Modernizing Crime Statistics: The Role of the NCVS and the UCR and Beyond

• In Event: Presidential Panel: The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice III: Taking Stock of Crime Statistics Since "The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society"

Abstract

The Commission recommended that the National Criminal Justice Statistics Center integrate FBI Uniform Crime Reporting efforts with data from victim surveys, to better understand the crimes not reported to the police. This presentation will provide a (very) brief history of the knowledge gained by understanding sources of convergence and divergence between the two series and on the current panel's efforts to develop recommendations for BJS and the FBI on modernizing crime statistics with a specific focus on the relationship between the UCR (and NIBRS) and the NCVCS. It will address how the modernising efforts align with, diverge from, and complement the key issues for crime statistics that Commission outlined and elaborate on the CNSTAT panel's reasoning about its recommendations, including the basis for an evolution in crime classification taxonomies.

Author

• Janet Lauritsen, University of Missouri-St. Louis