Sources of Crime Statistics By Mangum Force, Special to the Times
March 4, 2016
How much crime is there? An examination of the UCR and its relationship to sources of data on crime and criminals is useful. An examination of the Uniform Crime Report and its relationship to other sources such as the National Incident- Based Reporting System (NIBRS) are extremely useful for understanding crime and criminals. It is unclear whether an accurate estimate of the amount of crime committed is possible, for several reasons. For one, not all crimes that are committed are discovered. In addition, some crimes may be known only to the perpetrators, in which case the victim is unaware of loss. Perhaps there is no identifiable victim, as in the case of a gambling violation. The further a source of statistics is from the “crimes committed” category, the less useful it is as a measure of the extent of crime. Not all crimes that are discovered are reported to the police; similarly, not all reported crimes are recorded by police. https://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781483306919/cfi /6!/4/2/20/4@0:65.1