Exploring Why a Large Number of Crimes Aren't Reported
For a large number of crimes that are committed, the biggest
percentage of them is not reported to the police or authorities. This
could be due to several reasons.
Fear
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Victims might be afraid of the offenders and the consequence if they
report the crime/s. An example is if a woman was being beaten up by
her husband. She might not report this to the police, as she will be
too scared of what he might do to her afterwards.
In the case of a burglary, the person who reports it might worry that
a repeat of the incident will occur. Similarly, in the case of
blackmail, the victim might fear the consequence of reporting to the
police to be the revelation of whatever they were being blackmailed
for. Such cases may force people to keep quiet instead, due to fear.
Shame/Embarrassment
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As a result of many crimes, victims might find themselves to be
ashamed of themselves or embarrassed. This could include crimes of
sexual abuse or rape. The victim might be embarrassed to go and talk
to someone about it or they might think that they deserved it. This
could lead them to saying quiet and suffering in silence. Also they
may think that the police won't take them seriously or if the case
goes to court, they might want to avoid humiliation.
It might also be a private matter and people might not want to involve
the police, such as sexual abuse within the family. In incidents such
as this, the victim and the family won't want to publicise the matter
so that everyone is aware of it.
Waste of Time.
In crimes such as vandalism, people might not necessarily know who did
it. This is another factor of what might stop people from reporting
crimes to the police, thinking that there is not much the police can
do about it. Those who consider reporting it might think it will only
be a waste of their own time as well as the police's
Uniform Crime Report data has many pros, but also many cons that come with it. There are many ways of which the Uniform Crime Report can be superior to, but also inferior to victimization and self-report data studies. According to Balkan (2015), the Uniform Crime Report shows crimes reported to police departments across the nation and is a report produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There are two offense categories in the report: part one and part two offenses. Part one offenses would be your more serious crimes such as homicides, rape, aggravated assaults, and so on. Part two offenses would be more of the property crimes such as fraud, simple assaults, and drug abuse. The Uniform Crime Report does an excellent job presenting the numbers in terms of the part one offenses, however, there are some cons that come with the Uniform Crime
In contemporary society, there are various methodologies for collecting data (Linden 2012). That being said, there are pros and cons to each that are based on reliability and validity; where reliability is consistency of the statistics, and validity is a measure of how accurate the results are in accordance with the research topic. This ties in with how this paper will explore the Uniform Crime Report system (UCR); a measure of crime that is used the most. UCR statistics reflect the crimes that are reported to the police throughout the country. victimization and self-report surveys, which are statistics that reinforce the findings revealed by the UCR, will also be explored. Lastly, the issue of media coverage of crime news will be examined.
The basic rights of citizens in cities are challenged in order for officials to protect and maintain safety of the city. Law enforcement reform is an ongoing, popular, controversial topic in modern day politics and communities. Societal changes result from outcomes of solving and preventing crimes. Malcolm Gladwell introduces us to the Broken Windows Theory in the story “The Power of Context” as a resolution to prevent major crimes from being committed in urban cities. The Broken Windows Theory can be corroborated to different situations and scenarios. In the Myth of the Ant Queen, Beth Loffreda highlights how the epidemic of Matt Shepard’s murder began with the details of the crime, rather than the murder itself. This caused the details to
As it is in the case of the majority of violent crimes, (Davies and Rogers, 2006) perpetrators of violent crimes, and especially sexual assault related crimes exert additional force by threatening the victim or their families. Male victims also must contend with an additional sense of shame and embarrassment in being identified with a crime that has been typically portrayed in the media as happening to women. This places men at a disadvantage in the reporting process, because their safety and the safety of others is compromised further if the crime is not reported. (Messerschmitt, 2009)
We hear a lot about the crime rates going up and down from the media and they tend to expand on specific types of criminal behavior that might be of interest to the public. When politicians are running for office we are told that the crime rates are down due to the tough crime policies that they have been implemented. Citizens seek crime rates for assistance in determining if the area they reside in is safe. Some people wish to get a general idea of the crime rates for a specific neighborhood where they are thinking of purchasing a house. But what is never explained is where do the crime statistics come from and were there any factors that could have had an effect on their reliability. Crime statistics, which are created from what is reported to the police, are often unreliable. There are several influential factors that can make crime statistics both increase and decrease at any time. Most police departments, but not all, use Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) to submit their statistics to the state. Attempting to compare two police agency's crime statistics is almost impossible because not all police agencies use the UCR program for classifying crimes. UCR is a national data reporting policy that is maintained by the state and regulated by the FBI. This policy requires police agencies to report their monthly statistics by following a hierarchy scale for classifying the criminal offenses. A hierarchy scale is a list of crimes in a specific order of importance used to pick out the highest crime when there are multiple crimes committed in one incident. An example: a citizen contacts the police and makes a report of a burglary, a rape and a larceny all occurring in one incident. A...
Unfortunately, rape is a traumatizing event to happen to an individual that can have lifelong effects on the individual physical, mental, and emotional state. Many victims elect not to report the crime to law enforcement in order to put the past behind them. Nonetheless, there are numerous explanations on why this crime is not heavily conveyed to the police. First, there is a sense of renunciation for the victim; particularly if the rape was brought on by someone they know (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p. 375). In the event that this occurs, the victim could try to evade the topic of what has transpired to them to de-escalate their sense of embarrassment and shame. Second, the victim’s fear of the legal system could avert them from also reporting the crime (Burgess, Regehr, & Roberts, 2013, p.
