The media tends to portray violent crime as constantly increasing looming threat. How does this portrayal compare with reality?
The media tends to portray violent crime as constantly increasing looming threat. How does this portrayal compare with reality?
Another perception commonly used by the media is that we are more likely to be victimized by strangers rather than acquaintances, friends, or family members. How does this portrayal compare with the reality of violent victimization in the United States?
In your opinion, what reasons could the media have for portraying crime in these ways? How does media coverage influence the public’s perception of crime and victimization? Does this pose a danger to society? Why or why not?
Original discussion posts must be at least 400 words in length. To receive full credit, remember to include in-text citations in APA format, a reference list at the bottom of your post, and a minimal number of spelling errors, grammatical issues, and typos. You must include a question based on the content of your post for other students to answer.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-missing-children/2013/05/10/efee398c-b8b4-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.html?hpid=z2
Requirements: 400 words
Crime & Victimization in the United States2017 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week: Crime and Victimization Fact SheetsThe FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) are the two largest and most comprehensive resources for information relating to crime and victimization in the United States. While the UCR and the NCVS serve separate purposes, they complement each other in a number of ways. The most important distinction between the two is that the UCR reports information regarding crimes known to law enforcement agencies (but cannot reflect unreported crime), while the NCVS measures reported and unreported victimizations, helping researchers identify “the dark figure of crime”—those hidden victimizations that the UCR is unable to track. Together the UCR and the NCVS provide researchers, policymakers, and the public with a general understanding regarding the state of crime and victimization in the United States. Uniform Crime Report The Uniform Crime Report (UCR), launched in 1929, collects information reported to law enforcement agencies on the following crimes: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, human trafficking, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.Law enforcement agencies also report arrest data for 22 additional crime categories (e.g., forgery and counterfeiting, drug abuse violations, disorderly conduct, vagrancy). Each year, the FBI issues a report on the main UCR findings, titled Crime in the United States, as well as several other reports (e.g., Hate Crimes 2015 and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2015). The UCR presents crime counts for the entire nation, as well as for regions, states, counties, cities, towns, tribal law enforcement, and colleges and universities. Its primary purpose is to provide reliable criminal justice statistics for law enforcement administration and management.National Crime Victimization Survey The methodology for the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which began in 1973, differs from that of the UCR. The NCVS is based on a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Household members age 12 and older are interviewed by the U.S. Census Bureau every 6 months for a 3-year period. The NCVS collects information on the frequency and nature of: rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, household burglary, theft, and motor vehicle theft.It does not, however, measure homicide, commercial crimes, crimes against residents under 12 years old, or crimes against individuals in other residential settings (e.g., nursing homes, long-term care facilities), and may exclude highly mobile populations and people who are homeless. It gathers information on crimes both reported and not reported to the police, estimates the proportion of crimes reported to law enforcement, and describes the reasons victims gave for reporting or not reporting. The NCVS also includes questions about victims’ experiences with the criminal justice system, possible substance use by offenders, and how victims sought to protect themselves. The NCVS collects demographic information about both victims and offenders (e.g., age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, marital status, income, educational level, relationship between victim and offender), as well as information about the crimes (including time and place of occurrence, use of weapons, nature of injury, and economic impact). The NCVS also collects periodic supplements on specific crime issues such as stalking or school crime.UCR Crimes • murder/non-negligent manslaughter• rape• robbery• aggravated assault• human trafficking • burglary• larceny-theft• motor vehicle theft• arson NCVS Crimes • rape• sexual assault• robbery• aggravated assault• simple assault• household burglary• theft• motor vehicle theft
RESOURCESFBI, “Uniform Crime Reporting,” (U.S. Department of Justice), https://ucr.fbi.govBureau of Justice Statistics, “National Crime Victimization Survey,” (U.S. Department of Justice), https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=245UCR Improvements1. Continuing the transition from SRS (the current UCR method of data collection) to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) by 2021. 2. Providing researchers, policymakers, and the general public with information regarding the use-of-force or the discharge of a firearm by law enforcement officers. NCVS Improvements1. Providing subnational estimates: While the original purpose of the NCVS was to provide estimates of victimization at the national level, the NCVS subnational program underway will generate victimization estimates for the 22 largest states. 2. Modernizing socio-demographic information to reflect victimization by sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, and citizenship. 3. Expanding the information collected about formal and informal help-seeking behavior, issues related to fear of crime, and perceptions of neighborhood disorder and police performance. 4. Expanding the type of crimes collected in the NCVS, including stalking and fraud. The Bureau of Justice Statistics in partnership with the Office for Victims of Crime is also launching the new Victim Services Statistical Research Program (VSSRP) to build a critical body of knowledge for the field by collecting and analyzing national data from victims and the diverse entities that serve them. In addition to data collected from victims as described above, data collected directly from entities that serve victims is important for understanding whether providers have the capacity to meet the needs of all victims seeking services. BJS’s VSSRP includes a number of initiatives to collect information from victim service providers, including the new National Census of Victim Service Providers (NCVSP) and National Survey of Victim Service Providers (NSVSP), both designed to help define and enhance understanding of all types of providers in the field. While the UCR and the NCVS are important resources for researchers, policymakers, and the public, they cannot address all crimes or all victimizations. And though national collection efforts continue to grow, gaps still exist, particularly for emerging crimes, including elder victimization, human trafficking, financial crime (especially Internet-based fraud), stalking, and mass casualty crimes.The Future of Crime and Victimization ResearchIn 2015, the UCR Program released a plan to improve and modernize their data collection. Two key aspects of this plan included: The NCVS is also currently undergoing a redesign. This multi-year effort to fill long-standing gaps in information will include:Other efforts focus on particular types of service providers, such as the collaboration between BJS and the National Center for Health Statistics to develop a new National Survey of Hospital Victim Services to better understand the range of hospital services available for crime victims. BJS has also added questions about victim services to existing surveys of law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices. Together, all of these efforts will offer the most comprehensive picture of victim service provision to date.
