That does not mean there are no drawbacks, however. While the list is expanding and becoming more nationwide, it still struggles to accurately show small or petty crimes and rural areas. There are a couple of reasons:.
While federal, state, and major cities have improved reporting, rural police still are a bit behind. Large cities often have larger budgets and have transitioned into digital reporting, while rural areas are less likely to be digital and more likely to be manual. Even though the FBI has committed to the UCR, there still is a finite amount of resources they get to use and tracking down small rural statistics is often overlooked.
Remember, to be included in the statistics, the crime has to be reported, recorded, and not dropped. A lot of petty theft, abuse, and other crimes might originally get reported but are later dropped.
If a plea deal is put in place and the charges are dropped to lesser crimes, then the bigger crimes will not go into the statistics. Victim studies are used to try and fill in the gaps that police reports fail to cover. Victim studies can be a variety of questions around any crime that the study is gathering data for. Most studies involve polling households strategically to get a good data cluster of an area.
The data is extrapolated to estimate the crime as a whole for the area. Victim Studies often ask if the household has experienced a certain crime with follow-up questions about if they know someone who has experienced the crime. From these questions, the survey can start to hypothesize the frequency of the crime in question for an area. While these studies do a good job of giving a fairly accurate account of crime statistics, like petty theft and domestic abuse, they are projections only.
Unlike law enforcement statistics, studies are estimates and those estimates can have large variable outcomes based on how the survey is conducted. It is important to know how we collect criminal statistics so that we can better interpret the information and accurately use the information.
Knowing how the data is collected is the first step in making use of the data. So how are criminal statics best used and why is it important? Crime statistics are often used as an indicator of dangerous or safe areas. You can check any living site, like www.
Is that the best use of crime stats and do crimes really help judge the safety of an area? The best use of crime statistics is by municipal, state, and local officials in determining if legislation is working. There are multiple studies and reports that show legislation and appropriations of funds directly affecting crime and criminal areas.
Well-informed voters and constituents can also offer you criminal data from similar areas and vote accordingly to new proposals and legislation. So what does that mean? It means that sites that have year-over-year data to compare and contrast criminal statistics are far more valuable than those who just list one-time stats.
Criminal statistics are far better at forecasting with data over time than one-time reports. Example: Town A did a study that shows 1 in of its citizens are likely to be a victim of a violent crime. Town B did the same study and found out that 1 in 75 of its citizens are likely to be a victim of a violent crime. Based on this you would think that town A is safer to live in, yes?
Use our Public Crime Map to view the location and details of reported crimes. Below the map, you can find preliminary crime data available through Open Baltimore. View Map Full Screen. The information presented through Open Baltimore represents a summarized version of Part I victim based crime data.
Please note that this data is preliminary and subject to change. You will be notified in advance of any changes in rate or terms. You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service.
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Dow Jones. By Sean Kennedy.
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