Discussion Replies

Please respond to Austin 150 words & 1 scholarly citation in APA format.
Any sources cited must have been published within the last five years. Acceptable sources
include the textbook, the Bible, and scholarly peer-reviewed research articles.

The use of official crime data is important on many fronts. For police departments, it shows how well they are combating crime and how to properly allocate resources going forward. Official crime data helps drive policing methods such as hot spot policing and helps shape public policy. Researchers use the official crime data for their studies and to draw generalizations and conclusions. Official crime data can shape public policy, change how a police department operates, and mold public perception of crime. The issue is that current official crime data such as the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) has several issues.

Official crime data such as the UCR have many issues when it comes to its validity. One issue is many crimes are unreported to the police and not all crimes are recorded by the police (Mosher et al., 2011). The UCR categories are subject to interpretation allowing departments to potentially over or under report on a certain category. Additionally, politics and pride may cause a department to purposely skew numbers to help their public image or get better funding. The FBI has officially moved away from using the UCR and has implemented the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The NIBRS contains more categories than the UCR and is designed to help reduce disparities and increase the quality of the data provided (Doonan et al., 2020).

Baumer & Adams’s (2006) research of the summons in lieu of arrest policy is not effective for public policy changes. Just as reporting in UCR data, officers may have stopped reporting these offenses through reduced contact or did not comply with the policy resulting in an increase or decrease in the numbers (Mosher et al., 2011). There are many gaps in this literature, for example there is no mention of how releasing this target misdemeanor crime led to increased or decreased recidivism. Another example would be the increased time law enforcement may have to take to write a summons or any additional time tracking down individuals in the target group who failed to appear. As pointed out by Baumer & Adams (2006), the crime and jail data used by the court order and the misunderstanding of current practices lead the measuring of policy impacts to be difficult to discern. The current measurable impacts are minimal at best and cannot be fully attributed to the policy change.

Miller’s (2003) exploratory research of victim surveys following the Miami Dade domestic violence study can be useful for some general inferences. It is important for the legal system and law enforcement to consider the unique needs and characteristics of each victim. Each victim has a unique background and situation that requires criminal justice actors to find ways to increase a victim’s personal and legal power so they can escape an abusive situation (Miller, 2003). Victim programs also must be adaptable to the victim’s varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The criminal justice system must be willing to see the victims’ experience through their lenses to better understand their perspective and point to the correct resources (Easteel et al., 2019). Overall, all actors involved in helping domestic violence victims must be sensitive to their unique needs and backgrounds to empower the victim to leave abusive spouses or partners and get the help they deserve.

James 3:17 says, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (English Standard Version, 2001/2016). The Christian is called to use Godly wisdom as described in the verse above. The criminal justice professional must be gentle, a good listener, and be impartial in how they treat others. Likewise, for criminal justice data to be used it must be grounded in truth and produce good fruit. The data must be pure, meaning it cannot be biased or used ways that do not promote peace.

Please respond to Brandesha 150 words & 1 scholarly citation in APA format.
Any sources cited must have been published within the last five years. Acceptable sources
include the textbook, the Bible, and scholarly peer-reviewed research articles.

Chapter 3 of the textbook describes the official crime data as data that comes from law enforcement reports which includes offenses as well as arrest data, court orders and documents including prosecutor charges and indictments, and any correction related reports such as incarceration or jail or prison release information. The importance of using official crime data is that it gives law enforcement a clearer picture of what criminal activity is occurring and how they might be able to prevent some of it from happening. “Since 1930, the FBI has been collecting data on the types, amounts, and impact of crime in the United States through the Uniform Crime Reporting Program” (Walden University). There are several reasons why the FBI thought it was important to start keeping and tracking the data. One was that it would be easier to predict where crimes have a more probability of occurring as well as preventing future criminal activity. Another is that it creates transparency for the general public so they anyone can see what the law enforcement agencies are doing and it builds trust within the community. Police departments also use this information for creating their budgets as well as allocating their resources. “Nevertheless, crimes known to police are affected by selection biases driven by underreporting” (Buil-Gil & Langton, 2022). Some crimes do not get reported by therefore, it skews the official crime data. There could be a variety of reasons why this is underreported. Some victims think it is not inconsequential to get the police involved so they do not report crimes. Another reason is that police departments are always looking for ways to look good in a political stance and to their policy makers by underestimating the number of crimes that have occurred because the lower the number of crimes reported for their area, the better it looks on the police department. However, the official crime data helps to determine what public policy should be and how changes should be made to compare with the data. Incarceration does not deter crime, therefore, policies must be in place in order to combat the damage done by the offender as well as bringing help to the victim. Public policies should include help to the victims so that crimes do not go unaccounted for. These policies also should include help to the offender so that they do not want to commit the same or other crimes in the future. Offenders need to either break the habit of committing crimes or if it is a first offense, they need to know it is not worth doing it again. God is not pleased when people commit crimes, but he especially frowns when people keep repeating the same crimes over and over.

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