Crime as a social indicator, analysis essays

Crime as a social indicator, analysis essays Crime is regarded as a major social problem due to its inherent nature as a threat to society as a whole, and to the individuals who live in that society. Crime reduction and prevention has been, and always will remain to be a top priority of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the Untied States. This problem of crime can be measured in many different ways causing argument over what is the best indicator to fully grasp the severity of crime. This creates the concern of how to best identify crime on both a national and local scale. To this end, since the 1930s, state and local law enforcement agencies have worked cooperatively with the FBI to provide the nation with a reliable set of criminal statistics through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Recognizing a need for national statistics on crime, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) formed the Committee on Uniform Crime Records. The creation of this committee in the 1920s lead to the development of a system in which there were uniform police statistics. The committee evaluated various crimes on the basis of their seriousness, frequency of their occurrence, likelihood of occurrence in vast geographic areas, and the probability of being reported to law enforcement. ...