This would be true by way of the fact that people are not reporting these crimes
Crime has always been around in the community. The way crime has been measured and defined has changed over the centuries. The FBI collects data from all the police agencies all over the United States, and puts all the data in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) which has all the crimes committed for decades; however, a lot of crimes are not always reported, so the Uniform Crime Report may not be as accurate as possible. The Measurement of crime will never be the same as earlier in life because our government, and police agencies has improved over the centuries which will make the measurement of crime not as harsh as it was back in the early 1900’s. The measurement of crime will continue to evolve as our government does.
A Comparison of Crime Rates in Different Areas I have gathered a great deal of information, conducted surveys and questionnaires, completed statistical tests and created illustrated maps to help me establish whether crime is higher in an inner city area like Spinney Hill when compared to a suburban area like Knighton. At the very start of this project I created an aim. This aim provided a starting point to this project and thus a goal to achieve. In my opinion I believe that I have achieved this aim as I have collected a substantial amount of evidence to aid me in approving or disproving my main hypothesis.
Throughout society there are both individuals and groups of people with a wide range of perceptions about crime and justice. These perceptions are influenced by the media and what the media presents. Media presents crime stories in ways that selectively distort and manipulate public perception, thus creating a false picture of crime. Therefore the media provides us with perceptions and social constructions about our world. Firstly I will be discussing the role of the media in constructing knowledge about crime. I will begin by explaining why the media is important, and go further to explain that media representations construct knowledge of crime and since knowledge about crime is constructed it does not necessarily capture reality in fact crime stories are often sensationalised. I will then link this to my central argument that the media shapes people’s perceptions of crime and how this is important as it can lead to changes in the law. I will then explain what it is that the public or society needs to be aware of when reading and watching media reports about crime. We need to be aware of bias and moral panics that are created by the media and how the media shapes or influence’s public perception through this, it is important for us to be aware of misleading or false crime stories so that we are not swayed by the media in believing what they want us to believe.
According to O’Brien (1985) The Uniform Crime Reporting system (UCR) was developed in the 1920’s in order to create a system that would report crime uniformly across the many different jurisdictions in the United States. For the purpose of this paper I am going to discuss the debate between the relationships of the overrepresentation of minorities in crime statics and if the results are biased based on race. There is a debate regarding the accuracy of the statistics provided by official data resources such as UCR and NIBRS in regards to racial disparities. The fact that racial or social class bias does have an impact on what crimes are reported and the neighborhoods that have the highest police presence does lead inevitably to an overrepresentation of minorities when viewing crime statics as quantitative data points. Official data leads you to believe that a criminal in the United States can be described as being urban, lower class, African American male between the ages of 13 and 20 years old (Feldmeyer, Lecture 1/15/2014). Why is this information important? I believe it leads to bias in the way neighborhoods are policed, the way police stop and search vehicles, the people that police view as being “suspects” and are subjugated to stop and frisk. I also believe that this stereotype plays a part into the sort of people that are reported for being or acting “suspicious”. This can impact that perceived description of the offender when a victim is filling out a police report. All factors help lead to establish some sort of bias that inevitably can lead to disproportionate representation of minorities in UCR statistical data.
According to rain.org 44 percent of rape victims are under the age of 18 and 80 percent are under the age of 30 years old. Every 2 minutes an American is a victim of rape and about 240,000 of them are reported each year. Only 60 percent of assaults are not reported to the police renders that 97 percent of the perpetrators never spend a day in jail. The less the people report the crime the less they are likely to catch the perpetrator. Sadly 23 of the victims know the person whole is assaulting them. Almost 40 percent of the rapist know their victim. This is a very uns...
There is more than one way to collect statistics on crime. Morgan and Clare (2012) highlight a range of other sources for collecting crime data, one of which includes crime victim surveys. A survey is given to a sample population asking questions in relation to their recent experiences with crime in the last year (Morgan & Clare, 2012, p. 33). As highlighted by both Warren and Clare (2012) and Bishop (2004), crime victim surveys allow the collection of information straight from the victims, generating some variance in information, than that collected by the police. They are also able to reach into the previously mentioned dark figure of crime, by being able to include crimes that may not have been reported to the police. Bishop (2004, p. 69) suggests that because of this “these surveys tend to point to greater rates of crime and victimisation than are indicated by police data.” For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016) state, “in the 12 months prior to interview in 2014-15, 97,800 persons in Victoria (2.1%) experienced physical assault. Of these, 51,300 (52%) reported the most recent incident to police.” Showing that 46,500 (48%) of people experienced physical assault and didn’t report it. So not all statistics are completely inaccurate and unrepresentative of
According to Rachel Boba, “Crime analysis is a law enforcement function that involves systematic analysis for identifying and analyzing patterns and trends in crime and disorder” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime analysis).The information on these patterns can assist law enforcement agencies in the deployment of resources in a more effective manner; it can also help detectives to identify and catch suspects. Crime analysis also plays a role in improvising solutions to crime problems, and developing crime prevention strategies. There are various types of technology that is used in crime analysis. Crime analysis relies heavily on computer technology, and over the past fifteen years there has been a significant improvement in computer hardware and software that has led to tremendous developments in this field. One form of hardware that is used by Crime analysts to complete most of their work is Desktop personal computers, laptop computers are also used by crime analysts for fieldwork and presentations. Other forms of hardware that are used include color laser printers that can produce high-quality documents quickly, plotters which are printers that can produce large poster size color maps, scanners, and digital cameras, these specific types of hardware is mostly used by police departments when analyzing crime.
However, the numbers of unreported crimes has been declining because authorities have to ensured that they will aim to eradicate the fears and limitations that affect the individuals who witness a crime being committed, but fear reporting them. The members of communities and those others who witness crimes will therefore get encouraged reporting them. The surveys that have been established by numerous government and non governing groups reflect a decrease in the number of dark crimes in the recent years..