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Recent Youth Crime Statistics
Uniform Crime Report Data:
If you visit the Springfield Police Department’s Web site you will find arrest in the “Uniform Crime Report for the City of Springfield, MO.” Call for service data can be found here. For a broader perspective on youth crime, you can view national statistics by visiting the Justice Information Center’s database on “Criminal Justice Statistics.”
As you may know, nearly all law enforcement agencies in the United States send an annual arrest statistics report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You can visit the F.B.I.s daily on-line newsletter or view the Uniform Crime Reports by county, city, state, or nationally.
You can obtain copies of the Uniform Crime Report (sometimes referred to as Crime in the United States) at your local library or click on the address above and view U.S. crime statistics for practically any year since 1930. The data includes number of arrests by the age, race, and gender of the offender.
Victimization Data:
While the data referred to above may be useful, it should used with caution. Remember that not all crimes are reported to the police, so the Uniform Crime Report data are incomplete. In addition, methods of recording arrest data vary from law enforcement agency to law enforcement agency, as do the definitions of what it is that constitutes a crime. There are other reasons to be wary of the data, but it’s the best law enforcement data we have.
For anyone who wants to get a clearer picture of crime in the United States, victimization data become important. While Uniform Crime Report data are based upon crimes known to the police, victimization data include crimes about which the police know nothing. This includes rapes, thefts, and assaults in addition to other kinds of crimes.
You can find victimization data at your local library in the government documents section or you can visit the Web site of the Justice Information Center and click on “Victim.” If you visit the National Institute of Justice site you will also find information on topics such as Law Enforcement, Corrections, Courts, Juvenile Justice, Crime Prevention, and International aspects of criminal justice. If there is another crime- or delinquency-related topic you are seeking, you can use the Keyword Search function at the Center’s site.