Summarize these main points pertaining to crime. *The magnitude of the crime problem can be evaluated using both official and victimization measures of crime. The use of official crime statistics, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports, provides a view of crime from the standpoint of what the formal criminal justice system must handle. Many critics argue that this provides an inaccurate and incomplete analysis of the true levels of crime in society. These individuals point to the results of victimization surveys as a basis for their argument. While each presents a different absolute level of crime, both tend to reveal similar patterns in criminal activity over time. *The FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is the most widely used and cited official measures of crime in the United States. The UCR represents the number of criminal offenses known to the police. The reported crime rate reflects only those offenses known as Part I crimes (violent crimes: murder, rape, robbery, and assault; property crimes: burglary, larceny, auto theft, and arson). A host of other offenses (i.e., fraud, kidnapping, and drug offenses), known as Part II crimes, are not included in the computations and reported crime rates. The resulting crime rates, therefore, reflect only a portion of the offenses with which the formal criminal justice system comes into contact. *Victimization surveys are surveys of the population carried out to measure the level of criminal victimization in society. This form of crime measurement was prompted by the 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, which commissioned surveys to assess the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the UCR. The results of those early surveys suggested that the police data reflected only half of the crime in society (see, for example, Ennis, 1967). Based on those early investigations, victim surveys became a common method for measuring crime by the late 1970s, with the federal go
Summarize these main points pertaining to crime. *The magnitude of the
Summarize these main points pertaining to crime. *The magnitude of the crime problem can be evaluated using both official and victimization measures of crime. The use of official crime statistics, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports, provides a view of crime from the standpoint of what the formal criminal justice system must handle. Many critics argue that this provides an inaccurate and incomplete analysis of the true levels of crime in society. These individuals point to the results of victimization surveys as a basis for their argument. While each presents a different absolute level of crime, both tend to reveal similar patterns in criminal activity over time. *The FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) is the most widely used and cited official measures of crime in the United States. The UCR represents the number of criminal offenses known to the police. The reported crime rate reflects only those offenses known as Part I crimes (violent crimes: murder, rape, robbery, and assault; property crimes: burglary, larceny, auto theft, and arson). A host of other offenses (i.e., fraud, kidnapping, and drug offenses), known as Part II crimes, are not included in the computations and reported crime rates. The resulting crime rates, therefore, reflect only a portion of the offenses with which the formal criminal justice system comes into contact. *Victimization surveys are surveys of the population carried out to measure the level of criminal victimization in society. This form of crime measurement was prompted by the 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, which commissioned surveys to assess the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the UCR. The results of those early surveys suggested that the police data reflected only half of the crime in society (see, for example, Ennis, 1967). Based on those early investigations, victim surveys became a common method for measuring crime by the late 1970s, with the federal go
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