MCS5300-XA Week 1 Essay
Lorenzo Reid
Virginia College
MCS5300-XA Week 1 Essay
Both the Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey were designed to gather and report on the United States national crime rates. Since 1929 the Uniform Crime Reporting has been a major source of data on crime. The Uniform Crime Reports data have been distributed each year. Since 1958, these reports have been available in the publication criminal activity in the United States. In 1967 there was the creation of the National Crime Information Center by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This was in retort to a disturbing increase in crime within the United States. By 1971, all of the United States and the District of Columbia were part of this system. The data from these reports are collected from the police and surveys given to the public. A law enforcement officer can study these reports and surveys to understand what crimes are being committed, their frequency, and where to allocate their resources to act in a proactive way. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009)
The use of Uniform Crime Reports is to provide law enforcement with data for use in budget formulation, planning, resource allocation, assessment of police operations, to help address the crime problem at various levels. Over time criminal justice researchers study the nature, cause, and movement of crime. Uniform Crime Reports provide crime statistics to the news media to inform the public about the state of crime and situation. This system is utilized for recording crimes and making policy decisions. Since the year 1930 the Uniform Crime Reports have tracked data on what are considered to be major crimes. The Uniform Crime Uniform crime report track occurrences of eight specific crimes, the locations and frequencies of each, then the information that is provided is collected by the Federal Bureau Investigation . The UCR collects data on twenty nine different crimes, however,...