Crime Reporting and Rates
Major crime reporting programs are used to gather statistics on crimes that are used by law enforcements agencies on every level. Crime reporting programs have a wide variety of uses that include creating and altering social policies, providing crime trends, and making new legislation (Schmalleger, 2011). The crime statistics show rises and decreases in certain areas of crimes so that we can create and dismantle policies and deterrents.
In order for crime reporting programs to be useful they need to be successful. A few traits that make crime reporting programs successful are uniformity, proper training, and a wide net of collected data. If there is not a set way for systems to operate and the data to be collected the information is not accurate. It is important that there are many different programs that reach all states so as much data is collected as possible. For any program to be successful it needs to be consistent and uniform throughout the process. Inconsistency and lack of training for anything results in criminals walking free and repeat offenders of serious crimes.
Comparing crime, arrest, and clearance rates presented in the text shows why so many crimes are not reported to the police to begin with. Out of every 1000 crimes committed, 100 people are arrested and only averages of 14 are incarcerated (Kyckelhahn & Kohen, 2004). The percentage of crimes committed to people actually incarcerated is deeply troubling and shows