Uniform Crime Reports: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

A Committee on Uniform Crime Records was appointed at a convention of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in 1927.In 1929, after extensive study of crime reporting, statutory designations, and police recording of various offenses throughout the country, the Committee' published an elaborate guide entitled Uniform Crime Reporting: A Complete Manual for Police.The manual attempted to establish standard categories of offenses for reporting purposes.In that same year the Committee instituted a system of uniform crime reporting on an experimental basis.The following year, the Federal Bureau of Investigation took over the system and incorporated the IACP's offense categories in its first bulletin of Uniform Crime Reports. 2 The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) were published monthly, then quarterly, until 1941.Between 1942 and 1957 they were published semi-annually, and since 1958 have been published annually with a brief, three-page quarterly preliminary report "issued for current information purposes."These reports regularly record, among other things, the volume of crimes known to the police, offenses cleared by arrest, persons held for prosecution, and persons released or found guilty of offenses.

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