For nearly a century, the FBI has collected and published crime and law enforcement statistics to generate reliable information for use in law enforcement, in addition to providing information for the media, researchers, and the public. This statistical data has included information about crimes, law enforcement employees, and hazards to officers in the line of duty. Since the inception of the FBI’s crime data program, law enforcement agencies across the nation have increasingly participated in the FBI’s data collection efforts and helped to shape the collections through the Criminal Justice Information Services Division’s (CJIS) advisory process.
 
The following is a timeline of major developments in the FBI’s collection of crime statistics.

1871

In St. Louis, law enforcement officials discussed the collection of crime statistics, but the idea didn't gain much support.
 
1927

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) formed the Committee on Uniform Crime Records. 
 
1929

The Committee on Uniform Crime Records published "Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR)," which was a manual for police records and statistics.

1930

• The IACP began to collect crime data.
• The IACP published crime data in "Uniform Crime Reporting in the United States and Its Possessions."
  
• The Bureau of Identification assumed control of the UCR Program and published its first assortment of statistics from 768 cities in 44 states and Washington, D.C.

1932

• The UCR Program switched from monthly to quarterly releases of data.
• The Bureau of Identification began to collect arrest information from fingerprint cards.

1933

The Bureau of Identification became the Division of Investigation.

1935

The Division of Investigation became the FBI.
 
1936

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover spoke at an IACP convention in Kansas City, Missouri, and said: “On average of once a week, somewhere in the United States, a law enforcement officer is killed at the hands of the underworld. It is unfortunate that we do not possess accurate statistics upon this subject.”
 
1937

• The FBI began to collect information from selected agencies on law enforcement officers killed.
• The UCR Program published the first batch of data on law enforcement officers killed.

1942

Due to the economic pressures of World War II, the FBI shifted to publishing "Uniform Crime Reports for the United States and Its Possessions" semiannually.

1952

The UCR Program stopped using fingerprint cards to collect arrest information. Instead, contributing law enforcement agencies submitted arrest information directly.

1953

The UCR Program changed the title of its publication to "Uniform Crime Reports for the United States."
 
1960

• The FBI changed the name of the annual UCR publication to "Crime in the United States."

1963

• The UCR Program began to collect more data on homicides, such as ages of victims and types of weapons used.
• The FBI published the first "UCR Newsletter" to keep law enforcement partners aware of developments within the UCR Program.

 
1966

• The UCR Program began to collect data on justifiable homicide, which the UCR Program defined as the killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of duty or the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.¹
• The UCR Program began to publish data on police officer assaults that involved injury.

1967

To improve the quality of the data, the FBI began to advocate for development of state UCR programs that would centralize data collection in a state.

1972

• The FBI established its Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Program.
• The UCR Program began to collect data on bombing incidents and assaults on federal officers.

1973

• The UCR Program began to publish "Law Enforcement Officers Killed Summary."
• The UCR Program first published "Bomb Summary."
• The UCR Program published the first edition of "Assaults on Federal Officers."

1978

The UCR Program changed the name of "Law Enforcement Officers Killed Summary" to "Law Enforcement Officers Killed."

1979

The UCR Program began to collect data about arson.

1983

The UCR Program first published its "Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted."

1988

• The UCR Program published its last edition of "Bomb Summary"before handing over responsibility for bomb statistics to the FBI’s Bomb Data Center.
• Attendees of a national UCR conference recommended that the FBI should develop a new data collection that would note more of the factors involved in crime incidents. This recommendation became the basis for development of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

1990

Congress passed the Hate Crime Statistics Act, directing the U.S. attorney general to collect data on hate crimes.
 
1991

South Carolina became the first state to report crime statistics through NIBRS, which includes much more detail about crime than the Summary Reporting System (SRS). Examples of types of NIBRS data are:

• Stolen or destroyed property
• Injuries sustained by victims or officers
• Offender influence by drugs or alcohol
• Usage of computers or vehicles in crimes
• Numbers of offenders
• Relationships between offenders and victims

1992

• The UCR Program published "Hate Crime Statistics, 1990: A Resource Book."
• The FBI opened its new Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, which houses the UCR Program.

1996

The FBI published its first online edition of "Crime in the United States" featuring crime statistics from 1995.
 
2006

The FBI began to post all of its annual UCR publications online.
 
2012

The UCR Program began to publish NIBRS data.
 
2015

The CJIS Division Advisory Policy Board (APB) recommended that the UCR Program retire the SRS and transition to collecting crime data solely through NIBRS. The FBI Director approved the transition, and the UCR Program spent the next several years working toward the transition.
 
2017

The FBI debuted the Crime Data Explorer (CDE), an online portal that law enforcement users and the public could use to find, sort, and visualize crime statistics.
 
2019

The UCR Program began collecting data for the National Use-of-Force Data Collection about instances of police use of force.
 
2021

• The FBI transitioned from SRS to collecting crime statistics solely through NIBRS.
• The FBI began the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection to gather statistics about suicides of law enforcement officers.

Benefits and uses of UCR data

UCR data benefits law enforcement agencies and communities in many ways. The FBI’s expanded data collection efforts are helping to create a detailed account of crime and policing activities in communities.

Resource allocation

Agencies commonly encounter challenges related to effective use of resources. Using UCR data, agencies can identify crime factors and risks to decide how to strategically manage issues like funding, patrol schedules, equipment, training, and task forces. UCR data can also help identify trends in factors like gang participation, drug violations, weapon usage, and money seizures. Agencies can use analysis of such trends to make decisions and plan for future resource allocation. Over time, an agency can monitor trends to evaluate the effectiveness of its resource allocation and make necessary adjustments.

Other benefits and uses

Because the UCR Program collects and publishes many types of crime and law enforcement data, agencies and analysts can use it in a variety of ways.

• Agencies can use the data to educate and inform the public. UCR data can help an agency demonstrate transparency and foster public trust.
• Agencies can use the data to improve officer training. LEOKA data can help agencies decide how to train and equip officers to deal with potential violent threats. Also, the FBI offers Officer Safety Awareness Training based largely on LEOKA data.
• With UCR data, law enforcement agencies and public leaders can share a common understanding of crime to make informed decisions and potentially avoid conflicts. 

The present and future of UCR

Federal law enforcement agencies are mandated to participate in the UCR Program, while non-federal law enforcement agencies across the nation continue to voluntarily participate in the UCR Program based on a shared mentality of trust, responsibility, and partnership. Every year since 1930—with only some temporary irregularity during World War II—the FBI has honored this partnership by releasing and publishing the data for the benefit of law enforcement and the American public. The FBI continues to honor the partnership by releasing UCR data in more accessible forms like the CDE and enhancing the publication schedule with quarterly releases. The FBI continues to engage with the law enforcement community, listening to the suggestions and feedback of law enforcement stakeholders and the APB.
 
The FBI’s UCR Program continues to evolve.

A recent development included the FBI's creation of the Lawful Access Data Collection.

And in the future, the Law Enforcement Public Contact Data Collection will gather data about the number of contacts between law enforcement officers and members of the public, such as court bailiff activities and calls for police service. This data can help to provide more context for understanding instances of police use of force and the data in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection.

More information about the UCR Program is available online at the FBI’s How We Can Help You webpage. UCR statistics and data resources are online at the CDE homepage. Agencies that need help with UCR can use the Assistance with Uniform Crime Statistics Information web form. Users can also view or download a list of UCR Program contacts.
 
Reference
¹FBI, "Summary Reporting System (SRS) User Manual, Version 1.0," U.S. Department of Justice (Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2013), 30.

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