UCR data, while useful in the sense that it provides a small picture of the large amount of crime that goes unreported in a given city, this crime is undetectable due to a reluctance of victims to report the crime. The most important factors that limit our understanding of crime are the shadowy figure of crime and the funnel of crime. The first is the numerical value that represents the discrepancy between the crime reported and the crime committed (real crime). The latter is a real diagram showing that the total amount of crimes can be quite high, but the amount of crimes detected, reported, prosecuted and punished respectively decreases proportionally. The UCR does not include victimless crimes, so even though prostitution is considered a crime, it is not reported in the UCR because a victim is involved. Another limitation of the UCR is that when an offender commits multiple crimes, only the most serious crime is recorded, causing further discrepancies in the UCR data.6. The data collected by the UCR is not entirely useless, because by actively collecting all reported crimes in a given area, we are creating data pools that can be used to show crime trends. You can compare crime trends to previous years to see if the crime rate has increased or decreased. This information is useful to criminologists because they can observe these trends and try to understand what significant changes have occurred in society to explain these changes in crime rates. Crime rates help identify areas of concern so you can take appropriate action to stop crime (more police, tougher laws…). The UCR also helps give the public a rough idea of ​​what is happening in their so... middle of paper... data is imperfect everywhere; since the error is consistent, the data is still useful. However, someone from a structuralist perspective would view statistics as a description of the distribution of power in society. They believe that because officials have power, statistics consist only of those events that they choose to recognize or identify as criminal. Someone from a structuralist point of view would look more closely at the law and definition of crime in society and how its laws are implemented (whether certain groups face advantages or disadvantages). For example, they might look at the rate of violent crime and notice an increase. However, since crimes, such as domestic abuse, were previously tolerated, an increase in crime could simply mean that the crime rate has not increased, but the government-recognized crime rate has increased..