Since 1930, the FBI has served as central coordinator of data on known criminal offenses, combining reports from approximately 18,000 local law enforcement agencies under the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.  Since the early 1970s, the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) has used personal interviewing to view crime from the perspective of the victim and to estimate levels of total crime -- including those which are not known to or reported to police. Despite their prominence in the field, neither the UCR nor the NCVS is designated by law or regulation as the nation’s “official” measure of crimes, at least in part because both possess unique strengths and limitations as measurement tools.

A new interim report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concludes that the definitions and concepts in the current U.S. crime statistics system were developed primarily from categorization of statutory language, which varies by jurisdiction. Reliance on statutory language is inflexible and not comprehensive, and it is unduly focused on limited input sources.  There is a need for an expansive framework for crime classification that is amenable to periodic revision, as crime continues to evolve and take different shapes.

The committee that is conducting this study and wrote the interim report developed a framework for identifying the types of crimes to be considered in a modern crime classification for statistical purposes by weighing various perspectives on how crime should be defined and organized to meet the needs of the full array of data users and stakeholders -- federal agencies, other law enforcement agencies, Congress, the courts and corrections officials, researchers, and the general public.  The committee’s suggested classification delineates topic areas that are new in the U.S. crime statistics enterprise, such as several types of fraud and corruption, crimes against the environment or natural resources, and sexual exploitation of children. 

The final report of this study will focus on the best conceptual means of collecting data based on the suggested crime classification, as well as how crime data collection should proceed practically and effectively. 

DETAILS:

The report, Modernizing Crime Statistics, Report 1: Defining and Classifying Crime, is available for immediate release.  To obtain a copy or to schedule an interview, reporters should contact the Office of News and Public Information; tel. 202-334-2138 or email news@nas.edu.