This report is the 47th in a series that began in 1973. It provides official estimates of criminal victimizations reported and not reported to police from BJS's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). It describes the characteristics of crimes, victims, and offenders. In addition, this year, BJS provides new classifications of urban, suburban, and rural areas, with the goal of presenting a more accurate picture of where criminal victimizations occur.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) Series, previously called the National Crime Surveys (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization through an ongoing survey of a nationally-representative sample of residential addresses since 1973. The NCVS was designed with four primary objectives: (1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas. The survey categorizes crimes as "personal" or "property." Personal crimes include rape and sexual attack, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and purse-snatching/pocket-picking, while property crimes include burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. Each respondent is asked a series of screen questions designed to determine whether she or he was victimized during the six-month period preceding the first day of the month of the interview. A "household respondent" is also asked to report on crimes against the household as a whole (e.g., burglary, motor vehicle theft). The data include type of crime, month, time, and location of the crime, relationship between victim and offender, characteristics of the offender, self-protective actions taken by the victim during the incident and results of those actions, consequences of the victimization, type of property lost, whether the crime was reported to police and reasons for reporting or not reporting, and offender use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol. Basic demographic information such as age, race, gender, and income is also collected, to enable analysis of crime by various subpopulations. This version of the NCVS, referred to as the collection year, contains records from interviews conducted in the 12 months of the given year. This dataset represents the revised version of the NCVS on a collection year basis for 2016. A collection year contains records from interviews conducted in the 12 months of the given year. Under the collection year format, victimizations are counted in the year the interview is conducted, regardless of the year when the crime incident occurred. The 2016 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) violent and property crime estimates were significantly higher than 2015, but it was not possible to determine the degree to which the change in rates resulted from the sample redesign rather than real changes in U.S. victimization levels. Therefore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) examined the 2015 and 2016 victimization rates separately for new and continuing sample counties in the 2016 Criminal Victimization bulletin. The BJS requested that the Census Bureau create a 2016 revised file with outgoing county interviews from July-December 2015, continuing county interviews from January-June 2016, and all interviews (continuing and new counties) from July-December 2016. In other words, the outgoing 2015 cases replaced the new 2016 cases in the first half of 2016. The files in this study serve as a separate research file to allow data users to make comparisons between 2015, 2016, and 2017 NCVS estimates using a nationally representative sample. It provides a sample that still represents the entire country but does not have the inflated crime rates seen in the new counties in 2016.

In 2023, the violent crime rate in the United States was 363.8 cases per 100,000 of the population. Even though the violent crime rate has been decreasing since 1990, the United States tops the ranking of countries with the most prisoners. In addition, due to the FBI's transition to a new crime reporting system in which law enforcement agencies voluntarily submit crime reports, data may not accurately reflect the total number of crimes committed in recent years. Reported violent crime rate in the United States The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation tracks the rate of reported violent crimes per 100,000 U.S. inhabitants. In the timeline above, rates are shown starting in 1990. The rate of reported violent crime has fallen since a high of 758.20 reported crimes in 1991 to a low of 363.6 reported violent crimes in 2014. In 2023, there were around 1.22 million violent crimes reported to the FBI in the United States. This number can be compared to the total number of property crimes, roughly 6.41 million that year. Of violent crimes in 2023, aggravated assaults were the most common offenses in the United States, while homicide offenses were the least common. Law enforcement officers and crime clearance Though the violent crime rate was down in 2013, the number of law enforcement officers also fell. Between 2005 and 2009, the number of law enforcement officers in the United States rose from around 673,100 to 708,800. However, since 2009, the number of officers fell to a low of 626,900 officers in 2013. The number of law enforcement officers has since grown, reaching 720,652 in 2023. In 2023, the crime clearance rate in the U.S. was highest for murder and non-negligent manslaughter charges, with around 57.8 percent of murders being solved by investigators and a suspect being charged with the crime. Additionally, roughly 46.1 percent of aggravated assaults were cleared in that year. A statistics report on violent crime in the U.S. can be found here.

This dynamic analysis tool allows you to examine National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data on both violent and property victimization by select victim, household, and incident characteristics. The NCVS is the nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. It is an annual data collection conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The NCVS collects information from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households on nonfatal crimes, reported and not reported to the police, against persons age 12 or older. Violent crimes measured by the NCVS include rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. Property crimes include burglary/trespassing, motor-vehicle theft, and theft.

