Uniform Crime Reports

(noun)

The UCR Program is a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of over 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, federal, and other law enforcement agencies who voluntarily report data on crimes brought to their attention.

Related Terms

Examples of Uniform Crime Reports in the following topics:

  • Crime Statistics

    • Public surveys are sometimes conducted to estimate the amount of crime not reported to police.
    • The U.S. has two major data collection programs: the Uniform Crime Reports from the FBI and the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
    • One way in which victimization surveys are useful is that they show some types of crime are well reported to law enforcement officials, while other types of crime are under reported.
    • These surveys also give insights as to why crime is reported, or not.
    • The U.S. has two major data collection programs: the Uniform Crime Reports from the FBI, and the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

  • Property Crime

    • The peak age for property crime arrests in the United States is 16, compared to 18 for violent crime arrests.
    • Attempted forcible entry into a property is also classified as burglary in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) definition.
    • In 2005, only 18% of reported cases of larceny and theft were cleared in the United States .
    • The FBI includes attempted motor vehicle thefts in its Uniform Crime Report (UCR) definition.
    • Only 13% of reported motor vehicle theft cases were cleared in the United States in 2005.

  • Violent Crime

    • A violent crime is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim.
    • A violent crime is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim.
    • Violent crimes include crimes committed with and without weapons.
    • With the exception of rape (which accounts for 6% of all reported violent crimes), males are the primary victims of all forms of violent crime.
    • By contrast, there is a widespread belief that violent crime is on the rise, due largely to a mass media, which disproportionately reports violent crime.

  • Types of Crime

    • Sex crimes are forms of human sexual behavior that are crimes.
    • Some sex crimes are crimes of violence that involve sex.
    • Sex crimes are forms of human sexual behavior that are crimes.
    • Some sex crimes are crimes of violence that involve sex.
    • In 2005, only 18% of reported cases of larceny/theft were cleared in the United States.

  • Class, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System

    • For instance someone committing a white collar crime is most likely from the higher classes and is less likely to be reported or punish.
    • White-collar crime is a financially motivated, nonviolent crime committed for illegal monetary gain.
    • Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime initially was defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation. " A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes.
    • That white-collar crimes are less likely to be tracked, less likely to be reported, less likely to be prosecuted, and are more likely to be committed by people in higher social classes suggests that the way crimes are punished in the United States tends to favor the affluent while punitively punishing the less affluent.
    • Explain why white-collar crime is less likely to be tracked in the U.S.

  • Crime Statistics

    • Crime statistics are usually data collected by governments for the reporting of incidents of criminal activity.
    • The statistics included in this section were chosen to provide a sampling of how crime statistics can be useful beyond simply reporting incidents of criminal behavior.
    • Government statistics on crime only show data for crimes that have been reported to authorities.
    • Thus, while crimes are under-reported, they do tend to receive disproportionate attention in the media, leading people to think that crime is more prevalent than it actually is.
    • Another way crime statistics can go beyond simply reporting incidents of criminal activity is in highlighting differences between different groups.

  • Theories of Deviance

    • A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes.
    • Examples of white-collar crimes include:
    • As of 2009, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics do not provide clear statistics on white-collar crime, like they do with other types of crime.
    • That such crimes are not tracked more clearly suggests that there is less of an emphasis placed on prosecuting white collar crime than there is on prosecuting other types of crime (property and violent crime) in the U.S.
    • That white-collar crimes are less likely to be tracked, less likely to be reported, less likely to be prosecuted, and are more likely to be committed by people in higher social classes suggests that the way crimes are punished in the U.S. tends to favor the affluent while punitively punishing the less affluent.

  • Crime and Criminal Justice

    • Criminal justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at deterring and mitigating crime.
    • A legal trial is where suspected crimes are adjudicated, meaning that suspects and witnesses are questioned so that guilt or innocence and sentencing can be determined.
    • Criminal justice is the system of practices and government institutions directed at upholding social control, deterring, and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts.
    • In the United States, criminal justice policy has been guided by the 1967 President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, which issued a ground-breaking report titled "The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society. " This report made more than 200 recommendations as part of a comprehensive approach toward crime prevention.
    • Some of those recommendations found their way into the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.

  • Police

    • As the name "uniformed" suggests, preventive police wear uniforms and perform functions that require an immediate recognition of an officer's legal authority, such as traffic control, stopping and detaining motorists, and more active crime response and prevention.
    • Detectives, in contrast to uniform police, typically wear 'business attire' in bureaucratic and investigative functions where a uniformed presence would be either a distraction or intimidating.
    • Specialized units exist within many law enforcement organizations for dealing with particular types of crime, such as traffic law enforcement and crash investigation, homicide, or fraud.

  • Rape

    • Nevertheless, victims are often reluctant to report rape because of these social pressures.
    • Rape is often thought of as a crime committed by a man against a woman, but increasingly, social and legal definitions of rape recognize that this does not have to be the case.
    • In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation updated its definition of rape, which had originally been instituted in 1972, and which previously limited rape to a crime against women.
    • The Rome Statute included rape in its definition of a crime against humanity, a definition first put into practice in the mid-1990s by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
    • In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found that systematic rape was a crime against humanity.