The FBI released its Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report last week indicating that violent crime in the United States is down 4.6 percent overall. The report, which marks the first FBI statistics for the 2014 calendar year, compares crime levels from January to June to the same period in 2013. The charts below highlight five important takeaways from the FBI’s report. Click here to read Law how the Top 10 Safest and Most Dangerous Cities fared with the latest data.

1. Crime is Down… Again

Despite a slight uptick in 2012, violent crime levels have been decreasing for years, and the preliminary numbers for 2014 are no exception. Overall violent crime was down 4.6 percent in the first six months of last year relative to the first six months of 2013. This downward trend in violent crime is not limited to the first six months of the year; annual statistics have shown a decrease in violent crime in six of the last seven years. The full year statistics for 2013 indicate that violent crime was down 18 percent when compared to the level in 2000.

The chart below details the change in violent crime from January to June for the past seven years. Note: each bar represents a percent change relative to the first six months of the previous year.

2. Better Data on Rape in America

Starting January 1, 2013, the FBI began using a new definition of rape to make the measure more inclusive and as a result more representative of the crimes that occur. Due to the nature of the UCR program, where cities and states voluntarily report their crime statistics to the FBI, it is up to individual law enforcement agencies set a time frame for adopting new procedures. It typically takes several years before a change in the reporting system is universally adapted by reporting agencies.

The preliminary semiannual report only includes agencies with three to six months of comparable data in two consecutive years. This means that the report does not cover the details of every agency in the United States, particularly agencies that recently transitioned to the new rape definition in 2014, as comparable data is not available. A better understanding of how many agencies use the new definition we be available once all full-year data for 2014 is submitted to the FBI.

The chart below indicates the total number of agencies that report using the revised and legacy definitions of rape as well as the the share of the population that they cover. Note: because this graphic is only based on agencies included in the recent report, the total number of agencies and total population is lower than it would be for the entire United States.

3. Violent Crime Fell Across Nearly All Categories

With the exception of the legacy definition of rape as discussed above, crime numbers decreased for every category of violent crime. The number of robberies experienced the steepest decline, falling more than ten percent relative to the first six months of 2013. Agencies using the revised definition of rape also had a significant decrease, though those numbers only cover about 55 percent of the population in this report. The total number of murders also had a notable decrease, going down six percent or more for the second year in a row.

4. Midwestern Crime is Dropping Faster Than the Rest of the Nation

According to the recent FBI report, violent crime decreased in every region during the first six months of 2014. The Midwest saw the largest decline at -7.6 percent, followed by the Northeast at -6.6 percent, then the South at -3 percent, ending with the West at -2.7 percent. The chart below indicates the regions defined by the FBI and the change in their violent crime levels.

Source: FBI Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report 2014, Table 2

5. Crime Dropped Across Every Population Group

The recent FBI report indicates that violent crime went down in every single population grouping. Led by cities with populations of 10,000 people or fewer, which saw a 6.7 percent decrease in overall violent crime and a 17.8 percent drop in murders. The chart below shows the change in violent crime for each of the eight population groupings used by the FBI as well as the number of law enforcement agencies in each grouping and their population coverage.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Tucked into the hills of Clarksburg, West Virginia sits one of the FBI’s largest and most secure facilities. The 1,000-acre technology campus holds the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), providing critical support services to American law enforcement across the country.

When arriving at the Clarksburg complex the heightened level of security is easy to notice. Visitors are background checked in advance and escorted while on the property. Although walls do not surround the complex, FBI agents patrol its grounds on ATVs. Visitors trade their drivers license for a temporary ID in order to to pass through the security checkpoint at the entrance.

The 500,000-square-foot facility in the center spans the length of nearly three football fields, housing roughly 2,600 employees. Also inside on the property is a daycare center, a 600-seat cafeteria, a fitness center, and even a power plant.

So what exactly does the FBI do there, and why does it need such security?

Not only does it house the largest division within the FBI, underneath the main office building is one of the FBI’s most important data centers. It is the home of the Law Enforcement Records Management System, which includes the largest fingerprint repository in the world, the FBI’s centralized criminal records database, the National Instant Background Check System, and several technology services for law enforcement across the country. The National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a database containing over 11 million records of criminal justice information, is used millions of times each day by American law enforcement. Whether you are buying a gun, having your background checked, or simply being pulled over by a police officer, the CJIS Division’s servers are contacted millions of times daily. Considering the importance of the information stored there and the services provided by CJIS, the security at the Clarksburg complex seems understandable.

