Uniform Crime Report and Its Accuracy, Specifically

¶ … Uniform Crime Report and its accuracy, specifically how classification errors can impact the accuracy of that report. The Uniform Crime Report is considered the gold standard in U.S. crime statistics because it is the national clearinghouse for statistics. It permits comparisons of crime rates by state because they are classified in the same way at a national level. However, there are some problems with the Uniform Crime Report's statistical methodology. For example, one may be able to compare sexual assault statistics across states, but the reporting of that statistics will still depend on individual state classification of a crime. Not all problems with the use of the Uniform Crime Report are inherent in the process. For example, the article studied focuses on classification errors and how that can impact the report's accuracy. This is not an inherent problem, as the Uniform Crime Report does define the different crimes in such a way that someone with knowledge of the underlying criminal event could properly classify a crime. The problem is that the people doing the classification frequently only have access to partial information from the crime, such as conviction information, which may not reveal the crime that was actually committed.

Explain how this concept, theory, or model is related to the assigned readings (200 words)

The concept of the Uniform Crime Report and its accuracy is related to all of the assigned readings and to all of criminal justice because so much of what is known about crime in the United States depends upon statistics pulled from the Uniform Crime Report. If those statistics are wrong, then what is known about crime in the United States is wrong, which is a critical issue. For example, sexual assault of males was not included as a sexual assault under the Uniform Crime Report's guidelines until relatively recently. This would give someo the impression that males are never victims of sexual assault, which is incorrect. In fact, while the risk that a man will become a sexual assault victim is lower than the a female's risk, the risk is higher than for many other types of violent crime. As a result, understanding potential problem areas for the Uniform Crime Report is critical to an understanding of crime in America. The above example is a definitional issue, but it occurs to me that regional difference in what behavior is considered criminal and prosecuted vigorously and what behavior is considered less offensive could really impact how crimes were labeled and reported in the Uniform Crime Report.

Citation for the newly identified article (APA style)

Nolan, J., Haas, S., Napier, J. (2011). Estimating the Impact of Classification Error on the "Statistical Accuracy" of Uniform Crime

Reports. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 27(4), 497-519.

Explain what you learned from the new article and how it is related to the assigned readings (300 words)

From class readings and class discussions, I was aware of some of the methodological issues in the Uniform Crime Report. I understood that differences in how states classify different crimes could result in the same exact factual circumstances supporting different criminal classifications, depending upon jurisdiction. This problem made me wary of overreliance on the Uniform Crime Report as a source of information about crime in the United States. However, prior to encountering this article I had not considered the implications of unintentional errors and how they could impact the reliability of the Uniform Crime Report. This article focused on those unintentional errors and explored how they impact the Uniform Crime Report's reliability.