Measurments

The three major measurements of crime are Uniform Crime Reports, The National Crime Victimization Survey and The Self-Reporting Studies appears to measure crime from different perspectives. The Uniform Crime Reports gathers information collected from the nations polices precincts. This measurement appears to be more from the law enforcement perspective and are subject to its biases. The National Crime Victimization Survey attempts to collect data about crime context, settings and characteristics of the victims. This measurement appears to be more from a Victim perspective and focuses on gathering statics about victims of crimes. Since this method interviews victims there may be some groups that are reported victims more then others and this may reflect their perspective more then others. Victims may also mistakenly interpret noncriminal events as crimes as well so this data may be subject to errors related to these areas. The Self-reporting studies interview offenders. This method may measure crime from the perspective of the criminal. Just like other methods, this may focus on one group more then others, as there may be one groups that are convicted of crimes more then others. Essentially, none of these measurement methods are perfect. I believe the researcher should use all three methods together to get a measurements that is more accurate then the individual method. Even then there will be a lot of data the is missing, as there are a lot of crimes that are not reported, under reported and over emphasized.