Knowing how much crime is happening, what type of crime, where, by whom, and to whom is all important data that needs to be tracked if we are to be able to determine what is or is not working. This may not sound too complicated, but it is much easier said than done. Think about what it would take to get a clear picture of what is happening in every community across the United States in terms of criminal behavior. We already know not everyone gets caught when they commit a crime, so that shows us immediately that we will never know what is really going on. However, we need to have a good idea of the crime situation to figure out what to do about it, so criminal justice professionals have been working on creating a source of data and statistics that can guide everyone in the field looking for solutions to achieving public safety.

For this reason, there are commonly accepted official sources of crime data and statistics. Data are gathered from every type of criminal justice agency, such as local police departments, sheriff’s departments, state police, college campus police, tribal agencies, federal agencies, and all types of courts. From this giant collection of information, we try to determine the total number of crimes reported to law enforcement or the total number of arrests made by each agency. Again, this sounds pretty straight-forward but consider if an officer uses their discretion and decides not to arrest a person who has committed a crime. That means a crime occurred but will not be officially reported. There is no way of knowing for sure how often that happens. What we do know is what is reported and, as long as we admit there are limitations to these data, we can all agree to use them to get a fairly clear view (like looking through a dirty window) of what is happening with crime in the United States.

There are two main sources for crime data in the United States. They are the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’s (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Both have their own pros and cons, different purposes, and different approaches to understanding crime. The benefit of these differences is that we can get a more complete picture by using them together.

2.2.1 The Uniform Crime Report

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is the largest, most commonly used data currently available on crime. The UCR tracks the known occurrences of specific crimes that were reported to the police and the number of arrests made. These crimes include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and human trafficking. The UCR is publicly available, and you can see it here: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr

The goal of the UCR is to gather and provide reliable information for law enforcement to make data-informed decisions in their policies and practices. This database is used by law enforcement, researchers, the media, students, and the public. It was started in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to meet the need for reliable standardized crime statistics for the country. In 1930, the FBI was put in charge of collecting, publishing, and archiving those statistics. There are about 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies in the country and they are all asked to voluntarily participate in the UCR program by submitting their data on the number of crimes reported and number of arrests in their jurisdiction to the FBI each month. Note that participation is voluntary. That means submitting data to the UCR is strongly encouraged, but not required. That also means some of the 18,000 agencies may not submit their data in a timely manner every month, with consistency, and accurately as would be needed for this database to be completely reliable.

The FBI recognizes this limitation and the contributing factors to crime rates that cannot be represented in these data. The agency states, “Since crime is a sociological phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors, the FBI discourages ranking locations or making comparisons as a way of measuring law enforcement effectiveness. Some of this data may not be comparable to previous years because of differencing levels of participation over time” (FBI, 2022a). In other words, this means they recognize crime is not a simple, straight-forward act. It is influenced by many factors and none of those are recorded in the database. Also, the database is not complete because of the voluntary nature, so making comparisons across 18,000 agencies would not be appropriate.

Consider what voluntary participation means in terms of what data could be missing. There may also be some agencies that are more likely to report than others, skewing what is known about the reality of crime in certain areas or among certain populations. Still, despite these challenges, the UCR is still our best source for knowing what is happening with crime on a national level. In other words, it is an educated guess or a well-informed likelihood upon which law enforcement around the country, researchers, the media, students, and the public can make important decisions about crime.

The UCR consists of five main data collections:

• The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
• Hate Crime Statistics Data Collection
• Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA)
• National Use-of-Force Data Collection
• National Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection

We’ll look at each of these data collections, their uses, and their strengths and weaknesses.

2.2.2 National Incident-Based Reporting System

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) was created in the 1980s to improve the overall quality of crime data collected by law enforcement in the UCR. NIBRS is unique because it collects data on crimes reported to the police, but also incidents where multiple crimes are committed, for example when a robbery escalates into a rape. That may seem obvious, but the UCR only tracks one crime per incident, so NIBRS has far more detailed information.

NIBRS also collects information on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, and property involved in the crimes. The downside is that it only collects data from a little over 5,000 of the 18,000 agencies in the country. That means NIBRS covers only about 20% of law enforcement agencies and crime in the U.S.

In hopes of improving participation, the UCR program began partnering with the Bureau of Justice Statistics on a National Crime Statistics Exchange. The goal was to transition all participation from UCR to NIBRS, starting January 2021. As a result, NIBRS will be the main source of data on crime in the United States with a law enforcement perspective going forward. You can view NIBRS at: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/nibrs

The FBI reports, “When used to its full potential, NIBRS identifies, with precision, when and where crime takes place, what form it takes, and the characteristics of its victims and perpetrators. Armed with such information, law enforcement can better define the resources it needs to fight crime, as well as use those resources in the most efficient and effective manner” (FBI, 2022c).

