encompasses the taking of money or property, however with the lack of force or threat of force against the victims. Imperatively, the property crime classification takes into account arson for the reason that the offense consists of the destruction of property. Nonetheless, arson victims may be subjected to force. There are two crime measures in the United States with regard to crimes against property. One is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) by the Bureau of Justice Standards (BJS), which encompasses reported and unreported crime from the perspective of…...
Crime and criminological data can be gathered, interpreted, and represented in different ways. The use of “big data” in criminology has helped illuminate the efficacy of various prevention or intervention policies and programs, as well as helping to better allocate resources for criminal justice. In the United States, the main data sources include the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The UCR is subdivided into the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the Summary Reporting System (SRS), the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program, and the Hate Crime Statistics Program, each of which track specific types of crime data (FBI, 2018). Another major crime data system used in the United States is the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). A similar tool has been used on an international scale with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI)…...
Crime
On March 9th, 2013, two New York City police officers shot and killed a sixteen-year-old Kimani Gray, and claimed afterward that he had brandished a handgun at them after being told to show his hands (Goodman, 2013). More remarkable than the New York Police Department's killing of a young black male, however, was the outpouring of community grief and anger that followed the shooting. The following Monday, March 11th, saw what started as a nighttime vigil turn into a mob, parts of which ended up looting a ite Aid chain store and a local bodega, and by Wednesday night of that week, forty-six people had been arrested, a bricks had been thrown at both a police officer and a police van (Goodman, 2013). The explosion of disorder and discontentment took some in the media and policing community by surprise, but these evens could only be surprising to someone lacking a…...
mlaReferences
Alanezi, F. (2010). Juvenile delinquency in kuwait: Applying social disorganization theory.
Domes, 19(1), 68-81.
Borg, M.J., & Parker, K.F. (2001). Mobilizing law in urban areas: The social structure of homicide clearance rates. Law & Society Review, 35(2), 435-466.
Brisman, A. (2011). Advancing critical criminology through anthropology. Western Criminology
Crime eporting
What Do You Think?
Crime eporting: UC and NCVS
The Uniform Crime eport is a compilation of offensives collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from all police stations in the United States. Data collected is divided into two groups, Part I and Part II. Part I data includes violent and property crimes such as aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, robbery, arson, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Part II offenses include simple assault, curfew offenses and loitering, embezzlement, forgery and counterfeiting, disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, drug offenses, fraud, gambling, liquor offenses, offenses against the family, prostitution, public drunkenness, runaways, sex offenses, stolen property, vandalism, vagrancy, and weapons offenses ("Uniform Crime eports.," 2012).
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is conducted by telephone and collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police against persons age twelve and older from a nationally representative sample of U.S.…...
mlaReferences
"Crime rates are down." (2012, June 11). Crime in the United States 2011. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved April 21, 2013, from
S. Why or why not? Be specific in your response.
Not necessarily. The NIBS is not designed to provide national coverage (Hirschel, 2009; USDOJ, 2005). In practice, the NIBS does provide a reliable method for estimating the incidence of those types of crimes that are defined similarly in the NIBS and in other data collection methods and in reporting jurisdictions covered by the NIBS. Conversely, the NIBS is a less reliable method to the extent specific crimes are defined differently and to the extent the data collection omits jurisdictions not covered by the NIBS. Typical examples would include the underreporting of robberies and car thefts in the NIBS by virtue of the absence of large urban areas from NIBS reporting jurisdictions (Schmalleger, 2009).
5. Identify the obstacles to law enforcement agencies to full implementation of NIBS data collection protocol.
According to a comprehensive review conducted jointly by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)…...
mlaReferences
Hirschel, D. "Expanding Police Ability to Report Crime" The National Incident-Based
Reporting System." U.S. Department of Justice -- Office of Justice Programs -- National Institute of Justice Doc # NCJ 225459 (July 2009).
Safir, H. (2003). Security: An Inside Look at the Tactics of the NYPD. New York: St.
Martin's Press.
This gap suggests that men commit the majority of crimes. While the gap exists for all crimes, it is the largest for violent crime, such as homicide, rape, and robberies, and the smallest for property crime. Unlike self-report data, official statistics and victimization reports generally describe the gender-gap as most apparent, as these types of crime reporting suggest large gaps in the number of crimes committed by men and women. Official statistics and victimization reports probably show the largest gender gaps both because they deal more with violent crimes, whose perpetrators tend to be men and because self-report data allows researchers to choose samples that have equal amounts of men and women to study similarities and differences across gender. In other words, self-report data generally has a lower sex-gap because researchers can have a great deal influence in manipulating the data set.
Many crimes are not reported to the police…...
Crime and Corrections
Historically crime has been a concern for the public, and by extension policy makers because of the ways in which it can change and shape society. Criminal activity has the potential to influence social and economic environments within a society thus it is critical to identify measures that reduce outcomes of crime and support the reintegration of offenders into society. Consequently, crime and corrections have become big business in the United States (Smith). The money from the public purse that is expended to deal with crime is increasing in all of the states. More money is being moved from other areas of the budget to address the challenge of crime and criminal behavior. This increase in expenditure occurs in multiple areas of the criminal justice system and in spite of cost control measures. Additionally, there are fewer prisoners in within the system. This reduction in prisoners has not…...
mlaWorks Cited
Calvo-Armengoi Antoni and Zenou Yves Social Networks and Crime Decisions: The Role of Social Structure in Facilitating Delinquent Behavior International Economic Review
Vol. 45, No. 3 (2004):939-958.
