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There are two principal methods of collecting data on crime in the United States, crimes reported to law enforcement from the FBI; and the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau Of Justice Statistics based on a census-like national survey to get an approximate count of all crime. The report (link below) and my website Crime in America provide further explanations.
Any account of crime in the United States is principally based on these two methods of data collection (there are others like Gallup and specific research efforts).
As to a need for a national survey to gauge all crime, 41 percent of violent crimes (a considerable decrease from previous years) are reported to law enforcement. It’s much less for property crime. Only a survey can answer questions as to “all” crime.
The review board charged with investigating complaints against the San Diego Sheriff’s Department plans to create a special committee to examine claims that department officials made about a San Diego Union-Tribune investigation into deaths in county jails.
The committee idea was proposed last week at a meeting of the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board or CLERB after a reporter challenged the veracity of a presentation by a Sheriff’s Department official at the board’s December meeting.
Paul Parker, the board’s executive officer, shared the reporter’s email with the board and placed a discussion about it on the agenda for the January meeting.
Pauline Grosjean, Federico Masera, Hasin Yousaf 23 January 2021
The US saw a resurgence of racial and ethnic turmoil and tensions during Donald Trump’s presidency. This column examines how Trump s 2016 presidential campaign affected police behaviour towards Black Americans, using data on nearly 12 million vehicle stops by the police in 142 counties where Trump held a rally during his campaign. It finds that the probability that a driver stopped by police would be Black increased after a Trump event, and estimates that Trump s rallies may have led to nearly 30,000 additional stops of Black people by the police in the months following his rallies.
Can We Wait 60 Years to Cut the Prison Population in Half?
The question in the title of this post is the title of this new publication authored by The Sentencing Project s Senior Research Analyst Nazgol Ghandnoosh. Here is how it gets started:
The U.S. prison population declined 11% in 10 years after reaching an all-time high in 2009. This modest reduction follows a nearly 700% increase in the prison population between 1972 and 2009. As of year end 2019, 1.4 million people were in U.S. prisons; an imprisonment rate unmatched worldwide. At the recent pace of decarceration, it will take nearly six decades to cut the U.S. prison population in half.