The uniform crime reporting in the US endeavors to generate reliable statistics on the crime rate in the country. It has been providing crime statistics since 1930. It enunciated what is the ratio of different crimes by providing clear statistics. Besides offering the scale and nature of the crime, the report is also useful for the students and researchers of the field of the criminal justice system. The program gathers data from more than 18000 local, city, college, and university agencies.
Here, the report for July 2020 will be analyzed. After analyzing the recent trends of crime, it will put forward a solution to tackle these crimes. In the case of violent crimes, the report shows mixed trends. It showed that the crimes such as rape and robbery were down by 17.8 percent and 7.1 percent respectively while at the same time violent crimes such as murder and manslaughter increased by 14,8 percent. The report also reveals that crimes decreased in a state where the population was less than 10,000. At the same time, the rate of decrease in crime was very minuscule in states where the population was above one lac. Here, the decree in crime was reported as a mere 3 percent. The report also mentioned that violent crime increase in the south by 2.5 percent. It has been shown that women were also suffered from the majority of violent crimes as they were subjected to violence against women.
In addition to violent crimes, there was a general decline in property crimes. It was down by 7.8 percent. Burglaries and Larceny thefts 7.8 percent and 9 percent respectively. Nonetheless, at the same time, the crime related to the theft of motor vehicles has increased by 6 percent. Akin to violent crimes, a similar trend was found. In high population areas such as having a population ranging from 1 lac to 2.5 lac, there was a slow decline in property crime which is 3.7 percent. But, the decline in crime rate was high in cities having a population of less than 10,000. Here, the decline was about 14 percent. Yet, unlike violent crime, property crime decreased in all four regions of the country.
In uniform crime reporting, the criminal act of arson is segregated from other property crimes. Here, after appraising the report, the most worrying trend can be explored. It can be said that the rate of arson crime has increased in the first six months of 2020 as compared with the first sixth months of 2019. More shockingly, the increase was up by 19.2 percent. In fact, the rate of arson crimes saw an increase in all four regions of the country. Here, again a similar trend can be noted when it comes to population. In the cities where the population was above 1,000,000, the increase in property crime was astronomical. The surge was shocking 52.1 percent. Where the population was less than 10,000 the increase in crime rate was around 5 percent.
The above quantitative analysis has shown that the ratio of crime in the first sixth months of July. There was an improvement but still, the ratio of the crime statistics was whopping. It shows that rape was still a major crime against women and which have continued to loom as a constant danger for women. No doubt that violent crimes saw a decline, but the ratio was still high. The property crimes also saw a decline again the motor theft saw a surge. But more sadly, the arson saw a meteoric rise. In all these criminal statistics, one thing which was common in which was the link of the crime and population rate in a particular area. It was noted that cities having an overwhelming ratio of the population saw an upward trend in crime. If crime saw a decline, in high population areas, the decline was very low as compared to less populated areas.
Considering these crime rates, there is a need to develop a strategy to counter these crime rates. Firstly, there is a need to tackle crimes against women which are manifested in many forms, the worst being rape. To address this issue, an initial point must be kept in mind that one specific policy will not be able to rectify this problem. Rather, different approaches that are multifaceted and multidimensional should be introduced.
Firstly, to launch an effective policy, the data related to violence against women should be gathered as exact as possible to get adequate knowledge of the sale of this problem. Besides this, such data should have multiple heads that categorize how violence manifests in different communities and what is the response to this abuse. Such categorization is necessary as studies have shown that there are different responses and different women are subjected to different forms of violence. For instance, economically independent women are most subjected to emotional and psychological abuse as direct physical violence may result in outright rebellion. Conversely, women who are unemployed face more physical violence. Similarly, different strategies will be required to cope with dating violence as compared to domestic violence. So, a broad strategy having multifaceted aspects will go a long way to address this problem.
This strategy should be underpinned by the long-term notion of promoting gender equality and deconstructing the notion that males should have the right to behave violently and women should endure it. Along with this, the detrimental effects that resulted due to violence should be explored. Then, the public should be made aware of these negative repercussions so that they limit violence in their daily life. Yet, unless and until these structural and systematic factors are not changed, any policy measure will result in only piecemeal and cosmetic changes. So, a broad strategy must be underpinned by a solid vision.
After these steps, then there is a need to plug the loopholes. For instance, gender sensitization is an effective policy tool to tackle the growing cases of rape and ensure the certainty of punishment that will deter perpetrators. Besides this, more and more women should be incorporated into the law enforcement agents so that they are keener to resolve these cases as early as possible. Apart from taking steps to reduce crime against women, a similar multi-dimensional strategy should be introduced to tackle the crimes of murder, property crime, and arson.
Firstly, there is a need to develop a new approach that views the problem from a new perspective. The surging violence in society should be viewed in the larger context of the violence. There is a need to see why the violence, manifested in different forms, is gaining currency? Firstly violence should be treated as health problems and specific programs should be launched to curb this menace. Here, a different program such as regular counseling in educational institutions and through media channels must be regularly done.
In addition to this, the root causes of crime should be elaborated. One of the conclusions that can be drawn by analyzing the uniform crime report is that the rate of crime is high in more populated areas. Here, the decrease in crime is also very low. Ergo, there is a need to explore why is this so? Upon reflection, it can be said that the main reason for this low availability of economic opportunities to climb up the social ladder. In highly populated areas, the increased use of alcohol also leads to violent crimes. Therefore, to address these root causes, a strategy must be formed that provides economic opportunities. Not only this, the wages of the job should be stable and high enough so that they are not encouraged to adopt a path of robbery. Besides this, the bars giving alcohol should be taxed and there is a need to reduce the number of these outlets. This will automatically reduce the ways fro committing a crime.
Moreover, there is a need to encourage the implementation of the model of community policing. The model has been successfully implemented in California and can be replicated in other parts of the country. The model builds a liaison between the law-enforcement agencies and communities to curb the crime rate. It has different features such as that builds and strengthens the relationship of trust between people and police. Due to trust relationships, people respot to people about crimes and helps them to apprehend criminals. Yet, the aptest feature of this model is that it encourages the community to make any criminal or would-be criminal aware of the consequences of any offense. In this way, the person is deterred from committing any crime. Along with this, the strategy has the more constructive feature of providing jobs to youth and people so that they cannot be motivated towards crime.
After this, there is a need to make agencies quicker in their response so that offenders can be caught and procedures should be simplified to resolve cases as early as possible. It can be concluded that to tackle crime there is a need to form a multifaceted strategy. The core component of this strategy should be to eradicate root causes rather than relying on punitive measures.
References:- “Overview of Preliminary Uniform Crime Report, January–June 2020.” September 2015
- McWhirter, J. Jeffries, et al. “At-risk Youth: A Comprehensive Response.” 1993.
- Larsson, Naomi. “24 ways to reduce crime in the world’s most violent cities.” June 2015
- Fyfe, James J., et al. “Strategies for Reducing Homicide: The Comprehensive Homicide Initiative in Richmond, California.”
- Lopez, German. “6 proven policies for reducing crime and violence without gun control.” July 2019