Age-by-Race Specific Crime Rates: 1965-1985 - A User's Guide to the Machine-Readable Files and Documentation and Original Codebook

• NCJ Number: 146216
• Author(s): J Cohen; R Rosenfeld
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 16 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0083
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored

Annotation

This study examined crime patterns of several subgroups in the U.S. population characterized by race and age over a 21-year period from 1965 to 1985. Data set archived by the NIJ Data Resources Program at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, located at URL http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/nacjd.

Abstract

Basic data collected in the study were the number of arrests and the number of offenses known to the police for various crime types. Data were obtained from Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs) released annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Using these data, investigators estimated arrest rates and crime rates for each age-by-race cohort. The study included 294 observations, each one representing a cohort defined by age, race, and year of observation. Study objectives were to determine whether crime reports reported by UCRs were valid indicators of national crime trends and to assess the extent to which changes in total crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary were attributable to changes in the age and race composition of the population. Although data resulting from the analysis are tabulated separately, a data completeness and consistency report and a codebook are included. 4 references and 3 tables