Supplier
DOJ/FBI
Years Available
National and State crime estimates available since 1960
Mode of Collection
Surveillance data: passive data collection.
Description
The Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) is a nationwide, cooperative, statistical effort of more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention. The program's primary objective is to generate a reliable set of criminal statistics for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management; however, over the years, its data have become one of the country's leading social indicators. Eight major classifications of crime, known as the crime index, are tracked to gauge fluctuations in the overall volume and rate of crime. These include the violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, and the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.
Methodology
The UCR receives data from more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies that voluntarily participate in the program. The crime data are submitted either through a state UCR program or directly to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) UCR Program. The UCR Program consists of four data collections: The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the Summary Reporting System (SRS), the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program, and the Hate Crime Statistics Program. The UCR Program publishes annual reports for each of these data collections, preliminary semiannual reports of summary data each winter, as well as special reports and studies. The UCR is currently in transition; the NIBRS is set to become the UCR data standard by January 1, 2021. The NIBRS, which was implemented to improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement, captures details on each single crime incident—as well as on separate offenses within the same incident—including information on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, and property involved in the crimes. NIBRS-only data collection is expected to provide more detailed, richer data on more offenses than is currently available through summary data.
Response Rates and Sample Size
Over 18,000 law enforcement agencies participate in the UCR.
