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Table 71 Data Declaration

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Table 71 Data Declaration

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Full-time Law Enforcement Officers, by Region and Geographic Division by Population Group, Number and Rate per 1,000 Inhabitants, 2011

The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.

General comments

  • This table provides the number and rate per 1,000 inhabitants of sworn law enforcement officers broken down by region, geographic division, and population group.
  • The totals for full-time law enforcement officers in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan county agencies are combined in this table.
  • Suburban areas include law enforcement agencies in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants and county law enforcement agencies that are within a Metropolitan Statistical Area.
  • Suburban areas exclude all metropolitan agencies associated with a principal city.  The agencies associated with suburban areas also appear in other groups within this table.

Methodology

  • The information in this table is derived from law enforcement officer counts (as of October 31, 2011) submitted by participating agencies.
  • The UCR Program defines law enforcement officers as individuals who ordinarily carry a firearm and a badge, have full arrest powers, and are paid from government funds set aside specifically to pay sworn law enforcement.

Regions and geographic divisions

The U.S. Census Bureau has established the four regions of the United States along with their nine geographic divisions, which are used by the UCR Program to compile the nation’s crime data.  The following table lists the 50 states and the District of Columbia arranged according to the regions and geographic divisions of the United States.

NORTHEASTERN STATES

New England 
Connecticut 
Maine
Massachusetts 
New Hampshire 
Rhode Island 
Vermont

Middle Atlantic 
New Jersey
New York 
Pennsylvania

MIDWESTERN STATES

East North Central 
Illinois 
Indiana 
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin 

West North Central 
Iowa 
Kansas 
Minnesota 
Missouri 
Nebraska 
North Dakota 
South Dakota

SOUTHERN STATES

South Atlantic 
Delaware 
District of Columbia 
Florida 
Georgia 
Maryland 
North Carolina 
South Carolina 
Virginia 
West Virginia

East South Central
Alabama 
Kentucky 
Mississippi 
Tennessee

West South Central 
Arkansas
Louisiana 
Oklahoma 
Texas

WESTERN STATES

Mountain
Arizona 
Colorado 
Idaho 
Montana 
Nevada 
New Mexico 
Utah 
Wyoming

Pacific
Alaska 
California 
Hawaii 
Oregon 
Washington

Population estimation

The FBI calculated 2011 state growth rates using the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 decennial state/national population figures and 2011 provisional state/national population estimates.  The FBI then estimated population figures for city jurisdictions by applying the 2011 state growth rate to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data.