Crime Index Tabulations

The tables in Section II—Crime Index Offenses Reported—organize crime data in many ways.  First, for the Nation as a whole, then categorized by geographic divisions; individual states; Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs); and cities, towns, and counties.  The data are presented as crime volume and/or crime rate (occurrence per 100,000 U.S. inhabitants).

Although the exact number of crimes occurring within the United States is unknown, criminal activity can be gauged by studying those crimes reported to law enforcement.  The reader is cautioned, however, that many factors affect crime volumes and crime types and can cause them to vary from time to time and from place to place.  Even though one of these factors, population, is used in computing crime rates, all communities are affected to some degree by seasonal or transient population.  Because current, permanent population counts are used in their computation, crime rates do not account for short-term population variables, such as an influx of day workers, tourists, shoppers, etc.  Other factors contributing to the amount of crime in a given area are discussed in Crime Factors (page iv).

One tool law enforcement administrators can use in analyzing the volume of local crime and the performance of the law enforcement agencies is national data.  That analysis, however, should not end with a comparison based solely on data presented in this publication.  A true assessment of a community's crime problem or the effectiveness of law enforcement operations can be made only by including all the variables that shape local crime.

Brief Description of the Tables

Table 1 is a 20-year table that sets forth national estimates of volume and rate per 100,000 population for the offenses that make up the Crime Index.  Table 2 shows estimates of crime volume and rates for 2002 for the Nation as a whole and for the Nation disaggregated by community type:  MSAs, rural counties, and cities and towns outside metropolitan areas.  Definitions of these community types can be found in Appendix III.

Data showing the regional distribution of estimated Index crimes along with proportional population estimates are provided in Table 3.  A map of the United States illustrating the regions and divisions employed by the UCR Program appears in Appendix III.

Table 4 offers a 2-year trend in the volume and rate estimates by region, geographic division, and state.  The estimated volume and rate of Crime Index offenses for each state and for individual MSAs are shown in Tables 5 and 6.  Table 7 provides breakdowns for the offenses of robbery (by location), burglary (by time of day), and larceny-theft (by type) over the past 5 years.

Offenses known to police for cities over 10,000 in population are presented in Table 8, and Table 9 shows the number of offenses occurring on college and university campuses as reported by college and university law enforcement agencies.  The UCR Program does not assign population to educational institutions.

Offenses reported by suburban and rural county law enforcement agencies are presented in Tables 10 and 11.  Tables 12–19 supply crime trends and rates by population groupings.  The UCR Program's definition of the population groups can be found in Appendix III.

Data concerning weapons used in the violent crimes of murder, robbery, and aggravated assault are presented in Tables 20–22.  Tables 23 and 24 analyze the value of property lost through the crimes of robbery, burglary, and larceny-theft, and offer breakdowns by type and value of property stolen and recovered.

Note

Because the UCR Program does not estimate for arson, arson offenses are not included in the tables containing offense estimates.  However, the number of arson offenses reported by individual law enforcement agencies are displayed in Tables 8–11.  Two-year arson trends are shown in Tables 12–15.  An in-depth discussion of table construction methodology can be found in Appendix I.