Compare and contrast the UCR and NCVS. In your answer provide the purpose of each measure and validity issues with both measures

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Uniform Crime Report (UCR)
Compiled by the FBI, the UCR compiles information gathered by police departments on the number of criminal acts reported by citizens and the number of persons arrested and is the most widely used source of national crime and delinquency statistics.

Weaknesses:
• Data are derived entirely from police records, we can assume that a significant number of crimes are not accounted.
• Concerns that police departments make systematic errors in recording crime data or manipulate the data in order to give the public the impression that they are highly effective crime fighters
• Victim surveys show that less than half of all victims report the crime to police.
• The arrest data count only adolescents who have been caught, and these youths may be different from those who evade capture.
• Victimless crimes, such as drug and alcohol use, are significantly undercounted using this measure.
• Arrest decision criteria vary among police agencies.
National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a comprehensive, nationwide survey of victimization in the United States conducted annually by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

The greatest advantage of the NCVS over official data sources such as the UCR is that it can estimate the total amount of annual crimes, not just those that are reported to police. In addition, the NCVS helps us understand why crimes are not reported to police and whether the type and nature of the criminal event influences whether the police will ever know it occurred.

Weaknesses:
• Overreporting due to victims' misinterpretation of events. A lost wallet may be reported as stolen or an open door may be viewed as a burglary attempt.
• Underreporting due to the embarrassment of reporting crime to interviewers, fear of getting in trouble, or simply forgetting an incident
• Inability to record the personal criminal activity of those interviewed, such as drug use or gambling; murder is also not included, for obvious reasons.
• Sampling errors, which produce a group of respondents who do not represent the nation as a whole
• Inadequate question format that invalidates responses. Some groups, such as adolescents, may be particularly susceptible to error because of question format.