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measuring crime

UCR

NIBRS

NCVS

Provides greater specificity in reporting offenses. Not only does NIBRS look at all of the offenses within an incident, but it also looks at many more offenses than the traditional SRS does. NIBRS collects data for 52 offenses, plus 10 additional offenses for which only arrests are reported. SRS counts limited data for 10 offenses and 20 additional crimes for which only arrests are reported.

Collects more detailed information, including incident date and time, whether reported offenses were attempted or completed, expanded victim types, relationships of victims to offenders and offenses, demographic details, location data, property descriptions, drug types and quantities, the offender’s suspected use of drugs or alcohol, the involvement of gang activity, and whether a computer was used in the commission of the crime.

Helps give context to specific crime problems such as drug/narcotics and sex offenses, as well as issues like animal cruelty, identity theft, and computer hacking.

Provides greater analytic flexibility. Through NIBRS, data users can see many more facets of crime, as well as relationships and connections among these facets, than SRS provides.

The NIBRS is characterized by some disadvantages not shared with the traditional UCR system. First, the NIBRS has limited coverage. It requires a lengthy certification process, and scholars have suggested that a result of this is slow conversion to the system

The NCVS performs very well for the purposes designed; however, like all surveys, it has some limitations. First, the NCVS is designed to generate national estimates of victimization. Because of this, the data cannot be used to estimate crime at most other geographic levels, such as the state, county, or local level. In 1996, a region variable was added to the NCVS data, enabling crime estimates for the Northeast, South,West, andMidwest. On rare occasions, special releases of NCVS data have provided insight into crime in major cities. Limited age coverage is a second limitation of NCVS data. Because the data do not include victimizations of persons age 11 or younger, findings are not generalizable to this group. A third limitation is limited population coverage. Because one must live in a housing unit or group quarter to be eligible for the NCVS sample, persons who are crews of vessels, in institutions (e.g., prisons and nursing homes), members of the armed forces living in military barracks, or homeless are excluded from the NCVS sample and data. The fourth and final limitation is limited crime coverage

A major advantage of the NCVS is that it provides data on reported and unreported crimes. As stated previously, many crimes (and in some cases, e.g., rape, most crimes) are not reported to police. A second advantage of NCVS data is that they offer a wide range of criminal victimization variables, including information about crime victims (e.g., age, gender, race, Hispanic ethnic origin, marital status, income, and educational level), criminal offenders (e.g., gender, race, approximate age, drug/alcohol use, and victim–offender relationship), and the context of the crime (e.g., time and place of occurrence, use of weapons, nature of injury, and economic consequences). A third advantage of NCVS data is the high response rates. Like all surveys, response rates in the NCVS have declined a bit in recent years; nonetheless, they continue to be relatively high. For example, between 1993 and 1998, NCVS response rates varied between 93% and 96% of eligible households and between 89% and 92% of eligible individuals. A fourth advantage of NCVS data is that the survey has been ongoing for over three decades with a stable sample and methodology. This makes trend analysis possible, and it allows one to aggregate data in an effort to study relatively rare crimes, such as rape, or relatively small populations, such as American Indians.

Dark Figure Crime The UCR only reflects data that was reported to them. This data is made up of crimes reported to police agencies, and does not include unreported, or "dark figure," crime. Victimless Crime The UCR only reflects crimes that directly hurt a person or property. Crimes such as prostitution are considered victimless crimes and are not reported. Rape Rapes reported to the UCR only include females who've been rapped, not male or same-sex rape.Connected CrimesCrimes that involve multiple-offense crimes are only recorded as the most severe type. For example, a murder would outweigh arson and thus a murder/arson would only be reported as a murder.Agency ParticipationIt is not mandatory for an agency to report anything to the UCR. All reports to the UCR are strictly voluntary.

Each program has unique strengths. The UCR provides a measure of the number of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The UCR SRS's Supplementary Homicide Reports provide reliable, timely data on the extent and nature of homicides in the nation