Compare and contrast the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey, focusing on: a. how the data are obtained and b. what type of information is available from each

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• The UCR:
Provides a variety of information relating to crimes that come to the attention of local and state law enforcement.
Data are obtained directly from law enforcement agencies.
Includes both reported crime and arrest data.
Reported crime data focus on eight offenses (four violent and four property), called Part 1 crimes. This section of the UCR gives us the crime rate, which is the percentage of crime known to police per 100,000 population. These data also include the city and region where the crime was committed as well as whether the crime was cleared. Arrest data, provided for both Part 1 and Part 2 crimes, give us the age, gender, and race of persons arrested.
• National Crime Victimization Survey:
Workers for the Bureau of the Census interview a large national sample of households.
The same households are interviewed every six months for a period of three years, and during each session, they are asked about crime they had experienced over the past six months. Victims are able to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders. Designed to measure the extent to which households and individuals are victims of rape and other sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, household burglary, motor vehicle theft, and theft. It also provides many details about the victims (such as age, race, sex, marital status, education, income, and whether the victim and the offender were related to each other) and about the crimes themselves.
It is a good source of information about crime incidents, independent of data collected by law enforcement agencies throughout the country.