About Crime Statistics

By Kirk Brown, eHow Contributor

When crimes such as burglaries, robberies or homicides are reported, this information goes into statistical databases that are utilized for a number of purposes. Crime statistics are often used to measure the safety of a specific area such as a neighborhood, city, state or nation. Crime statistics also help law enforcement officials set planning and budgeting priorities. In addition, lawmakers rely on these figures in setting sentencing guidelines and devising programs to aid crime victims.

1. Function

   • In order to better understand and control crime, accurate counts of its occurrence are needed. Crime statistics represent the recorded incidence of criminal behavior. These figures are typically compiled as uniform data on offenses and offenders derived from records of criminal justice agencies. Official crime statistics are published annually or periodically in relatively standard formats. The federal government's Bureau of Justice Statistics is the primary source of crime statistics in the United States.

   History

   • Crime statistic collection emerged in the early 19th century to measure whether criminal activity in certain areas was increasing or decreasing. France began systematically collecting national judicial statistics on prosecutions and convictions in 1825. Beginning in 1857, Great Britain was the first nation to systematically collect police data. In 1920, American criminologist August Vollmer proposed a national bureau of criminal records. The International Association of Chiefs of Police acted on this suggestion in 1927 by developing a plan for a national system of police statistics that would include known offenses and arrests collected from local police departments in each state. The Federal Bureau of Investigation became the clearinghouse for these statistics and published the first of its now-annual Uniform Crime Reports in 1931.
     To meet a growing need for more flexible, in-depth data, the FBI has supplemented its Uniform Crime Reports in recent years with what's known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System. Another relatively new wrinkle is the National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects data on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization from a nationally representative sample of 76,000 households.

   Types

   • The most frequently referenced classifications of criminal statistics are violent crimes and property crimes. Violent crimes include homicide, rape, robbery and assault. Property crimes consist of burglaries, thefts and motor vehicle thefts.

   Time Frame

   • During 2007, an estimated 1.4 million violent crimes occurred in the United States, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program. This total represented a .7 percent decrease from the prior year. Aggravated assault was the most commonly reported violent crime, accounting for nearly 61 percent of the overall tally.
     Also in 2007, there were an estimated 9.8 million property crime offenses in the United States., which was 1.4 percent less than 2006. The 2007 property crime total resulted in an estimated $17.6 billion in losses.

   Prevention/Solution

   • One goal of gathering and publishing crime statistics is to determine where offenses are taking place so officials can take action to combat the problem. Crime statistics may prompt police to increase patrols in specific crime-prone areas. The same statistics also might lead government agencies to offer tax incentives to businesses in hopes of creating more commerce and providing additional jobs in these areas as a deterrent to crime.

Source: www.ehow.com

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