Crime statistics provide data used for a wide range of things. They are used for planning, setting budgets, assessment of police performance, evaluating prevention programs, identifying certain crime patterns or trends and for determining where a person wants to live. The only problem is that crime rates can be deceiving, having a person believe that criminal activity is on the decline when in reality it is on the rise.
             The two primary sources crime statistics are obtained from are the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, also known as the UCR/NIBRS Program.
             The UCR/NIBRS collects data on the criminal act and other details such as the location, weapon used, type and value of any property damaged or stolen, personal characteristics of the offender and the victim, the nature of any relationship, and the disposition. Also included would be whether the offender is suspected of using alcohol or any type of drug. The reporting data collected comes from law enforcement agencies across the nation reports of an act of crime and arrests. The NCVS collects data through an arrangement with the U.S. Census Bureau where individuals are interviewed by using a survey.
             While statistics from UCR/NIBRS are based on the data gathered and reported to them by the police, NCVS statistics are based on the data collected through victim self-reports . Often times the NCVS will show an area having a much higher rate of crime than the UCR/NIBRS shows. This is partly due to the fact that there are many crimes committed not reported to the police and some criminal acts go undetected so the information the police are reporting doesn't represent the a true picture of crimes committed. The NCVS gathers data from information provided about crime that has and has not been reported, however we still have no wa...