About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


1 1 (December 12, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/govejry0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Violent Crime Trends, 1990-2021 December 12, 2022 Since the 1930s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program has collected data on reported crimes from federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies and published nationwide crime statistics using these data. UCR compiles and publishes the data and provides datasets and some trend analyses in a standardized format that law enforcement agencies, researchers, and policymakers can access to better understand crime in the United States. Shifting Crime Data Collection Tools UCR previously collected crime data through the Summary Reporting System (SRS); however, on January 1, 2021, the FBI retired SRS in favor of the National Incident Based- Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS was developed to address several shortcomings of SRS. For example, NIBRS expands the number of crimes for which data are collected and captures details about these crimes that were not previously measured in SRS (e.g., the relationship between the victim and offender). While NIBRS has recently became the FBI's primary crime data collection tool, it was first made available to law enforcement agencies beginning in the late 1980s. In the ensuing years, agencies could report their crime data in either the SRS or NIBRS formats. In 2016, the FBI announced their intention to retire SRS as of January 1, 2021. This meant that 2021 would be the first year for which crime data were collected solely through NIBRS. Despite the 2016 announcement, many law enforcement agencies did not adopt NIBRS; as a result, participation rates in the UCR program dropped in 2021 (when 62.7% of law enforcement agencies submitted NIBRS data to the FBI). These lower participation rates required the FBI to adjust their data analysis and reporting procedures. Because there is only a single year of NIBRS data and new procedures had to be adopted to account for the low participation rates, the FBI stated that the 2021 data cannot be integrated into longitudinal analyses that mix NIBRS and SRS methodologies. Therefore, crime data from 2021 are discussed separately from earlier crime data in this In Focus. Violent Crime Trends, l99O-2O2O UCR data on violent crime includes homicide (i.e., murder/non-negligent manslaughter), rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Data are published about each offense individually as well as in a composite measure-the violent crime index. This section focuses on the violent crime and homicide rates from 1990 to 2020. As demonstrated in Figure 1, the national violent crime rate (blue line) peaked in 1991 at 758.2 violent crimes per 100,000 people. The violent crime rate has generally decreased since 1991. There was an increase in this rate in 2005 and 2006, after which it continued decreasing until 2014. The violent crime rate increased from 2014 to 2016, from 361.6 to 397.5 per 100,000; decreased between 2017 and 2019; and increased again from 2019 to 2020. During the most recent increase, the violent crime rate rose from 380.8 in 2019 to 398.5 per 100,000 in 2020. The rate observed in 2020 was still below the peaks observed in the early 1990s and the increase in the mid-2000s, but was close to the rate of 397.5 per 100,000 measured in 2016. Figure I. Violent Crime and Homicide Rates, I 990-2020 Rate per 100,000 People Source: UCR Program. Similarly, during the years considered, the national homicide rate (red line) peaked during 1991 at 9.8 homicides per 100,000 people. The rate generally decreased from there, with small increases in some years during the 2000s but never exceeding more than an 0.2% uptick in consecutive years. Similar to the violent crime rate, the national homicide rate began to show an increase beginning in 2015, growing from 4.9 per 100,000 in 2014 to 5.4 in 2015. The homicide rate remained in a range of 5.0 to 5.4 per 100,000 until 2020 when it increased to 6.5 homicides per 100,000 people. For the other offenses included in the violent crime index, data indicated the following changes from 2019 to 2020: The rate of aggravated assault increased from 250.4 to 279.4 offenses per 100,000 people. The rape and robbery rates both decreased (from 43.6 to 38.4 and from 81.8 to 73.9 per 100,000 people, respectively).