Uniform Crime Report

1 The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) was designed, developed and implemented by law enforcement for use as a tool for operational and administrative purposes (Uniform, 2004). The program was developed in 1929 under the auspices of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and was later endorsed by the National Sheriff’s Association, which acts in an advisory capacity today. It was the first comprehensive system of crime information developed on a national scale. Because statutes varied so greatly from state to state in their use of terminology for describing criminal behavior, a set of definitions was developed for criminal acts to overcome this problem and it was determined that law enforcement would tabulate the number of criminal acts as defined by the UCR program as they were brought to the attention of law enforcement. Because of the volume involved, it was decided that only serious criminal acts would be counted. The FBI has acted as administrator of the UCR since its inception by Congressional mandate of the program in 1930 (Federal, 2004; Uniform, 2004). It was given the task of collecting, publishing, and archiving these statistics. Today, several annual statistical publications are produced from data provided by over 18,500 law enforcement agencies across the United States (National, 2004). Publications include such statistics as Hate Crime Statistics and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted. The UCR data are used to generate special studies, reports, and monographs, and large databases every year. Information about the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and UCR Frequently Asked Questions are also available on the FBI website. Age-Specific and Race-Specific Arrest Rates for Selected Offenses are available from the UCR Program. NIBRS was created by UCR in response to the need of law enforcement for more flexible, in depth data, and presents comprehensive, detailed information about crime incidents to