The UCR, NIBRS And The NCVS

The UCR, NIBRS, and the NCVS

In the criminal justice field, there has been created a number of methods for measuring crime, and with those different methods come different forms of data. In the United States, there are three methods that are available to be utilized: the Uniform Crime Report (Referred to as the UCR), the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

Our government, the United States of America, is knowingly responsible for providing its citizens with factual crime data that can be used to inform them of the effectiveness of current criminological practices. The data provided is collected and analyzed by a number of government agencies, but it is not limited to this, as we often send data to independent contractors to analyze for us.

The Uniform Crime Report is the first method that is usually called upon, as it measures official crime data as submitted by law enforcement agencies. The UCR collects detailed information on the terminology and definitions of criminal offenses, which considers violent crimes to include rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault. Although it is not limited to just official government programs, as colleges and universities in the United States often volunteer information and statistics towards the UCR in an attempt to give further detail and more accurate accounts of criminal activity.

As the is a very formal method for obtaining data, it is often a very cold data collection initiative in comparison to the next method used to collect data on crime, the NIBRS. An extension of the UCR, the National Incident-Based Reporting System is a system to collect and study data created from the victim and offender of a criminal act. This d...

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... to prevent crime, which is considered to be a disease that the world has contracted. Secondary Prevention’s focus on identification and analysis can be easily compared to that of how crime statistics and research is being used to understand and identify criminal activity in our society or how the court system strives to find an adequate punishment or reform for criminals based on research and understanding. Thirdly, Tertiary Prevention is compared to the corrections system, which is there to “treat the illness” of crime through the courts decisions on how to punish or whether to reform an individual.

All these types of prevention, whether they are viewed from the perspective of a doctor, or a criminologist, are helpful in how our society approaches crime in an age where as crime becomes deeper and more complicated, so must our methods of understanding be expanded.