Impact of Diversity on Criminal Justice Essay

To justify his actions, he cited reacting against a racially biased legal system. This has been the sentiments of many Black Americans and Hispanics with a national research in 2003 indicating only 28% of the Black Americans reporting that whites and blacks receive equal treatment at the hands of the justice system. They believe with a low population of only 13% and a high incarceration rate of 27% represents in itself some form of bias in the justice system.

Police on the other hand think the high crime rates of Blacks and Hispanics only reflects the differences in the crime rates and not the biased justice system. These among other reasons have led to the need for better convincing way(s) to justify these allegations. Among the available centers for crime data are the National Criminal Victimization Survey (NCVS), and the Uniform Crime Report (UCR).

Uniform Crime Report, National criminal Victimization Survey and Crime Rates

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) was established in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police for . Through UCR, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gathers and analyzes recently reported crimes submitted by both the state agencies and local authorities. After the signing of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990 by the American president it became a law requiring the Attorney General to establish and collect data concerning crimes. UCR has since then been tasked to collect data about crimes that manifest elements of prejudice based on race, religion, and ethnicity.

The center has since then moved from a tally system centre to a unit record system involved in publishing annual crime statistics. It collects comprehensive data on the victims, offenders, and the circumstances of crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigations UCR program involves in developing procedures for, and managing the implementations of the collection of hate crime data. They conduct on a sampling basis, a of .

The cases are tracked and then comprehensive data reports about the offences are reported. The second approach incorporated in the established nation wide UCR program includes adding a new data element to provide capability for flagging bias-motivated criminal charges. The system allows entry criminal type, type of bias, and the offenders race which are then submitted on Quarterly basis to URC centre for analysis. They use the supplied information to calculate the crime rate, violent crime rate, and crime per square mile.

The National criminal Victimization Survey (NCVS) initially the (NCS) has been collecting data on family households since 1973. It collects data using six as this allows collection of more accurate information at manageable costs. The collected data include those on assault, burglary, rape and robbery. It analyzes the nature of the crimes including those that were unreported. Data collection is done twice a year by use of a national survey targeting close to 49000 sampled households. The data are usually useful in calculating crime rates and determining changes in crime rates from year to year.