In response to a growing concern about hate crimes, the United States Congress enacted the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990. The Act requires the attorney general to establish guidelines and collect, as part of the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, data "about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and destruction, damage or vandalism of property." Hate crime data collection was required by the Act to begin in calendar year 1990 and to continue for four successive years. In September 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to add disabilities, both physical and mental, as factors that could be considered a basis for hate crimes. Although the Act originally mandated data collection for five years, the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 amended the collection duration "for each calendar year," making hate crime statistics a permanent addition to the UCR program. As with the other UCR data, law enforcement agencies contribute reports either directly or through their state reporting programs. Information contained in the data includes number of victims and offenders involved in each hate crime incident, type of victims, bias motivation, offense type, and location type.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), previously the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization through an ongoing survey of a nationally-representative sample of residential addresses since 1973. The survey is administered by the United States Census Bureau (under the United States Department of Commerce) on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (under the United States Department of Justice). Occasionally there have been extract or supplement files created from the NCVS and NCS data series. This extract contains two data files, a weighted person-based file, and a weighted incident-based file, which contain the "core" counties within the top 40 National Crime Victimization Survey Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). Core counties within these MSAs are defined as those self-representing primary sampling units that are common to the MSA definitions determined by the Office of Management and Budget for the 1970-based, 1980-based, and 1990-based sample designs. Each MSA is comprised of only the core counties and not all counties within the MSA. The person-based file contains select household and person variables for all people in NCVS-interviewed households in the core counties of the 40 largest MSAs from January 1979 through December 2004. The incident-based file contains select household, person, and incident variables for persons who reported a violent crime within any of the core counties of the 40 largest MSAs from January 1979 through December 2004. Household, person, and incident information for persons reporting non-violent crime are excluded from this file. The 40 largest MSAs were determined based on the number of household interviews in an MSA.

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the late 1970s, the law enforcement community called for a thorough evaluative study of the UCR with the objective of recommending an expanded and enhanced UCR program to meet law enforcement needs into the 21st century. The FBI fully concurred with the need for an updated program to meet contemporary needs and provided its support, formulating a comprehensive redesign effort. Following a multiyear study, a "Blueprint for the Future of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program" was developed. Using the "Blueprint" and in consultation with local and state law enforcement executives, the FBI formulated new guidelines for the Uniform Crime Reports. The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is being implemented to meet these guidelines. NIBRS data are archived at ICPSR as 13 separate data files, which may be merged by using linkage variables. The data focus on a variety of aspects of a crime incident. Part 4, Administrative Segment, offers data on the incident itself (date and time). Each crime incident is delineated by one administrative segment record. Also provided are Part 5, Offense Segment (offense type, location, weapon use, and bias motivation), Part 6, Property Segment (type of property loss, property description, property value, drug type and quantity), Part 7, Victim Segment (age, sex, race, ethnicity, and injuries), Part 8, Offender Segment (age, sex, and race), and Part 9, Arrestee Segment (arrest date, age, sex, race, and weapon use). The Batch Header Segment (Parts 1-3) separates and identifies individual police agencies by Originating Agency Identifier (ORI). Batch Header information, which is contained on three records for each ORI, includes agency name, geographic location, and population of the area. Part 10, Group B Arrest Report Segment, includes arrestee data for Group B crimes. Window Segments files (Parts 11-13) pertain to incidents for which the complete Group A Incident Report was not submitted to the FBI. In general, a Window Segment record will be generated if the incident occurred prior to January 1 of the previous year or if the incident occurred prior to when the agency started NIBRS reporting. As with UCR, participation in NIBRS is voluntary on the part of law enforcement agencies. The data are not a representative sample of crime in the United States. For 1999, 18 states, fully or partially participating in NIBRS, were included in the dataset.

These data provide information on the number of arrests reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program each year by police agencies in the United States. These arrest reports provide data on 43 offenses including violent crime, drug use, gambling, and larceny. The data received by ICPSR were structured as a hierarchical file containing, per reporting police agency: an agency header record, and 1 to 43 detail offense records containing the counts of arrests by age, sex, and race for a particular offense. ICPSR restructured the original data to logical record length format with the agency header record variables copied onto the detail records. Consequently, each record contains arrest counts for a particular agency-offense.

Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has compiled the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) to serve as periodic nationwide assessments of reported crimes not available elsewhere in the criminal justice system. Seven main classifications of crime were chosen to gauge fluctuations in the overall volume and rate of crime. These seven classifications that eventually became known as the Crime Index included the violent crimes of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, and the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. By congressional mandate, arson was added as the eighth Index offense in 1979. Arson is defined as any willful or malicious burning or attempt to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling house, public building, motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, etc. The arson data files include monthly data on the number of arson offenses reported and the number of offenses cleared by arrest or other means. The counts include all reports of arson received from victims, officers who discovered infractions, or other sources.

In 2023, murder and manslaughter charges had the highest crime clearance rate in the United States, with 57.8 percent of all cases being cleared by arrest or so-called exceptional means. Motor vehicle theft cases had the lowest crime clearance rate, at 8.2 percent. What is crime clearance? Within the U.S. criminal justice system, criminal cases can be cleared (or closed) one of two ways. The first is through arrest, which means that at least one person has either been arrested, charged with an offense, or turned over to the court for prosecution. The second way a case can be closed is through what is called exceptional means, where law enforcement must have either identified the offender, gathered enough evidence to arrest, charge, and prosecute someone, identified the offender’s exact location, or come up against a circumstance outside the control of law enforcement that keeps them from arresting and prosecuting the offender. Crime in the United States Despite what many people may believe, crime in the United States has been on the decline. Particularly in regard to violent crime, the violent crime rate has almost halved since 1990, meaning that the U.S. is safer than it was almost 30 years ago. However, due to the FBI's recent transition to a new crime reporting system in which law enforcement agencies voluntarily report crime data, it is possible that figures do not accurately reflect the total amount of crime in the country.

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The extract files version of NIBRS was created to simplify working with NIBRS data. Data management issues with NIBRS are significant, especially when two or more segment levels are being merged. These issues require skills separate from data analysis. NIBRS data as formatted by the FBI are stored in a single file. These data are organized by various segment levels (record types). There are six main segment levels: administrative, offense, property, victim, offender, and arrestee. Each segment level has a different length and layout. There are other segment levels that occur with less frequency than the six main levels. Significant computing resources are necessary to work with the data in its single-file format. In addition, the user must be sophisticated in working with data in complex file types. For these reasons and the desire to facilitate the use of NIBRS data, ICPSR created the extract files. The data are not a representative sample of crime in the United States.

The files in this collection contain counts of arrests and offenses for Part I and Part II offenses: murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, auto theft, arson, forgery, fraud, embezzlement, vandalism, weapons violations, sex offenses, drug and alcohol abuse violations, gambling, vagrancy, curfew violations, and runaways. County populations are also reported.

The Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) collects crime reports from more than 500 New York State police and sheriffs’ departments. DCJS compiles these reports as New York’s official crime statistics and submits them to the FBI under the National Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. UCR uses standard offense definitions to count crime in localities across America regardless of variations in crime laws from state to state. In New York State, law enforcement agencies use the UCR system to report their monthly crime totals to DCJS. The UCR reporting system collects information on seven crimes classified as Index offenses which are most commonly used to gauge overall crime volume. These include the violent crimes of murder/non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault; and the property crimes of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Firearm counts are derived from taking the number of violent crimes which involve a firearm. Population data are provided every year by the FBI, based on US Census information. Police agencies may experience reporting problems that preclude accurate or complete reporting. The counts represent only crimes reported to the police but not total crimes that occurred. DCJS posts preliminary data in the spring and final data in the fall.

This Alberta Official Statistic describes the violent crime rates for Canada and provinces for the years from 1998 to 2014. The rate is based on the incidence of violent crime per 100,000 population in each province. The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS), in co-operation with the policing community, collects police-reported crime statistics through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey. The UCR Survey was designed to measure the incidence of crime in Canadian society and its characteristics. UCR data reflect reported crime that has been substantiated by police. Information collected by the survey includes the number of criminal incidents, the clearance status of those incidents and persons-charged information. The UCR Survey produces a continuous historical record of crime and traffic statistics reported by every police agency in Canada since 1962. In 1988, a new version of the survey (UCR3) was created, which is referred to as the "incident-based" survey. It captures microdata on characteristics of incidents, victims and accused. Data from the UCR Survey provide key information for crime analysis, resource planning and program development for the policing community. Municipal and provincial governments use the data to aid decisions about the distribution of police resources, definitions of provincial standards and for comparisons with other departments and provinces. To the federal government, the UCR survey provides information for policy and legislative development, evaluation of new legislative initiatives, and international comparisons. To the public, the UCR survey offers information on the nature and extent of police-reported crime and crime trends in Canada. As well, media, academics and researchers use these data to examine specific issues about crime.