– 2 – ***EMBARGO UNTIL MONDAY, SEPT. 14, 2020, 10 A.M. ET WWW.BJS.GOV BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS CONTACT: KARA MCCARTHY (202) 307-1241; [email protected] BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS RELEASES RESULTS FROM 2019 NATIONAL CRIME VICTIMIZATION SURVEY WASHINGTON — After rising from 1.1 million in 2015 to 1.4 million in 2018, the number of persons who were victims of violent crime excluding simple assault dropped to 1.2 million in 2019, the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced today. Statistics on crimes that have occurred in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, are being collected now and will be reported next year. These statistics are based on data from the 2019 National Crime Victimization Survey. The NCVS is the nation’s largest crime survey and collects data on nonfatal crimes both reported and not reported to police. The rate of violent crime excluding simple assault declined 15% from 2018 to 2019, from 8.6 to 7.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older. Among females, the rate of violent victimization excluding simple assault fell 27% from 2018 to 2019, from 9.6 to 7.0 victimizations per 1,000 females age 12 or older. Violent crimes other than simple assault are those that are generally prosecuted as a felony. From 2018 to 2019, the portion of U.S. residents age 12 or older who were victims of one or more violent crimes excluding simple assault fell from 0.50% to 0.44%, a 12% decrease. There were 880,000 fewer victims of serious violent or property crimes (generally felonies) in 2019 than in 2018, a 19% drop. From 2018 to 2019, 29% fewer black persons and 22% fewer white persons were victims of serious crimes. Victims of serious crimes are those who experienced a serious violent crime or whose household experienced a completed burglary or completed motor-vehicle theft. This year, BJS provides new classifications of urban, suburban and rural areas, with the goal of presenting a more accurate picture of where criminal victimizations occur. Based on the NCVS’s new classifications, the rate of violent victimization in urban areas declined from 26.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 2018 to 21.1 per 1,000 in 2019, a 20% decrease from 2018 to 2019. Nationally, rape or sexual assault victimizations declined from 2.7 per 1,000 persons age 12 or – MORE –
– 2 – older in 2018 to 1.7 per 1,000 in 2019. Across all crime types, victimizations reflect the total number of times people or households were victimized by crime. Based on the 2019 survey, less than half (41%) of violent victimizations were reported to police. The percentage of violent victimizations reported to police was lower for white victims (37%) than for black (49%) or Hispanic victims (49%). In 2019, there were 5.4 million total violent incidents involving victims age 12 or older. The portion of violent incidents involving black offenders (25%) was 2.3 times the portion involving black victims (11%), while the portion involving white offenders (50%) was 0.8 times the portion involving white victims (62%) and the portion involving Asian offenders (1.0%) was 0.4 times the portion involving Asian victims (2.3%). The 2019 survey found that an estimated 12.8 million U.S. households experienced one or more property victimizations, which include burglaries, residential trespassing, motor-vehicle thefts and other thefts. The rate of property crime declined 6% from 2018 (108.2 victimizations per 1,000 households) to 2019 (101.4 per 1,000). This decline in property crime was partly due to a 22% decrease in burglary from 2018 to 2019 (from 15.0 to 11.7 burglary victimizations per 1,000 households). Moreover, the rate of burglary victimization declined to the lowest level since the NCVS was redesigned in 1993. The report, Criminal Victimization, 2019 (NCJ 255113), was written by BJS statisticians Rachel E. Morgan and Jennifer L. Truman. The report, related documents and additional information about BJS’s statistical publications and programs are available on the BJS website at www.bjs.gov. The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing and disseminating reliable statistics on crime and criminal justice in the United States. Jeffrey H. Anderson is the director. The Office of Justice Programs, directed by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Katharine T. Sullivan, provides federal leadership, grants, training, technical assistance and other resources to improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime, assist victims and enhance the rule of law by strengthening the criminal and juvenile justice systems. More information about OJP and its components is located at www.ojp.gov. The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Department of Justice. Learn more about the history of our agency at www.Justice.gov/Celebrating150Years. ###
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