NIBRS tracks data on 52 different crimes and collects more detailed information on each incident including data and time, victim, offender, demographics, location, property information, drug types and amounts, drug or alcohol involvement, gang involvement, and the use of a computer in the commission of the crime. In this manner, NIBRS paints a more thorough picture of the context surrounding each offense.

For example, from UCR we can learn the number of arrests for murder that occurred during the summer of 2021 in Salem, Oregon, the state’s capital. That is all we would know, just the tally. However, NIBRS could tell us the number of arrests for murder along with demographic of the perpetrator and the victim, their relationship, the location, if one or both of them were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, if any property was affected and in what way, and if anyone involved had a gang affiliation – all for every murder that occurred during the summer of 2021 in Salem, Oregon. This gives us more robust information to get a more thorough understanding of what happened in the capital city and to try to figure out why and what to do about it.

2.2.3 Hate Crime Statistics Act

Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act (28 U.S.C. § 534) on April 23, 1990, that required data collection “about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” Bias is a feeling, usually connected to an action, that is either for or against something, someone, or a group and is often considered unfair. Bias crimes, then, are criminal acts based on that particular bias. Tracking of bias crimes related to disability were added in 1994 through the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Gender and gender identity bias were added in 2009 through the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is in response to two horrendous hate crimes that occurred in 1998. This Act of Congress was passed on October 22, 2009, more than a decade after the crimes occurred. This bill updated the 1969 federal hate crime law to:

• Include crimes motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
• Remove the prerequisite that the victim be engaging in a federally protected activity like voting or going to school when the hate crime is related to race, skin color, religion, or national origin.
• Give the federal authorities more authority to conduct hate crimes investigations if local authorities do not choose to do so.
• Provide funding for hate crime investigation and prosecution.
• Expand the FBI’s tracking of hate crimes.

2.2.4.3 Recognizing More Categories

In 2013, the “religion category” was expanded to include seven additional religions and an anti-Arab bias motivation. As a result of all these updates, more thorough data are now collected through the UCR “about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.”

This database tracks the offense type, location, bias motivation, victim type, number of individual victims, number of offenders, and the race of the offenders. As with the examples of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., the crimes represented in this database are all those motivated by hatred the perpetrator feels toward a targeted class of individuals.

Consider the 2017 stabbing on the Max Light Rail train in Portland, Oregon. One day after assaulting a Black woman on the same public transit system, Jeremy Christian stabbed and killed two white men and injured a third when they tried to intervene in yet another hate crime incident. Christian, a white supremacist and white nationalist, was shouting racist and anti-Muslim slurs at two Black teenage girls on the Max. Even in court, while witnesses and survivors were giving testimony, he continued his attack yelling, “I should have killed you, bitch” among other racist and hateful rants. Christian was found guilty and convicted of 15 counts including aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder, and first-degree assault among others. He was sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole plus an additional 51.5 years. This is just one example of the type of offense recorded in the Hate Crimes Statistics database.

2.2.4.4 Hate Crime Data

The types of hate crimes reported to the FBI are broken down by specific categories. The particulars of hate crime data collected for each incident include the following:

• Bias Motivation: These data are categorized by the type of bias motivation for each offense. There can be anywhere from one type of bias all the way up to five different types of bias for a single crime.
• Victims: These data are categorized by the type of victim in each hate crime incident. These can include individual adults, juveniles, businesses, institutions, or even the whole society.
• Offenders: These data are categorized by demographic information about the offender in a hate crime. It may include race/ethnicity, age, gender, and how many different offenders were involved.
• Location Type: These data are chosen from a list of 46 location types that can be designated for each offense. For example, the location type could be a house of worship, school, or public transportation.
• Jurisdiction: This dataset includes information about the jurisdiction in which each crime was committed. It may fall under the jurisdiction of a federal, state, or a local agency.

You can see the Hate Crime Statistics here: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/hate-crime

2.2.4.5 Bias Categories

The FBI UCR Program’s Hate Crime Statistics gathers data on the following biases that include race/ethnicity/ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. The table in figure 2.2 shows the current list of bias categories and specific biases in each category (as of 2022). This list began in 1992 and is updated as new laws are passed or new incidents occur as in the case of adding actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in 2009 and expanding the religion category in 2013.

Figure 2.2 FBI UCR Program’s Hate Crime Statistics Bias Cateoriges.

