Understanding Crime Statistics

James P. Lynch is co-author (with Albert D. Biderman) of Understanding Crime Incidence Statistics: Why the UCR Diverges from the NCS and (with Rita J. Simon) of Immigration the World Over: Statutes, Policies and Practices. He has published in many journals including Criminology, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, and Justice Quarterly. Lynn A. Addington's recent work has appeared in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology and Homicide Studies and has been supported by grants from the American Education Research Association (National Center for Education Statistics - National Science Foundation), the American Statistical Association, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Institute of Justice.

• Introduction: 1. Introduction James P. Lynch and Lynn A. Addington; Part I. Overview of the Two National Measures of U.S. Crime: 2. Introduction to the National Crime Victimization Survey Michael Rand and Callie Rennison; 3. Introduction to the Uniform Crime Reporting Program Cynthia Barnett-Ryan; Part II. Defining Divergence and Convergence: 4. What is convergence, and what do we know about it? David McDowall and Colin Loftin; Part III. Sources of Divergence in the NCVS: 5. Methodological change in the NCVS and the effect on convergence Shannan M. Catalano; 6. Series victimizations and divergence Mike Planty; 7. Exploring differences in estimates of visits to emergency rooms for injuries from assaults using the NCVS and NHAMCS Jacqueline Cohen and James P. Lynch; Part IV. Sources of Divergence in the UCR: 8. Using NIBRS to study methodological sources of divergence between the UCR and NCVS Lynn A. Addington; 9. Explaining the divergence between UCR and NCVS aggravated assault trends Richard Rosenfeld; 10. Missing UCR data and divergence of the NCVS and UCR trends Michael D. Maltz; Conclusion James P. Lynch and Lynn A. Addington.

'Readers of this volume will understand what survey and police-based data can and cannot tell us about the crime problem and how important it is to thoroughly consider data quality when assessing changes in crime. This book should be required reading for those who analyze crime trends and the factors that might influence changes over time.' Janet Lauritsen, University of Missouri, St Louis