Homework Question on Campus Crime
- Please use the following book: Conklin, J.E. (2013). Criminology(11th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
- Discuss which measure of crime is more accurate:The Uniform Crime Reports :The National Crime Victimization Survey
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of each measure?
- Discuss how you would measure crime on campus.
- Provide strategies for obtaining an accurate picture of crime on campus.
Homework Answer on Campus Crime
There are different ways that are in place to measure the rate of crime within a state. This paper will focus on two of these measures namely: The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). It will discuss which of the two is more accurate and the pros and cons of each. Further, it will discuss how I would measure crime on campus as well as provide strategies for obtaining an accurate picture of crime on campus.
UCR involves law enforcing agents that are primarily entrusted by the FBI to report the crimes they have handled monthly that the general public reported to them, or through self-discovery of the police officers. Reports on already cleared crimes are in the list of the submission as well. Due to the corresponding records, accuracy is a surety. It gives a clear picture of the trending crimes as the free participation of law enforcement agencies ensures a wider coverage of the population.
Yearly release of the crime report provides excellent accessibility. However, UCR ignores the unreported crime. There is no lesser crime and by concentrating on crimes that are directly harmful to people and property, other crimes like prostitution are ignored. NCVS involves phone interviews with defined populations. It is richer since it features both reported and unreported cases as well as non-victims. Anyone can answer a phone call, even when they are not household members. NCVS gives more viable results due to its wider sampling platform (Conklin, 2013).