Cjs/200

Crime Reporting and Rates Response

Beatrice Smith

CJS/200

October 31, 2012

Michael Catanzarita

Crime Reporting and Rates Response

The main purpose of the major crime reporting programs is for keeping track of the crimes being committed. The programs report what types of crimes being committed, when they are being committed, and where they are being committed. The police or any law enforcement agency uses these programs to help maybe reduce the crime rates or to see if the crime rate is increasing or decreasing.

In order for the reporting programs to be successful they must try and be as accurate as possible. The crimes must be reported for an accurate count of crimes being committed. Sometimes because the crime is not reported may make it seem that a certain area has a lower crime rate where in fact it may have the higher crime rate. This may happen for many reasons; the victim may not want to report the crime because of fear or embarrassment. This happens a lot when it is a woman that has been raped and is afraid to report it if she has been threatened or is ashamed of what happened.

Clearance rates are a measure of crimes that have been solved by the police. Arrests rates are the measure of how many people have been arrested by the police for crimes committed. The crime rate is used to determine the amounts of crimes being committed. Some believe that the more arrest the more crimes being solved. There is no real way to measure crime other than going by how many people are arrested and then there are so many still free that have not been arrested or if all the crimes have been reported. To combat crime all we can do is make sure the people get arrested for committing crimes and hope that all the crimes get reported.