Underneath this courtyard sits the FBI’s 100,000-square-foot data center. It provides 24/7 support to law enforcement across the United States. Courtesy of Law Street Media.

Beyond supporting the internal operations of American law enforcement, the West Virginia campus is also home to one of the FBI’s most important public facing services: the nation’s crime statistics.

Inside the Uniform Crime Report

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is tasked with collecting and publishing crime statistics for nearly every law enforcement agency across the country. At its inception in 1930, the program gathered statistics from 400 cities representing roughly 20 million Americans. Over time the program expanded and today it covers more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies representing 98 percent of Americans. Each year the UCR Program publishes the Crime in the United States publication, which details the country’s crime statistics on a national, state, and local level. The report is arguably the most talked about FBI publication each year, providing standardized crime statistics for agencies across the country.

Throughout its existence, the Program has undergone several important changes and improvements, but few are as extensive and as significant as the recent updates to the UCR system. From updating crime definitions to the adaptation of an entirely new system for collecting and evaluating data, the UCR is rapidly modernizing, and it is long overdue.

“We are running on 1970s technology,” said Amy Blasher, the Unit Chief of the Crime Statistics Management Unit within the CJIS. “We are in the middle of a major redesign, overhaul, [for a] brand new UCR system.” Historically, the process has been done manually, by reviewing stacks of paper submitted by law enforcement agencies, but the new system aims to eliminate paper reports altogether. Starting in July 2013, the UCR Program required all reporting agencies to begin submitting statistics in a computerized format.

The recent changes to the UCR program aim to automate much of the quality checking process, create more comprehensive data, reduce the use of paper, and ultimately decrease the amount of time it takes for information to be publicly available. “What the new system is going to allow us to do is have a public facing piece that will be able to push the data out from the states,” Blasher said. And in doing so people “will be able to go in more real time and see the data.”

The creation of each publication is a very intensive process, involving constant interaction with reporting agencies, reviewing all data to ensure quality, and collaboration among UCR staff. The FBI receives most of the statistics from state UCR agencies that collect the information from individual agencies. Currently, 46 states have a centralized UCR program. Agencies in the remaining four states report to the FBI directly. Each month the UCR program compiles and reviews each state’s data, but the statistics are not publicly available until the end of the following year. In addition to collecting the statistics, the UCR Program also creates annual reports for law enforcement and the public. The Multimedia Publications Group ensures that the information is effectively presented to the public by highlighting key findings and putting them in terms that are easy to understand.

Current Problems

The statistics provided by the Uniform Crime Reporting Program do have their limitations. The Summary Reporting System, which is used in the annual report, has been criticized for providing incomplete data.The Summary system’s hierarchy rule requires only the most significant offense to be recorded. The Summary system only tracks eight specific crimes that are grouped into two categories, violent crimes and property crimes. Statistics only detail the number of crimes known to law enforcement and only provide limited information about the nature of each offense. Law enforcement agencies and state UCR programs provide statistics voluntarily, as there is no federal reporting requirement for agencies. While the UCR Program audits state programs every three years, individual agency audits are voluntarily and cannot result in any form of punishment if statistics are inaccurate or incomplete. This essentially means that reporting practices are up to the discretion of each agency.

Despite its drawbacks, the UCR remains the most definitive source of crime information available. According to statistician and UCR Unit Chief Dr. Samuel Berhanu, “it is one of the richest data sets in this country,” and is one of the longest standing series of crime data in the entire world. Throughout the UCR Program’s lifespan, the FBI has a history of responding to criticism and improving its statistics. Recently, updates to the UCR are starting to happen at a much faster rate. As demand for more accurate and more frequent statistics grows, the FBI has responded with better definitions and new procedures that are more efficient.

One of most notable improvements is the redefinition of rape, which the Bureau expanded to record the crime more accurately. Many law enforcement agencies began using the new definition in January 2013, and the most recent Crime in the United States publication, released in November, marks the first full year statistics with the updated definition.

Further changes to the UCR Program include the addition of human trafficking and animal cruelty to the list of crimes in the Summary Reporting System. Significant expansions of hate crime definitions and reporting codes have also started to take effect. The FBI will now track hate crimes with gender and gender identity biases, seven new religious biases, and an anti-Arab bias. The new and improved definitions will allow law enforcement and the public to understand the nature of crime in the United States in unprecedented ways.

Even more changes are likely to come, as new recommendations are making their way through the FBI. There are two ways that changes to the UCR can occur: by legislation from Congress or internally through CJIS’ Advisory Policy Board (APB). The APB is divided into regional working groups that include representatives from states and localities. Changes from the APB are generally preferred by the FBI because the recommendations generally have law enforcement buy in.