2.2.5 Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted

Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) provides data on incidents in which law enforcement officers were killed or injured in the line of duty. The FBI explains, “The goal is to provide relevant, high quality, potentially lifesaving information to law enforcement agencies focusing on why an incident occurred, as opposed to what occurred during the incident, with the hope of preventing future incidents” (FBI, 2022c). The focus of LEOKA is law enforcement officers on the street, interacting with the public in the community, namely deaths or injuries in the line-of-duty. For this reason, there are no statistics on deaths or injuries of corrections officers, court bailiffs, parole and probation officers, judges, attorneys, private security officers, or federal Bureau of Prison officers.

This database is predominantly used by the FBI to inform their Officer Safety Awareness Training (OSAT). In this manner, officers can learn from experience how to better recognize scenarios and circumstances that have an increased likelihood of fatal danger so they can train on prevention and new safety measures. You can view the LEOKA data here: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/leoka

2.2.6 National Use-of-Force Data Collection

The National Use-of-Force Data Collection was created in 2015 to improve the collection of statistics on use of force by law enforcement with the goal of providing transparency and improving trust with the public. With the slogan of “Transparency. Accountability. Trust.” this relatively new data collection has the aim of improving the manner in which statistics about law enforcement’s use of force are collected, analyzed, and used.

These data include any use of force that results in the death or serious bodily injury of someone, and any time an officer fires their weapon at or toward anyone. Importantly, the FBI notes, “The National Use-of-Force Data Collection offers big-picture insights, rather than information on specific incidents. The collection does not assess or report whether officials followed their department’s policy or acted lawfully” (FBI, 2022d).

You can view this database here: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/use-of-force

2.2.6.1 Information Collected in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection

Incident Information

1. Date and time
2. Total number of officers who applied force
3. Number of officers from reporting agency who applied force
4. Location
5. Location type (street, business, home, etc.)
6. Did the officer(s) approach the subjects?
7. Was it an ambush incident?
8. Was a supervisor or senior officer consulted during the incident?
9. Reason for initial contact (routine patrol, traffic stop, etc.)
10. If the initial contact was due to unlawful activity, what was the most serious offense the individual was suspected of?
11. If applicable, the reporting agency will include the National Incident-Based Reporting System record or local incident number of the report detailing criminal incident information on the subject and/or assault or homicide of a law enforcement officer.
12. If the incident involved multiple agencies, the reporting agency should provide case numbers for the other agencies’ incident reports.

Subject Information

1. Age, sex, race, ethnicity, height, and weight
2. Injury/death of subject
3. Type of force used
4. Did the subject direct a threat to the officer or another person?
5. Did the subject resist?
6. Types of resistance or weapon involvement (threats, active aggression, firearms, etc.)
7. Did the subject have a known or apparent impairment, such as mental health condition or being under the influence of drugs or alcohol?
8. Was the subject believed to have a weapon?

Officer Information

1. Age, sex, race, ethnicity, height, and weight
2. Years of service in law enforcement
3. Was the officer a full-time employee?
4. Was the officer on duty?
5. Did the officer discharge a firearm?
6. Was the officer injured?
7. If so, what was the officer’s injury type?

Source: https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/use-of-force

2.2.7 Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection

As the newest of the FBI’s UCR data collections, the goal of Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection (LESDC) is to learn more about the loss of current and former law enforcement officers, corrections employees, 911 operators, judges, and prosecutors to prevent future suicides or suicide attempts. This database contains the circumstances and events that occurred before the suicide or attempt, the location, demographics, occupation, and the method used. Any data submitted does not include any information that directly identifies the involved officer. LESDC opened in January 2022 for data submissions, and the first report is expected soon.

2.2.8 Limitations and Challenges

As we said, there are limitations to these databases. Completely reliable crime reporting is more complicated than it sounds. You already know submitting reports to these databases is voluntary. And you already know if an officer does not make an arrest or charges are not filed, that affects the data. But there is even more to consider.

For example, a police agency may need to change their attention to address certain events, which will, in turn, affect their number and type of arrests. Let’s say they decide to do a special crackdown on domestic violence perpetrators by completing an arrest on every home disturbance call. They are sending a message to the community that this will be a safe place to live, especially within someone’s own home. However, we must consider what such a crackdown does in terms of data reporting and statistics. The number of arrests for domestic violence will increase, showing a spike in intimate partner violence in their jurisdiction. Just looking at the statistics, it would appear something happened to cause this type of crime to dramatically increase rather than just garnering more attention and intervention. Such a misunderstanding could potentially lead to inappropriate changes to policy and practices.

We also know that not all crime is even reported to law enforcement, so there is a lot of missing data in these statistics. This type of missing data is referred to as the dark figure of crime.