There were over 7.55 million arrests for all offenses in the United States in 2023. This figure is a decrease from 1990 levels, when the number of arrests was over 14.1 million. Arrest rate in the U.S. Along with the declining number of arrests, the arrest rate for all offenses in the United States has also decreased since 1990, from 5691.6 arrests per 100,000 of the population down to 2232.1 per 100,000 in 2023. Additionally, South Dakota had the highest arrest rate in the country in 2023 while Massachusetts had the lowest. High numbers of arrests and unsolved crimes A high number of arrests does not necessarily correlate to a high number of solved cases, and in the U.S., many cases remain unsolved. The crime clearance rate, or rate of closed cases, was less than half for violent crimes in the U.S., and less than 20 percent for property crimes.
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.
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The bar chart shows the percentage of Indiana’s total arrests by racial category. The arrest percentage is calculated by dividing the number of arrests of people within a specific racial category by the total number of statewide arrests. The baseline of “per 1000” allows for comparison of rates across categories. Selecting the “rate per 1000” view produces a line graph that shows the number of arrests per 1,000 individuals by race. The number of arrests per county and by race are compared to 2010 Census population 2014-2020. Additional facts to note: 1. This dashboard shows data from the Criminal History Records Information System (CHRIS), which comes from three main sources. Arrest data comes from the Live Scan system, which is used for finger printing and capturing other pertinent information at the time of the arrest. Criminal disposition data are maintained by prosecutors in the ProsLink system, and by courts in the Odyssey system. Arrest county is determined by the location of the booking agency. If the booking agency is missing, then the arresting agency is used. The % of IN Population will not equal 100% because we are excluding non-represented racial category "Two or More Races," which accounts for ~1.7% of Indiana's population. Because some arrests are not included in the individual race categories shown here, total counts and percentages from the individual race categories add up to less than the totals for “All” races. While most dashboards in the Data Portal use Census estimates from 2019, this dashboard uses 2010 Census data.
This dataset shows the number of people that are in prison by state in 2006 and 2007. These numbers are then compared to show the difference between the two years and a percentage of change is given as well. This data was brought to our attention by the Pew Charitable Trusts in their report titled, One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008."" The main emphasis of the article emphasizes the point that in 2007 1 in every 100 Americans were in prison. To note: Many states have not completed their data verification process. Final published figures may differ slightly. The District of Columbia is not included. D.C. prisoners were transferred to federal custody in 2001
This dataset was retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services Division website on February 29, 2008. "This table provides arrest data for 29 separate UCR offenses for each state for 2006". The table provides data for total arrests by class of crime. "The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program". Estimated population was added for each state for 2006 that appeared on Table 5 of the data from 2006. Please see the Data Declaration for further information on the data set. Values of -1 represent no value.
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Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), Canada, provinces, territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Canadian Forces Military Police, 1998 to 2024.
Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 requires the Government to publish statistical data to assess whether any discrimination exists in how the CJS treats individuals based on their ethnicity.
These statistics are used by policy makers, the agencies who comprise the CJS and others (e.g. academics, interested bodies) to monitor differences between ethnic groups, and to highlight areas where practitioners and others may wish to undertake more in-depth analysis. The identification of differences should not be equated with discrimination as there are many reasons why apparent disparities may exist. The main findings are:
The 2012/13 Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that adults from self-identified Mixed, Black and Asian ethnic groups were more at risk of being a victim of personal crime than adults from the White ethnic group. This has been consistent since 2008/09 for adults from a Mixed or Black ethnic group; and since 2010/11 for adults from an Asian ethnic group. Adults from a Mixed ethnic group had the highest risk of being a victim of personal crime in each year between 2008/09 and 2012/13.
Homicide is a rare event, therefore, homicide victims data are presented aggregated in three-year periods in order to be able to analyse the data by ethnic appearance. The most recent period for which data are available is 2009/10 to 2011/12.
The overall number of homicides has decreased over the past three three-year periods. The number of homicide victims of White and Other ethnic appearance decreased during each of these three-year periods. However the number of victims of Black ethnic appearance increased in 2006/07 to 2008/09 before falling again in 2009/10 to 2011/12.
For those homicides where there is a known suspect, the majority of victims were of the same ethnic group as the principal suspect. However, the relationship between victim and principal suspect varied across ethnic groups. In the three-year period from 2009/10 to 2011/12, for victims of White ethnic appearance the largest proportion of principal suspects were from the victim’s own family; for victims of Black ethnic appearance, the largest proportion of principal suspects were a friend or acquaintance of the victim; while for victims of Asian ethnic appearance, the largest proportion of principal suspects were strangers.