The Advisory Policy Board has its second annual meeting this month where it will likely discuss several policy changes and additions. Two upcoming recommendations are the addition of cyberspace as an offense location and the creation of new policies and definitions for domestic abuse. Changes through the APB help ensure that law enforcement buys into the new procedures and that the changes reflect existing issues with reporting.

Although the UCR Program is undergoing several changes–both in terms of what is collected and how it is processed–important obstacles and limitations remain. When changes to the reporting system occur it typically takes a long time for individual agencies to implement them. In the meantime, inconsistencies exist between different states and even local agencies, making it harder to identify and interpret trends. Similarly, many criticize the available amount of information provided by the Summary Reporting System, as supplemental data is often limited and sometimes unavailable.

The Solution: NIBRS

Criticism of the Summary Reporting System is longstanding, as scholars, the media, and the public have called for more accurate and informative statistics, but what you may not know is that a solution for many of these issues already exists.

The FBI approved the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in 1991, and since then several law enforcement agencies have begun to implement the new comprehensive reporting system. The fundamental goal of the NIBRS is to collect a wide variety of data about each individual incident. NIBRS eliminated the hierarchy rule and collects information about each crime that occurs, even if they all happen at once. It also collects data about the relationship between the victim and the offender, the location of the crime, the time of day, whether a weapon was used, and much more. While the Summary System only uses nine categories for offenses, NIBRS has 22 offense categories with 46 specific crimes. As Blasher explains, “In Summary you know a crime occurred, in NIBRS you know a crime occurred, how it occurred, and a lot more of the specifics.”

However, despite the significant improvements that NIBRS can provide, it has faced its own set of obstacles. The most notable challenge is the fact that NIBRS has not been adopted by most law enforcement agencies. According to the 2012 NIBRS publication, there are 6,115 agencies that report statistics using the new system accounting for roughly 33 percent of all law enforcement agencies. Because so few agencies use NIBRS, the data that the system provides cannot provide any conclusions about trends on a national or state level.

The FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has acknowledged the current limitations of the NIBRS data, and in 2012, they announced a plan to expand the system to make its findings nationally significant. A study conducted by the BJS found that a nationally representative sample could exist if the NIBRS program spread to 400 additional agencies. This means that if the additional agencies started using the new system then national trends could be identified without universal implementation of NIBRS. The National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) initiative sought to reach that goal by providing resources and assessments to help the selected agencies adopt the system.

The problem with NIBRS gets to a much larger issue with crime statistics on a national level, and it is not a problem with the FBI. Participation in the Uniform Crime Report is a voluntary decision made by individual agencies, and individual agencies set their own time frame for implementing new changes. Although the FBI works with agencies to implement changes, it is limited by the ability of each agency to comply with the new standards. There have been some notable advancements, as cities like Seattle have adapted NIBRS and created publications to help other agencies follow suit; however, a lot of work remains to bring agencies up to pace and to get the public the full data picture that it demands.

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Modernizing American Crime Stats: A Look Inside the FBI’s Data Division appeared first on Law Street.

Here at Law Street, we focus a lot of attention on the FBI’s annual and semiannual crime statistics, yet these numbers often receive a lot of criticism and are generally not seen as a perfect measure of crime in America. However, these statistics remain the best and most official information available to the public.

According to an FBI document on the proper use of its crime reporting statistics, their reports are created for “use in budget formulation, planning, resource allocation, assessment of police operations, etc., to help address the crime problem at various levels.” The FBI’s publications are widely used by the government and by the press to provide the public with important information about trends in crime.

Although these crime reports have several uses as well as significant implications for policy decisions, it is also important to note that they are not perfect. Uniformity and reporting inconsistencies have long been cited by critics of the statistics. One of the primary contributors to these issues is the fact that all of the data provided by the UCR program is submitted voluntarily by individual agencies. As a result, the FBI is only able to provide recording guidelines and is unable to enforce a universal standard in each state.

About the Uniform Crime Report

According to the FBI, the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is “a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention.” Starting with only 400 cities in 1930, the UCR program has expanded to cover over 98 percent of the population from 9,491 cities in 2012.

The data collected by the UCR is voluntarily submitted by nearly every law enforcement agency in the country, and details the “offenses known to law enforcement,” persons arrested, and police employee data for all participating agencies.

Comparing Cities

The FBI also strongly cautions data users from ranking states, cities, and other localities against each other. According to the FBI, their main argument against ranking is the fact that each city is unique and has different explanations for its crime levels, as well as the fact that there are several contributors to crime that are not apparent in the UCR’s raw data.

