Using the NCVS to Understand Changes in the Use of Incarceration over Time

• In Event: Using the UCR and NCVS to Enhance Understanding of Crime Trends and Offender Behavior

Abstract

Analyses of changes in the number and composition of state prison populations over the period 1980 to 2010 have generally concluded that the changes observed have less to do with the vicissitudes of crime than with changes in sentencing and supervision policies. Our ability to understand changes in crime and their effect on the state prison population is limited by the aggregate nature of crime statistics based on police administrative records. The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) groups crimes into large and heterogeneous classes such as aggravated assault or larceny but the composition of these crime classes can change substantially over time with subclasses trending quite differently from the aggregate. So crimes like domestic and intimate partner violence may be increasing as a proportion of crime and these subclasses may be treated more severely than they were in the past. This would not be discernible using the UCR data. This paper uses the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) as well as the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities and the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) to explore the effects of changes in the incidence and treatment of subclasses of violence on the size and composition of the state prison population.

Authors

• William Sabol, Bureau of Justice Statistics, USDOJ

• James Patrick Lynch, University of Maryland