Uniform Crime Report and Its Accuracy, Specifically Essay

Uniform Crime Report and its accuracy, specifically how classification errors can impact the accuracy of that report. The Uniform Crime Report is considered the gold standard in U.S. crime statistics because it is the national clearinghouse for statistics. It permits comparisons of crime rates by state because they are classified in the same way at a national level. However, there are some problems with the Uniform Crime Report's statistical methodology. For example, one may be able to compare sexual assault statistics across states, but the reporting of that statistics will still depend on individual state classification of a crime. Not all problems with the use of the Uniform Crime Report are inherent in the process. For example, the article studied focuses on classification errors and how that can impact the report's accuracy. This is not an inherent problem, as the Uniform Crime Report does define the different crimes in such a way that someone with knowledge of the underlying criminal event could properly classify a crime. The problem is that the people doing the classification frequently only have access to partial information from the crime, such as conviction information, which may not reveal the crime that was actually committed.

Explain how this concept, theory, or model is related to the assigned readings (200 words)

The concept of the Uniform Crime Report and its accuracy is related to all of the assigned readings and to all of criminal justice because so much of what is known about crime in the United States depends upon statistics pulled from the Uniform Crime Report. If those statistics are wrong, then what is known about crime in the United States is wrong, which is a critical issue. For example, sexual assault of males was not included as a sexual assault under the Uniform Crime Report's guidelines until relatively recently. This would give someo the impression that males are never victims of sexual assault, which is incorrect. In fact, while the risk that a man will become a sexual assault victim is lower than the a female's risk, the risk is higher than for many other types of violent crime. As a result, understanding potential problem areas for the Uniform Crime Report is critical to an understanding of crime in America. The above example is a definitional issue, but it occurs to me that regional…