Homicide by sharp instrument was the most common method of killing for victims of White, Black and Asian ethnic appearance in the three most recent three-year periods. However, for homicide victims of White ethnic appearance hitting and kicking represented the second most common method of killing compared with shooting for victims of Black ethnic appearance, and other methods of killing for victims of Asian ethnic appearance.
In 2011/12, a person aged ten or older (the age of criminal responsibility), who self-identified as belonging to the Black ethnic group was six times more likely than a White person to be stopped and searched under section 1 (s1) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and other legislation in England and Wales; persons from the Asian or Mixed ethnic group were just over two times more likely to be stopped and searched than a White person.
Despite an increase across all ethnic groups in the number of stops and searches conducted under s1 powers between 2007/08 and 2011/12, the number of resultant arrests decreased across most ethnic groups. Just under one in ten stop and searches in 2011/12 under s1 powers resulted in an arrest in the White and Black self-identified ethnic groups, compared with 12% in 2007/08. The proportion of resultant arrests has been consistently lower for the Asian self-identified ethnic group.
In 2011/12, for those aged 10 or older, a Black person was nearly three times more likely to be arrested per 1,000 population than a White person, while a person from the Mixed ethnic group was twice as likely. There was no difference in the rate of arrests between Asian and White persons.
The number of arrests decreased in each year between 2008/09 and 2011/12, consistent with a downward trend in police recorded crime since 2004/05. Overall, the number of arrests decreased for all ethnic groups between 2008/09 and 2011/12, however arrests of suspects from the Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic groups peaked in 2010/11.
Arrests for drug offences and sexual offences increased for suspects in all ethnic groups except the Chinese or Other ethnic group between 2008/09 and 2011/12. In addition, there were increases in arrests for burglary, robbery and the other offences category for suspects from the Black and Asian ethnic groups.
The use of out of court disposals (Penalty Notices for Disorder and caution
The areas of focus include: Victimisation, Police Activity, Defendants and Court Outcomes, Offender Management, Offender Characteristics, Offence Analysis, and Practitioners.
This is the latest biennial compendium of Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System and follows on from its sister publication Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2017.
This publication compiles statistics from data sources across the Criminal Justice System (CJS), to provide a combined perspective on the typical experiences of different ethnic groups. No causative links can be drawn from these summary statistics. For the majority of the report no controls have been applied for other characteristics of ethnic groups (such as average income, geography, offence mix or offender history), so it is not possible to determine what proportion of differences identified in this report are directly attributable to ethnicity. Differences observed may indicate areas worth further investigation, but should not be taken as evidence of bias or as direct effects of ethnicity.
In general, minority ethnic groups appear to be over-represented at many stages throughout the CJS compared with the White ethnic group. The greatest disparity appears at the point of stop and search, arrests, custodial sentencing and prison population. Among minority ethnic groups, Black individuals were often the most over-represented. Outcomes for minority ethnic children are often more pronounced at various points of the CJS. Differences in outcomes between ethnic groups over time present a mixed picture, with disparity decreasing in some areas are and widening in others.
The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of Latino ethnicity on pretrial release decisions in large urban counties. The study examined two questions: Are Latino defendants less likely to receive pretrial releases than non-Latino defendants? Are Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is rapidly increasing less likely to receive pretrial releases than Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is not rapidly increasing? The study utilized the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) Database (see STATE COURT PROCESSING STATISTICS, 1990-2004: FELONY DEFENDANTS IN LARGE URBAN COUNTIES [ICPSR 2038]). The SCPS collects data on felony cases filed in state courts in 40 of the nation's 75 largest counties over selected sample dates in the month of May of every even numbered year, and tracks a representative sample of felony case defendants from arrest through sentencing. Data in the collection include 118,556 cases. Researchers supplemented the SCPS with county-level information from several sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program county-level data series of index crimes reported to the police for the years 1988-2004 (see UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS: COUNTY-LEVEL DETAILED ARREST AND OFFENSE DATA, 1998 [ICPSR 9335], UNIFORM CRIME REPORTING PROGRAM DATA [UNITED STATES]: COUNTY-LEVEL DETAILED ARREST AND OFFENSE DATA, 1990 [ICPSR 9785], 1992 [ICPSR 6316], 1994 [ICPSR 6669], 1996 [ICPSR 2389], 1998 [ICPSR 2910], 2000 [ICPRS 3451], 2002 [ICPSR 4009], and 2004 [ICPSR 4466]). Bureau of Justice Statistics Annual Survey of Jails, Jurisdiction-Level data series for the years 1988-2004 (see ANNUAL SURVEY OF JAILS: JURISDICTION-LEVEL DATA, 1990 [ICPSR 9569], 1992 [ICPSR 6395], 1994 [ICPSR 6538], 1996 [ICPSR 6856], 1998 [ICPSR 2682], 2000 [ICPSR 3882], 2002 [ICPSR 4428], and 2004 [ICPSR 20200]). Bureau of Justice Statistics National Prosecutors Survey/Census data series 1990-2005 (see NATIONAL PROSECUTORS SURVEY, 1990 [ICPSR 9579], 1992 [ICPSR 6273], 1994 [ICPSR 6785], 1996 [ICPSR 2433], 2001 census [ICPSR 3418], and 2005 [ICPSR 4600]). United States Census Bureau State and County Quickfacts. National Center for State Courts, State Court Organization reports, 1993 (see NCJ 148346), 1998 (see NCJ 178932), and 2004 (see NCJ 212351). Bureau of Justice Statistics Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties reports, 1992 (see NCJ 148826), 1994 (see NCJ 164616), 1996 (see NCJ 176981), 1998 (see NJC 187232), 2000 (see NCJ 202021), and 2002 (see NJC 210818). The data include defendant level variables such as most serious current offense charge, number of charges, prior felony convictions, prior misdemeanor convictions, prior incarcerations, criminal justice status at arrest, prior failure to appear, age, gender, ethnicity, and race. County level variables include region, crime rate, two year change in crime rate, caseload rate, jail capacity, two year change in jail capacity, judicial selection by election or appointment, prosecutor screens cases, and annual expenditure on prosecutor's office. Racial threat stimuli variables include natural log of the percentage of the county population that is Latino, natural log of the percentage of the county population that is African American, change in the percentage of the county population that is Latino over the last six years and change in the percentage of the county population that is African American over the last six years. Cross-level interaction variables include percentage minority (Latino/African American) population zero percent to 15 percent, percentage minority (Latino/African American) population 16 percent to 30 percent, and percentage minority (Latino/African American) population 31 percent or higher.
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Black people were over twice as likely to be arrested as white people – there were 20.4 arrests for every 1,000 black people, and 9.4 for every 1,000 white people.
Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), police services in Ontario, 1998 to 2024.
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.
As of February 2025, El Salvador had the highest prisoner rate worldwide, with over 1,600 prisoners per 100,000 of the national population. Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and the United States, rounded out the top five countries with the highest rate of incarceration. Homicides in El Salvador Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 20 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. A high number of the countries with the highest homicide rate are located in Latin America. Prisoners in the United StatesThe United States is home to the largest number of prisoners worldwide. More than 1.8 million people were incarcerated in the U.S. at the beginning of 2025. In China, the estimated prison population totaled 1.69 million people that year. Other nations had far fewer prisoners. The largest share of the U.S. prisoners in federal correctional facilities were of African-American origin. As of 2020, there were 345,500 black, non-Hispanic prisoners, compared to 327,300 white, non-Hispanic inmates. The U.S. states with the largest number of prisoners in 2022 were Texas, California, and Florida. Over 160,000 prisoners in state facilities were sentenced for rape or sexual assault, which was the most common cause of imprisonment. The second most common was murder, followed by aggravated or simple assault.
This is an Official Statistics bulletin produced by statisticians in the Ministry of Justice, Home Office and the Office for National Statistics. It brings together, for the first time, a range of official statistics from across the crime and criminal justice system, providing an overview of sexual offending in England and Wales. The report is structured to highlight: the victim experience; the police role in recording and detecting the crimes; how the various criminal justice agencies deal with an offender once identified; and the criminal histories of sex offenders.
Providing such an overview presents a number of challenges, not least that the available information comes from different sources that do not necessarily cover the same period, the same people (victims or offenders) or the same offences. This is explained further in the report.
Based on aggregated data from the ‘Crime Survey for England and Wales’ in 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12, on average, 2.5 per cent of females and 0.4 per cent of males said that they had been a victim of a sexual offence (including attempts) in the previous 12 months. This represents around 473,000 adults being victims of sexual offences (around 404,000 females and 72,000 males) on average per year. These experiences span the full spectrum of sexual offences, ranging from the most serious offences of rape and sexual assault, to other sexual offences like indecent exposure and unwanted touching. The vast majority of incidents reported by respondents to the survey fell into the other sexual offences category.
It is estimated that 0.5 per cent of females report being a victim of the most serious offences of rape or sexual assault by penetration in the previous 12 months, equivalent to around 85,000 victims on average per year. Among males, less than 0.1 per cent (around 12,000) report being a victim of the same types of offences in the previous 12 months.
Around one in twenty females (aged 16 to 59) reported being a victim of a most serious sexual offence since the age of 16. Extending this to include other sexual offences such as sexual threats, unwanted touching or indecent exposure, this increased to one in five females reporting being a victim since the age of 16.
