Ucr & Ncvs

Index crimes in 1990 were taking our nation by storm. By far the most widely found index crime was aggravated assault. The UCR shows that for aggravated assault in the U.S. in 1990 there was over 751,407 cases of aggravated assault reported, but there were also more that the UCR didn't pick (UCR, 23, 1990) up. On the other hand the NCVS in 1990 reported that there was nearly half more then that of the UCR, 901,039 were in fact accounted for according to the NCVS (NCVS, 1, 1990).

The NCVS was designed with four primary objectives: (1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas. The survey categorizes crimes as "personal" or "property." Personal crimes cover rape and sexual attack, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and purse-snatching/pocket-picking, while property crimes cover burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. The data from the NCVS survey are particularly useful for calculating crime rates, both aggregated and disaggregated, and for determining changes in crime rates from year to year.

The Uniform Crime Reporting Program formulated the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS presents comprehensive, detailed information about crime incidents to law enforcement, researchers, governmental planners, students of crime, and the general public. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division conducted the pilot demonstration of this program in 1987. Since then, implementation of NIBRS has been commensurate with the resources, abilities, and limitations of the contributing law enforcement agencies. Although participation grows steadily, data is still not pervasive enough to make broad generalizations about crime in the United States.

Reason being for this huge