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Home Crime in the U.S. 2010 Crime in the U.S. 2010 Message from the Director

Message from the Director

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Preventing terrorist attacks from both domestic and global adversaries is a critical national security objective, highlighted recently by the U.S. military’s elimination of the FBI’s number one most wanted fugitive, Osama bin Laden. Yet the publication of the 2010 national crime statistics reminds us that national security is as much about keeping our streets safe from crime as it is about protecting the United States from terrorism. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, Crime in the United States, 2010, indicates that, overall, crime decreased in our nation last year. While this information is encouraging as a whole, when properly analyzed, these data also provide valuable insight into the nature and volume of crime in small and large communities alike.

The FBI is proud to support local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies whose cooperative efforts offer a picture that experts can study, and as a result, produce new strategies or improve current methods of combating crime. More than 18,000 law enforcement agencies participate in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program to provide crime statistics that are used in many real-world applications. It is for these partners and those who analyze the resulting data that the FBI is especially pleased to further the evolution of the UCR program. Over the next two years, the UCR Program will continue its redevelopment project, incorporating improved technology that will provide enhanced features and additional, more timely information to the criminal justice community, government agencies, researchers, students, and others.

While the conventional activities of law enforcement officers do not always attract the media headlines created when terrorist threats are disrupted, the UCR Program’s statistics are proof of the strength and courage routinely demonstrated to enforce law and order in our communities. The significant challenge of protecting life and property requires many different kinds of resources, including data such as the information found in this report. The highest mission of the FBI’s UCR Program is to provide information to help law enforcement and other community leaders better understand the issues they face and more effectively prepare to meet them each day.

Robert S. Mueller, III
Director