What Is the Best Way to Record Crime? Essay

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NIBRS

National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a database of crime statistics compiled and maintained by the National Institute of Justice. It records and analyzes specific categories of crimes reported to law enforcement agencies within the United States. "For each crime incident coming to the attention of law enforcement, a variety of data are collected about the incident. These data include the nature and types of specific offenses in the incident, characteristics of the victim(s) and offender(s), types and value of property stolen and recovered, and characteristics of persons arrested in connection with a crime incident" ("About," 2015). The focus of the NIBRS are so-called 'index crimes.' These are significant crimes involving serious damage to life and property. "Index crimes include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, and arson. These eight crimes serve as a common indicator of the nation's crime experience because of their seriousness and frequency of occurrence" ("Michigan Incident Crime Reporting," 2014).

The great advantage to maintaining this type of incident-based database of crime is that it can be validated that the specific crimes were committed by outside, objective authorities in the form of the police. The emphasis on serious crimes, versus petty offenses, is designed to ensure that the information is useful and maximizes the utility of the scarce resources which exist to keep careful track of data related to crime.

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The data is also relatively comprehensive, allowing for more effective comparison and analysis.

According to Doerner & Lab (2014), the great advantage of a reporting system as deployed by the NIBRS is its accuracy: the memory of victims and the personal impressions they have of crimes that have been committed can be extremely subjective and faulty. The NIBRS demands rigor in reporting and by using uniform standards and relying upon law enforcement, the number and veracity of incidents can be held to an objective standard (Doerner & Lab 2014: 28-29). Quite often there is a discrepancy between perceptions of what types and how many crimes are committed.

Of course, this great advantage of the NIBRS is also its disadvantage: many crimes may go underreported, particularly crimes such as rape, in which the victim is profoundly ashamed or worried about the difficulty of prosecuting the offense and so does not report the crime to authorities. Many crimes remain concealed or overlooked. Crimes from high-risk areas may….....

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