Around 90 per cent of victims of the most serious sexual offences in the previous year knew the perpetrator, compared with less than half for other sexual offences.
Females who had reported being victims of the most serious sexual offences in the last year were asked, regarding the most recent incident, whether or not they had reported the incident to the police. Only 15 per cent of victims of such offences said that they had done so. Frequently cited reasons for not reporting the crime were that it was ‘embarrassing’, they ‘didn’t think the police could do much to help’, that the incident was ‘too trivial or not worth reporting’, or that they saw it as a ‘private/family matter and not police business’
In 2011/12, the police recorded a total of 53,700 sexual offences across England and Wales. The most serious sexual offences of ‘rape’ (16,000 offences) and ‘sexual assault’ (22,100 offences) accounted for 71 per cent of sexual offences recorded by the police. This differs markedly from victims responding to the CSEW in 2011/12, the majority of whom were reporting being victims of other sexual offences outside the most serious category.
This reflects the fact that victims are more likely to report the most serious sexual offences to the police and, as such, the police and broader criminal justice system (CJS) tend to deal largely with the most serious end of the spectrum of sexual offending. The majority of the other sexual crimes recorded by the police related to ‘exposure or voyeurism’ (7,000) and ‘sexual activity with minors’ (5,800).
Trends in recorded crime statistics can be influenced by whether victims feel able to and decide to report such offences to the police, and by changes in police recording practices. For example, while there was a 17 per cent decrease in recorded sexual offences between 2005/06 and 2008/09, there was a seven per cent increase between 2008/09 and 2010/11. The latter increase may in part be due to greater encouragement by the police to victims to come forward and improvements in police recording, rather than an increase in the level of victimisation.
After the initial recording of a crime, the police may later decide that no crime took place as more details about the case emerge. In 2011/12, there were 4,155 offences initially recorded as sexual offences that the police later decided were not crimes. There are strict guidelines that set out circumstances under which a crime report may be ‘no crimed’. The ‘no-crime’ rate for sexual offences (7.2 per cent) compare
This dataset was retrieved from the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services Division website on February 29, 2008. "This table provides arrest data for 29 separate UCR offenses for each state for 2006. The table provides arrests of juveniles (persons under the age of 18)", by class of crime. "The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program". Please see the Data Declaration for further information on the data set. Values of -1 represent no value.
Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), police services in Manitoba, 1998 to 2024.
The map is based on Bureau of Justice Statistic (BJS) annual statistic on prison population. It was combined with the annual population estimates from Census to compute female prisoners per 100k population. The top 10 states with largest male prison population per 100k in 2004 are Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Connecticut. Compared to top ten states for Male prisoners, which are all in south, the top 10 female prisoner states do not show geographic concentration. Data for Wash. DC is not reported, according to BJS, the "responsibility for felons was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons". Only those female prisoners with one or more years of sentence are included. Source for parole data: Data source: BJS, National Prisoner Statistics data series (NPS-1) URL: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/data
Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), police services in British Columbia, 1998 to 2024.
Percent of Children Living in Families Where No Parent Has Full-Time, Year-Round Employment is the share of all children under age 18 living in families where no parent has regular, full-time employment. For children living in single-parent families, this means that the resident parent did not work at least 35 hours per week, at least 50 weeks in the 12 months prior to the survey. For children living in married-couple families, this means that neither parent worked at least 35 hours per week, at least 50 weeks in the 12 months prior to the survey. Children living with neither parent also were listed as not having secure parental employment because those chil- dren are likely to be economically vulnerable. SOURCE: * U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey.
The map data is derived from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for 1960 to 2005. The map shows the concentration of the total percent of the total population that is considered urban population within each country. "Total population residing in urban areas. Because of national differences in the characteristics that distinguish urban from rural areas, the distinction between urban and rural population is not amenable to a single definition that would be applicable to all countries. National definitions are most commonly based on size of locality. Population which is not urban is considered rural." Online resource: http://geodata.grid.unep.ch URL original source: http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm
There were over 7.55 million arrests for all offenses in the United States in 2023. This figure is a decrease from 1990 levels, when the number of arrests was over 14.1 million. Arrest rate in the U.S. Along with the declining number of arrests, the arrest rate for all offenses in the United States has also decreased since 1990, from 5691.6 arrests per 100,000 of the population down to 2232.1 per 100,000 in 2023. Additionally, South Dakota had the highest arrest rate in the country in 2023 while Massachusetts had the lowest. High numbers of arrests and unsolved crimes A high number of arrests does not necessarily correlate to a high number of solved cases, and in the U.S., many cases remain unsolved. The crime clearance rate, or rate of closed cases, was less than half for violent crimes in the U.S., and less than 20 percent for property crimes.