Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is the primary information source for offenses reported to state and local law enforcement in the United States. The UCR is the result of an initiative by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) in the 1920s to develop a standardized system for gathering statistics on crimes reported to police. In 1930, the Attorney General of the United States was authorized by Congress to coordinate a national crime-reporting effort under the auspices of the FBI. The UCR is published on a yearly basis and provides information on murder or nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, auto theft, arson, and larceny/theft offenses reported to state and local law enforcement. These eight offenses are thought to provide a fair representation of the crime picture as a whole, and their total number make up what is called a “crime index.” Another part of the UCR is arrest information for a variety of offenses, including misdemeanors and felonies, and statistical information for reporting law enforcement agencies.

The number of law enforcement agencies participating in the UCR system has grown from 400 agencies in 43 states in 1930 to more than 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in 2001. The submission of crime data to the FBI is voluntary, but most states also have their own uniform crimereporting requirements. Those states forward much of the data received from individual agencies within the state, as part of a state-based crime reporting effort, to the FBI for inclusion in the UCR. The UCR, however, does not contain information on the number of federal offenses reported to specific federal law enforcement agencies.