Expanding Our Understanding of Crime

Research Summary This article summarizes the recommendations of the National Academies’ Committee on National Statistics’ Panel on Modernizing the Nation's Crime Statistics first report— Modernizing Crime Statistics, Report 1: Defining and Classifying Crime (Lauritsen and Cork, 2016)—and discusses some of its implications for criminologists and practitioners. Policy Implications The crime classification offered in the National Academies’ report recommends the adoption and development of a more expanded system of crime statistics so that the nation has reliable and comparative data on crime beyond what is currently available. Many basic facts about the levels and changes in crime are not known or well understood, posing significant problems for crime policy development and evaluation, particularly in the areas of crimes by and against businesses, organizations, and governments and crimes against the environment. We discuss the new crime classification system in an effort to engage criminologists and practitioners in the work that is necessary to improve our responses to crime.