Serious violent crimes consist of Part 1 offenses as defined by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Uniform Reporting Statistics. These include murders, nonnegligent homicides, rapes (legacy and revised), robberies, and aggravated assaults. LAPD data were used for City of Los Angeles, LASD data were used for unincorporated areas and cities that contract with LASD for law enforcement services, and CA Attorney General data were used for all other cities with local police departments. This indicator is based on location of residence. Single-year data are only available for Los Angeles County overall, Service Planning Areas, Supervisorial Districts, City of Los Angeles overall, and City of Los Angeles Council Districts.Neighborhood violence and crime can have a harmful impact on all members of a community. Living in communities with high rates of violence and crime not only exposes residents to a greater personal risk of injury or death, but it can also render individuals more susceptible to many adverse health outcomes. People who are regularly exposed to violence and crime are more likely to suffer from chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. They are also less likely to be able to use their parks and neighborhoods for recreation and physical activity.For more information about the Community Health Profiles Data Initiative, please see the initiative homepage.

The ACT Criminal Justice Statistical Profile (the Profile) is a historical series of crime data that is compiled twice a year by the Legislation, Policy and Programs Branch (LPP) of the ACT Government Justice and Community Safety Directorate and tabled in the Legislative Assembly.

The profile contains data from ACT Policing, ACT Ambulance Service, Canberra and Calvary Hospitals’ Emergency Departments, ACT Sobering Up Shelter, Domestic Violence Crisis Service, Restorative Justice Unit, ACT Magistrates Court, Supreme Court of the ACT, Access Canberra, Office of Children, Youth and Family Support, Community Services Directorate, ACT Corrective Services, Galambany ‘Circle Sentencing’ Court and Victim Support ACT.

The purpose of the National Crime Surveys is to provide data on the level of crime victimization in the United States and to collect data on the characteristics of crime incidents and victims. Information about each household and personal victimization was recorded. The data include type of crime, description of the offender, severity of crime, injuries or losses, and demographic characteristics of household members.

This collection presents survey data from 12 cities in the United States regarding criminal victimization, perceptions of community safety, and satisfaction with local police. Participating cities included Chicago, IL, Kansas City, MO, Knoxville, TN, Los Angeles, CA, Madison, WI, New York, NY, San Diego, CA, Savannah, GA, Spokane, WA, Springfield, MA, Tucson, AZ, and Washington, DC. The survey used the current National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) questionnaire with a series of supplemental questions measuring the attitudes in each city. Respondents were asked about incidents that occurred within the past 12 months. Information on the following crimes was collected: violent crimes of rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault, personal crimes of theft, and household crimes of burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Part 1, Household-Level Data, covers the number of household respondents, their ages, type of housing, size of residence, number of telephone lines and numbers, and language spoken in the household. Part 2, Person-Level Data, includes information on respondents' sex, relationship to householder, age, marital status, education, race, time spent in the housing unit, personal crime and victimization experiences, perceptions of neighborhood crime, job and professional demographics, and experience and satisfaction with local police. Variables in Part 3, Incident-Level Data, concern the details of crimes in which the respondents were involved, and the police response to the crimes.

This supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (formerly the National Crime Surveys) was designed to collect data on crime victimization in schools in the United States. Student respondents were asked a series of questions to determine their school attendance in the last six months. Other questions concerning schools were posed including preventive measures employed by schools, students' participation in after-school activities, students' perception of school rules and enforcement of these rules, the presence of weapons, drugs, alcohol, and gangs in schools, student bullying, hate-related incidents, and attitudinal questions relating to the fear of victimization at school. Other variables cover general violent crimes, personal larceny crimes, and household crimes and offer information on date, time, and place of crime. Demographic characteristics of household members such as age, sex, race, education, employment, household income, and marital status are provided.

These data provide information on the number of arrests reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program each year by police agencies in the United States. Although not as well known as the "Crimes Known to the Police" data drawn from the Uniform crime report's Return A form, the arrest reports by age, sex, and race provide valuable data on 43 offenses including violent, drug, gambling, and larceny crimes.