We have previously justified our reasons for ranking when our initial coverage of Crime in America was released, but it is important to remember why crime information is so important. We make a specific point to include as much contextual information as possible in our rankings and general Crime in America coverage.

Having said that, there are still several issues with the consistency and uniformity of the UCR that prevent a perfect comparison between different cities and their crime statistics. All but three states in the U.S. have their own state UCR Program, which receives crime reporting information from the agencies in its jurisdiction then passes that information along to the FBI. Consequently, there is a lot of variance between how states report their crimes.

To help alleviate several standardization issues the FBI created the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in the late 1980s. The NIBRS was intended to improve recording practices and gather additional information on offenses. Currently, there are only 31 state UCR Programs that are certified for NIBRS participation. Of those states only 10 report directly using the programs, while the other 21 are in different stages of testing or planning and development.

Other states use the Summary Reporting System (SRS), which covers the same crimes, but does not have as well-defined categories to prevent misclassification and provide expanded information. The lack of a centralized and universally used system has long prevented proper standardization of crime statistics. Also, because the NIBRS is not used everywhere the FBI must convert data submitted using that system to the Summary Reporting System for its annual and semiannual crime reports.

Lack of Standardization

One consequence of the UCR’s lack of standardization is the fact that when changes to the system occur the adjustment process becomes very complicated and typically takes a long time. This can be seen in the adaptation of the FBI’s new definition of rape, which was updated to be more inclusive just this year. Although the change was recent, only some of the cities and states have started using the new definition. It will take several years before all of the 1,800 plus law enforcement agencies to voluntarily adjust their recording methods. In the meantime, the public will have to wait before a more realistic understanding of rape offenses in the U.S. is available.

Despite the new definition of rape, the FBI was still unable to aggregate a violent crime statistic for Chicago in its most recent release. The Chicago Police Department does not report its rape statistics, rather it uses a broader classification called “criminal sexual assault.” Although rape was redefined, the FBI’s definition is still incompatible with the one used in Chicago. Consequently, the city’s violent crime total has been left off the FBI’s report for several years.

Another important issue with the Uniform Crime Report is the issue of city boundaries, which frequently vary in the amount area that is included within the official city limits. As a result, law enforcement agencies are able to include statistics for areas that would not generally be considered part of the city. The inclusion of statistics from cities’ surrounding areas like suburbs, which are generally perceived as safer than the urban core, can have a deflationary effect on crime rates. One notable example of this issue is the case of St. Louis, which has its boundaries drawn tightly around the urban core. As a result, violent crime rates tend to be higher for areas with greater population density, while expansive city boundaries often yield lower numbers in terms of violent crime per capita.

Reporting Issues

The FBI’s uniform crime report often falls under scrutiny for its use of what is called “The Hierarchy Rule.” According to the FBI, this rule “requires counting only the highest offense and ignoring all others.” While it is important to note that this only affects crime reporting and not the actual number of charges against a defendant, it may still lead to incomplete violent crime statistics. Although the NIBRS system does not follow this rule and records each offense individually, its numbers must be converted to the Summary Reporting System for the UCR, which only takes the highest crime in the hierarchy.

Finally, there have been several challenges to the accuracy or reporting done by individual cities, and while a systemic problem remains to be seen there have been multiple incidents of reporting errors. The most recent example of this occurred in Milwaukee, where an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revealed a trend of underreported crime. The Journal Sentinel’s findings prompted a police department review that found over 5,300 underreported aggravated assaults during a six-year period, a 20 percent rate of error. As a result of these misreported crimes, the city’s violent crime rate in 2011 was reported to have decreased by 2.3 percent, when in reality it actually went up by 1.1 percent from the previous year, which also included underreported numbers. Similar problems have been large cities like New Orleans, New York City, and Dallas.

Although there has been a lot of criticism about the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, it remains the most official and accurate source of information available to the public. It represents a significant undertaking from the FBI to aggregate and organize a massive amount of data for public consumption. Despite the UCR’s drawbacks, the FBI has worked to respond to its critics and is continually trying to improve the accuracy of its data.

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Correction: The original version of this article misstated the number of law enforcement agencies that participate in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. There are about 18,000 law enforcement agencies not 1,800.

Kevin Rizzo (@kevinrizzo10)

Featured Image Courtesy of [Flickr]

Kevin Rizzo

Kevin Rizzo is the Crime in America Editor at Law Street Media. An Ohio Native, the George Washington University graduate is a founding member of the company. Contact Kevin at krizzo@LawStreetMedia.com.

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