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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 3:09 am
Time: 3:09 am
Results for hate crime (west virginia)
1 results foundAuthor: Haas, Stephen M. Title: Assessing the Validity of Hate Crime Reporting: An Analysis of NIBRS Data Summary: The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program was developed over eighty years ago to meet the need for reliable crime statistics for the nation. Today, nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the US participate in this voluntary program. UCR, and the modernized National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), are recognized as the primary source of information about crimes reported to the police. While the UCR Program is critical to understanding crime, there are known limitations to these data such as underreporting and misclassification. As with any large scale data collection system, errors are inevitable and occur for a variety of reasons. While it is unlikely that all error will be eliminated, it is important to understand and measure it. Classification error occurs when the facts of the crime are recorded by the police, but the crime type is identified incorrectly. These errors can occur for many reasons including inaccurate interpretation of UCR definitions, reliance on criminal rather than statistical definitions, record automation issues, and even purposive actions in an attempt to downgrade crime. Classification error is particularly important since it can ultimately impact the statistical accuracy of reported crime statistics. The purpose of the current study is to examine the misclassification of crimes as they relate to hate. That is, the degree to which classification error impacts the statistical accuracy of reported hate crimes. Such error can vary by crime type and result in both the undercounting and overcounting of crimes in official statistics. To focus this study on hate crimes is noteworthy because, by their very nature, a unique set of issues converge when seeking to properly classify these incidents. Inherently, the intention of people involved and/or their motivation for committing a crime must be taken into account by officers when determining whether a particular incident constitutes a hate crime. For this reason, and others to be discussed later in this report, it is often speculated that many hate crimes are not accurately recorded in official records. Through a systematic review of official records, this study seeks to examine the degree to which classification error impacts the statistical accuracy of hate crime, as reported in official law enforcement statistics. Utilizing a methodology previously developed by the authors (Nolan, Haas, and Napier, 2011; Nolan, Haas, Lester, Kirby, and Jira, 2006) this study assesses the amount of classification error in hate crime reporting in WV. The researchers randomly selected cases, which were included in the state’s statistical data files, from designated offense categories for a detailed review of the officer’s written narrative of the incident. Though this approach has been applied to examine error across general crime types, no study to date has systematically focused on a crime category as widely believed to be underreported as hate crimes. While the previous study examined classification error across general crime types, the current study focuses specifically on identifying sources of error (i.e., over- and undercounts) contained in hate crime statistics. Additionally, this study further builds on the quantitative method described above by further capturing the perspectives of frontline officers. Qualitative information from a focus group is used to gain insight into the thought processes officers adhere to when deciding whether a specific incident constitutes a hate crime. Equipped with narratives of cases believed to contain errors, the researchers use a focus group approach to explore the various definitional and interpretation issues that are believed to result in classification error in these cases. Thus, it is anticipated that this study will not only yield an estimate of the error contained in officially reported hate crime statistics, but shed light on the inherent difficulties officers face in interpreting these incidents. In the end, it is the hope of the authors that this study will yield useful information for training officers on the reporting of hate crimes, get us closer to understanding the true magnitude of these crimes, and serve as a precursor for adjusting crime statistics to better estimate the actual number of hate crimes in the population. Details: West Virginia: Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center, Department of Military Affairs & Public Safety, 2011. 23p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 10, 2012 at http://www.djcs.wv.gov/SAC/Documents/ORSP_WV_Hate_Crime_Report.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.djcs.wv.gov/SAC/Documents/ORSP_WV_Hate_Crime_Report.pdf Shelf Number: 124440 Keywords: Crime DataCrime StatisticsHate Crime (West Virginia)Uniform Crime Reports |