CRIME STATISTICS


Finally, we have the official crime statistics of the United States, the Uniform Crime Reports as published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Unfortunately, many researchers consider this information to be more unreliable than Victimization Studies and Self Report Studies. The FBI gathers their information from police stations around the country. However, one problem is that not all police stations participate. A larger problem is one of definitions. Each state may define a crime a little differently, so what might be considered a crime in one state, may not be considered so in another. When the FBI surveys police stations, they ask – how many cases of this crime did you have? So the definitional differences influence the numbers. Finally, these statistics only include official cases or crimes reported to the police. Many crimes in the United States go unreported; this is especially true of property crimes such as theft. Many people feel that it will be more traumatic for them to report the crime and that the police will not be able to help them, so they do not bother.

What is interesting is that Victimization Studies and Self Report Studies, when compared for the same areas over the same periods of time, are usually very close. This suggests to us that there is more accuracy to them then we might first think. Also, when Victimization Studies and Self Report Studies are compared with official UCR statistics the patterns are the same. However, Victimization Studies and Self Report Studies always suggest that there is more crime than the official statistics indicate.

The one area that official statistics are most accurate is for the crime of homicide. While Victimization Studies do ask if a person has known someone who was a victim of homicide, many people do not realize they have. Most people do not want to admit to this crime in Self Report Studies. The official statistics remain accurate because this is one crime that is often detected and for which there is no definitional conflict or confusion.

For finding statistics on line try:

FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports http://www.fbi.gov/publish/crime.htm

Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime and Victims http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/

The copyright of the article CRIME STATISTICS in Crime and Deviance is owned by Su Epstein. Permission to republish CRIME STATISTICS in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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