Minton Todd D. Jail Inmates at Midyear 2010 - Statistical Tables U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2011) Web.
Crime vs. Sin
A criminal justice agency, specifically the police department relies very heavily on its organization to fulfill its duties to society, which is to protect from crime and to serve justice (Kenney & McNamara, 1999). The justice which is to be served depends on the severity of the offense or crime. Crime is quite a complex subject which can be divided into two different categories: natural crime and legal crime. Only legal crime can be processed/punished by the Criminal Justice System. These are acts which are the direct violation of the law which varies from state to state and country to country (Finnis, 2007). This is known as Mala prohibita, or something which is known as a legal crime which is punishable by the law (Vila & Morris, 1999). Natural crime is something which is not written; it is determined by the society you live in and most of…...
mlaReferences
Bronsteen, J., Buccafusco, C., & Masur, J.. (2010). Retribution and the Experience of Punishment. California Law Review, 98(5), 1463. Retrieved February 7, 2011, from Criminal Justice Periodicals.
Conlon, B., Harris, S., Nagel, J., Hillman, M., & Hanson, R. (2008). Education: Don't Leave Prison Without It. Corrections Today, 70 (1); 48-49, 51-52.
Davis, M.S. (2006). Crimes Mala in Se: An Equity-Based Definition: Criminal Justice Policy Review, 17 (3) 270-289. Sage Publications, 2006.
Finnis, J. (2007). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Natural Law Theories. Retrieved February 4, 2010, form web site: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-theories/
Crime Punishment Philosophy
Since the beginning of the 70s, the number of people inducted in jails and state facilities has increased to an astonishing level. In the present, more than two million individuals are serving jail time in either jails or state prisons. The growth of crime rate and imprisonment can be greatly attributed to the African-American and Hispanic communities residing in the U.S., who still categorize as the poor communities in the urban areas of the country. Even though, the increasing number of arrests and incarceration should in theory have reduced the crime rate, considering that the incarcerated offenders are no longer free to rob, mug or assault (Ezorsky, 1972).
Historical Context of Crime elated Policies and Punishment
However, no large scale crime reduction was recorded till the 1990's, that's when an actual decrease in crime was observed throughout the country. The most important point to be noted here is that even…...
mlaReferences
Ezorsky, G. (1972). Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage.
Garland, D. (1993). Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Hart, H.L.A. (1968). Punishment and Responsibility: Essays in the Philosophy of Law. New York: Oxford University Press.
Crime
In the beginning the main focus of the drug addiction theory was on the habituated pleasure reinforcement as well as the potential of the drug for the reward. Drug affects the dopamine receptors that are present in the brain and the individual is flooded with the desirable emotions by using dopamine, these desirable emotions are considered to be the reward for using the substance (Pinel, 2009). When the relationship of dopamine to the reward was recognized it was thought to be the major cause of addiction but when further researches were carried out, they showed that there were some other factors involved in the addiction as well.
When initially the psychotropic substance like cocaine or amphetamine is used, some changes take place in the brain and these changes then influence a cycle of addiction. Although different drugs have different probability of addiction but the individual characteristics like cognition, mental health, social…...
mlaReferences
Alberta Health Services -- Addiction and Mental Health. (2009). Challenging assumptions: The association between substance use and criminal behaviour. Edmonton, AB: Author.
Gottfredson, D.C., Kearley, B.W. And Bushway, S.D. (2008). Substance Use, Drug Treatment, and Crime: An Examination of Intra-Individual Variation in a Drug Court Population. Journal of Drug Issues 0022-0426/08/02 601-630.
GSS Codebook. (2010). General Social Survey 2010 Cross-Section and Panel Combined. Accessed from: http://www.thearda.com/Archive/Files/Codebooks/GSS10PAN_CB.asp
Idaho State Police. (2010). The Relationship Between Substance Abuse and Crime in Idaho: Estimating the Need for Treatment Alternatives. Idaho State Police, Statistical Analysis Center.
"Greater freedom has increased female participation in the public sphere," which would expose greater numbers of women to criminal behaviors and the opportunities to commit crimes (Steffensmeier & Allan1996, p. 469). Combined with social control theory, opportunity theory offers a plausible explanation for the gender gap in criminal behavior. Social control theory and opportunity theory share in common the basic assumption that deviance is a natural human instinct; that left to their own devices both men and women are predisposed to crime. Criminal behavior is always an option, according to social control theory and opportunity theory. The two sociological theories suggest that deterrents to committing crime, such as a lack of opportunity or strong social bonds, determine patterns of criminal behavior. Moreover, social control theory and opportunity theory emphasize sociological variables at the expense of psychological or personality-based ones.
The opportunity theories such as theories of routine activities present deviance…...
mlaReferences
Chapple, C.L., McQuillan, J.A., & Berdahl, T.A. (2004). Gender, social bonds, and delinquency: a comparison of boys' and girls' models. Social Science Research 34(2005): 357-383.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (2005). Crime in the United States: Ten-Year Arrest Trends. Table 33. Retrieved Aug 1, 2008 at
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