Uniform Crime Reports Versus National Crime Victimization Surveys

Erika Gustaveson

CRM 105

February 6, 2014

Essay 1

Uniform Crime Reports Versus National Crime Victimization Surveys

It is very important for US cities and their police departments to be aware of crime rates and trends within their areas. One of the major problems facing our criminal justice system is the inability to accurately define the amount of crime taking place. Just because a crime goes unreported does not mean that it never occurred. The dark figure of crime is “a metaphor that emphasizes the dangerous dimension of crimes that are never reported to the police.” Without a police report, it can be very difficult to keep track of many crimes that are committed.

“Until 1972, the only crimes counted by government were those that were known to the police and that made their way into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).” The Uniform Crime Reports provide statistics on voluntarily reported crimes. The information is gathered from different local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and is published every year. Today, the Census Bureau has implemented the National Crime Victimization Surveys (NCVS) as a tool used to supplement the Uniform Crime Reports and bring to light, the dark figure of crime. The Bureau of Justice Statistics takes a sample of around 74,000 people to be interviewed twice a year for three years. The purpose of these interviews is to determine how many people have been victimized and to gain insight into specific details of the crimes being committed. Data collected from the National Crime Victimization Surveys help us to get a better idea of the amount of crimes that have occurred and any demographic patterns that may be present.

Although it may seem like we have a vast knowledge of crime rates and trends, the data can sometimes be inconclusive due to the many differences of the Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Surveys and how they measure crime. For example, the Uniform...