Patterns of Offenses and Victimization

Unit VI ScholarlyActivity
For this scholarly activity, conduct research on patterns of offenses and victimization. Research the crime rates in both your
local area and nationally. You must use your textbook and the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) and National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS). Links to these two sites are provided here:
Bureau of Justice Statistics. (n.d.). Data collection: National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Retrieved from
https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=245#Publications_and_products
Federal Bureau of Investigations. (n.d.). UCR publications. Retrieved from https://ucr.fbi.gov/ucr-publications
Be sure you are using the most current years. You also must go to the Waldorf Online Library and use the Criminal Justice
database to find an article related to this activity.
Include responses to the following points in your scholarly activity:
1. Research the most recent murder and aggravated assault data within the past 4 years. Find national data as well as
data in your current city or town or the closest nearby that reports.
2. Describe the national and local rates. Have they gone up or down? How do they compare? Do you see trends? What
do you attribute to the differences?
3. Explain the terminology and definition of each crime. How do they differ?
4. Describe the characteristics of the crime, including the types of offenders, the types of victims, and the event (e.g.,
location, weapon, when it occurred).
5. What are the differences in arrest and clearance rates?
6. After learning more about these crimes, pick a theory from an earlier unit and use it to explain the possible reasons for
why people commit these crimes in your area.
Your scholarly activity must be a minimum of two pages in length, not counting a title and reference page. All sources used,
including the textbook, must be cited in the text and included on the reference page in APA style.
Information about accessing the grading rubric for this assignment is provided below.