ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three major sources of crime statistics: Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and Self-report data. Knowledge about the extent and distribution of crime in the United States prior to the twentieth century was based primarily upon local arrest statistics, court records, and jail and prison data. Comparative criminologists, researchers interested in the study of crime in different countries, currently are confronted with problems similar to those encountered earlier in the twentieth century by American criminologists. Agencies using National Incident-Based Reporting System collect data regarding individual crime incidents and arrests and submit them in “reports” detailing each incident. UCR data are at least one step removed from the actual crime, and therefore, are subject to bias, distortion, and reporting errors. The NCVS had been heralded as the solution to the crime measurement issue, but it also proved far from a perfect enumeration of crime.
