Offenses Known to Law Enforcement (original) (raw)

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Definition

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program collects the number of offenses that come to the attention of law enforcement for violent crime and property crime, as well as data regarding clearances of these offenses. In addition, the FBI collects auxiliary information about these offenses (e.g., time of day of burglaries). The expanded offense data include trends in both crime volume and crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants. Finally, the UCR Program collects expanded homicide data, which includes information about homicide victims and offenders, weapons used, the circumstances surrounding the offenses, and justifiable homicides.

Violent Crime

Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses that involve force or threat of force.

The Violent Crime section of this report provides more information about violent crime and an overview of violent crime data for 2017.

Property Crime

Property crime includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims.

The Property Crime section of this report provides more information about property crime and an overview of property crime data for 2017.

Clearances

Within the UCR Program, law enforcement agencies can clear, or “close,” offenses in one of two ways: by arrest or by exceptional means. Although agencies may administratively close a case, this does not necessarily mean that the agency can clear the offense for UCR purposes.

The Clearances section of this report provides more information about the criteria used to clear an offense for UCR purposes and an overview of clearance data for 2017.

Expanded offense data

The FBI collects the number of offenses for the crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson through the UCR Program. In addition to the number of offenses known to the police, the FBI also collects other data about these offenses, such as the locations of robberies, time of day of burglaries, and types of larcenies. These expanded data include 2-year trends concerning additional information about select offenses (e.g., type of weapon), 2-year trends for crime volumes, and current year crime rates per 100,000 inhabitants.

See the Expanded Offense Data section of this report for more information.

Expanded homicide data

The Expanded Homicide Data section of this publication provides information regarding the age, sex, race, and ethnicity of both the murder victim and the offender; the type of weapon used in the murder; the relationship of the victim to the offender; and the circumstance surrounding the incident. These data also include information about justifiable homicides.

See the Expanded Homicide Data section of this report for more information.

What you won't find on this page

Arrest information for offenses known to law enforcement.