In 1929 the International Association of the Chiefs of Police requested that a national database for reliable crime statistics be made available. In 1930 the FBI was designated to collect, publish and archive these statistics and today the Uniform Crime Report has spread to include many different facets of crime statistics that are made available to the nation’s police departments and others who have an interest in such matters.
The FBI is able to compile these statistics by the information gathered from over 17,000 police agencies in the United States, today the Uniform Crime Report details many different aspects of crime and breaks them down into different categories making it easier to identify which area a specific crime may fall under. There are two ways that the FBI collects the information that is used in the UCR, the first is through what is considered the more traditional summary reporting system and the other is called the National Incident Based Reporting System. (NIBRS)
For the more traditional summary reporting, there is made available to law enforcement forms that streamline the process by which the information is collected. Some of these forms include:
Return A- Monthly Return of Offenses Known to the Police- this form is used by local, state, and federal agencies to collect data that becomes known to them
Supplement to Return A- this form is used to describe the nature of the crime the type of crime and the value of property stolen or recovered.
Supplementary Homicide Report- this form is used to collect additional data about the victim and if possible the perpetrator and the relationship, if any, between them, the weapon used and if possible the circumstances that led to the homicide.
Quarterly Hate Crime Report-this report is used to designate the agency reporting the crimes, to refute any previously reported hate crimes that have since been found to not be, and to state the number of incidents to be reported for the time period.
Hate Crime Incident Report- this report entails the offense where it happened, the motivation for the incident, the specific type of victim, and how many and the race of the perpetrators.
This is only a small sampling of some of the information that is collected by the FBI in its attempt to cover to some degree the crime statistics throughout the entire United States. There are several publications throughout the year that make available the previous year’s tally of incidents. At present there are six different publications that will be released in any given year:
Statistics for Police Officers Killed
Annual Uniform Crime Report Crime in the United States
Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted Hate Crime Statistics
Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, at year’s end a preliminary report of the current year’s first six months.
While these statistics may at first only be released to law enforcement agencies, they are also available for public viewing and can be found on the FBI’s website. The information compiled in these reports enables law enforcement agencies to plan their budgets and allocate their resources where they are most needed as well as to address the crime issues. The information gathered is also used by others such as tourism boards, researchers, legislators, and the news media. This data-base of information makes it possible for local and state officials to address the crime issues in their own areas and to better understand what is needed in their area as well as nationwide.
