Similarities and Differences Between UCR NIBRS and NCVS Programs

UCR, NIBRS and NCVS Programs Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) are programs or systems that have been developed to collect and report on national crime rates in the United States. UCR is a cooperative initiative for law enforcement agencies across the nation to provide report on national crime statistics.

On the other hand, NIBRS is a program designed to provide detailed information regarding crime incidents to the general public, researchers, students of crime, law enforcement agencies and personnel, and governmental planners. NCVS is a program by the Bureau of Justice Statistics which provides crime reports based on surveys by the United States Census Bureau. These programs have several similarities and differences as they focus on gathering and providing reports on United States' crime rates.

The major similarity between these programs is their focus on collecting and reporting crime reports or statistics. These three programs generate important information regarding various aspects of crime problem across the United States ("The Nation's Two Crime Measures," 2014). While these programs or systems utilize varying methods to conduct their work, they produce complementary information that helps in detailed understanding of U.S. crime problem. Actually, these programs complement each other in collecting and reporting crime data comprehensively in a manner that cannot be accomplished by one program alone.

The first difference between these programs is on the methods utilized to collect and report crime-related information. The Uniform Crime Reports collect crime data from reports by law enforcement agencies and records of individual crime incidents conveyed directly or through centralized agencies to the Federal Bureau Investigation. These monthly reports are usually subjected to thorough evaluation to ensure they are reasonable, accurate, and free from errors. Moreover, the program compares the monthly reports to past submissions in order to detect strange fluctuations in crime reports.

In contrast, the National Crime Victimization Survey focuses on crime data on the nature and frequency of rape and other sexual offenses, individual larceny, assault, motor vehicle theft, robbery, and household burglary. This data is collected through interviews conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics on a nationwide representative sample of nearly 170,000 individuals aged 12 or more years across American households. Unlike the other programs, NCVS gathers reported and unreported offenses as well as relevant reasons on individual and household crimes that took place 6 months before BJS interviews.

Since this program also obtains specific information regarding every crime incident, NCVS is a more comprehensive program than the others. On the other hand, NIBRS was designed to respond to the need for an in-depth crime reporting program that meets law enforcement needs better than the UCR program. This program gathers crime data like type of crime, offender, victim, arrestee, and involved property (James & Council, 2008). This information is gathered for 46 various Group A crimes and 11 varying Group B crimes.

Secondly, these crime reporting programs in the United States differ on definitions of some offenses. For instance, UCR and NCVS differ in their definition of burglary since UCR considers it to be illegal entry or attempted entry of a property to commit theft or felony whereas NCVS considers it as.