Vinyl Baker, Atlanta, GA     (May 30):
I believe if you analyze crime bi-weekly you can determine if your crime is up or down. There are several factors which determine the crime rate, such as economics, special events, weather, employment level.

I analyze Sex crimes and robberies. I often have to examine the data closely to find patterns among the robbery reports because we have a large volume of robberies every year. The problem that I have noticed is that our city usually has two or three different robbery crews working in the same area. The victims' descriptions of the suspects are always the same unless the suspect is just usual looking.

Megan Ambrosio, Newark, NJ PD     (July 5):
UCR is needed for the country and every Police Department should participate.  But as a tool for crime analysis it is just not viable.  If I come into your store and rob you of $8 and shoot and paralyze you, it is classified as a robbery.  It also will get some additional classifications that are never used when it comes to the famous question 'Are we down?' 

A good analyst should really use an off-shoot of the UCR record management system or some other vehicle.  For crime that is real crime you have to use an enhanced tool to determine what is going on.  I work in a city where gun violence is a key issue and I have to provide specific and critical information to the Robbery/Homicide Squad and to the Chief of Police regarding the use of a gun.  If I had to spend hours designing queries to include this code and that code, I would never get the job done and I would never be able to provide the picture that each group thinks it needs. 

Burglaries are a problem and when the chief tells me that the UCR numbers are up, I can quickly tell him in what area and how they are being committed, what [action] is being taken, the time span of occurrence etc.  But usually, I have prepared as a bulletin regarding the particular crime before it shows up as a numerical increase.  So I think that while UCR is needed and can be very useful, its limitations cripple real analysis of crime.