Assignment 1: Juvenile Statistics Comparison

Data types are general categories of juvenile justice statistical data. The three primary sources for juvenile justice statistics or data types are official reports, self-report surveys, and victimization surveys. Each source has unique strengths and weaknesses, such as accuracy, breadth of coverage, and types of crime addressed. Here is an example of each data type:

Official Report: The FBI's UCR is a summary of official crime statistics submitted by state and local law enforcement agencies.

Self-Reports: The report, Monitoring the Future, measures the extent of delinquent acts committed by high school students.

Victimization Survey: The NCVS measures household victimizations and the attitudes, habits, and responses of the victims surveyed nationwide.

Tasks:

Part A:

For this assignment, pick a location and select two of the three primary data types:
• Official Report
• Self-Report
• Victimization Survey

Remember both data sources must be from the same location;

if your first choice is the data type victimization surveys with the location being your state then your other data source will be either official reports or self-report surveys from the same location, your state. You may conduct an Internet search using the same locale and jurisdiction, for example:

• United States official reports and
• United States victimization survey

The ultimate goal is to select and compare two different data sources, both from the same location, time period (usually given as a year or a range of years), and population (usually given as a geographic location or a jurisdiction).

Part B:

Using a series of line graphs, compare the data presented in each data source across four different offense types during the same five-year period. For example, you could use assault, larceny theft, truancy, or runaways, then describe two examples each of the common delinquent offenses and the status of the offenses.

In a minimum of 2 pages, write a paper that includes responses to the following:

• Comment with explanations on the results of the data presented for each offense type.

• Analyze any trends and state which offense type shows the greatest discrepancy between the two data sources.

• Given the nature of the data sources, describe why you think this discrepancy exists. Be sure to note with reasons whether your overall results are or are not what you initially expected.

Include an APA-formatted reference page that links back to your in-text citations and supports your recommendations. Remember, you cannot have only in-text citations or only references; you must have both because in-text citations and references link to each other.