Bridging Gaps in Police Crime Data - Bureau of Justice Statistics

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Bridging Gaps in

Police Crime Data

A Discussion Paper from the BJS Fellows Program

Percent of the U.S.

population covered in

100%

crime statistics of the

Uniform

? crime Crime

statistics of the

Reporting

Program

Uniform Crime

(UCR)

Reporting Program

(UCR)

?UCR

UCRarrest

arreststatistics

statistics

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

810 Seventh Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20531

Janet Reno

Attorney General

Raymond C. Fisher

Associate Attorney General

Laurie Robinson

Assistant Attorney General

No11l Brennan

Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D.

Director, Bureau of Justice Statistics

Office of Justice Programs

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For information contact:

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1-800-732-3277

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Bridging Gaps in

Police Crime Data

A Discussion Paper from the

BJS Fellows Program

by Michael D. Maltz

Department of Criminal Justice

University of Illinois at Chicago

and

Visiting Fellow

Bureau of Justice Statistics

September 1999, NCJ 176365

This paper is based on a Workshop

on Uniform Crime Reporting

Imputation, sponsored by the

Bureau of Justice Statistics

and the

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Uniform Crime Reporting

Program

U.S. Department of Justice

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D.

Director

The points of view or opinions

expressed in this document are those

of the author and do not necessarily

represent the official position or

policies of the U.S. Department

of Justice.

BJS Discussion Papers promote the

exchange of information, analysis,

and ideas on issues related to justice

statistics and to the operations of the

justice system.

This document was prepared under

cooperative agreement 95-BJ-CX0001 for the BJS Visiting Fellowship

Program.

The author may be reached at the

following addresses:

Professor Michael D. Maltz

Department of Criminal Justice

University of Illinois at Chicago

1007 W. Harrison Street (M/C 141)

Chicago, IL 60607-7140

email: mikem@uic.edu

Bridging Gaps

ii

in Police Crime Data

Acknowledgments

I began work on this project because,

although I had been using the UCR for many

years, I had never understood all of its

intricacies & and felt somewhat embarrassed

to ask simple questions about why certain

procedures were used, because obviously

everyone else knew. It turned out, however,

that most people seemed to be as much in

the dark as I was, perhaps about different

aspects of the UCR, and during this project

we began to share our knowledge, each of us

having an understanding of different aspects

of the data collection and analysis process.

This report is, then, more a collaboration than

a single-authored effort, a kind of "open

source" presentation of our collective

knowledge. [Although the knowledge is

collective, the interpretation of that knowledge

is my own.]

In addition, I wish to thank the UCR

program personnel from the 50 States with

whom my research assistants (Leanne

Brecklin, University of Illinois at Chicago;

Chris Kenaszchuk, University of Maryland;

and Todd Minton and Matt Durose, BJS) and

I corresponded and spoke. I received

cooperation from officials in every State in

putting together this report; I hope that the

end result is of use to them and to others who

deal with crime statistics.

This report was written while I was a

Visiting Fellow at the Bureau of Justice

Statistics and completed while I was on

sabbatical from the University of Illinois at

Chicago. While I greatly appreciate the help

I received from BJS, FBI, and State officials,

they should not be held responsible for any

errors in this report, and the opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed

herein are my own and should not be

construed as the policy of any of these

organizations.

The information contained herein is

based on a 2-day meeting held over 2 years

ago; analyses of UCR data conducted since

then; and conversations, letters, faxes, and

e-mails between me and a number of

colleagues. In particular, I wish to acknowledge the comments and advice of the

following:

¨´

From BJS ¨C Jan Chaiken, Larry

Greenfeld, Tom Hester, Charles

Kindermann, Pat Langan, Sue

Lindgren, Don Manson, Marilyn

Marbrook, Mona Rantala, Steve

Smith, Paul White, and Marianne

Zawitz

¨´

From the FBI ¨C Yoshio Akiyama,

Bennie Brewer, Kenneth Candell,

Carlos Davis, Gil Gee, Antonio

Hwang, Dawn Kording, Vicki Major,

Jim Nolan, Sharon Propheter, and

Maryvictoria Pyne

¨´

From the research community ¨C Dan

Bibel, Becky Block, Roland Chilton,

Chris Dunn, Bob Flewelling, Jamie

Fox, John Jarvis, Jim Lynch, Mike

Maxfield, and Howard Snyder.

Bridging Gaps

Michael D. Maltz

Department of Criminal Justice

University of Illinois at Chicago

Visiting Fellow

Bureau of Justice Statistics

iii

in Police Crime Data

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