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FBI
2014 Crime
Statistics from National Incident-Based Reporting System released
December 14, 2015
Today, the FBI released details on more than 5.4 million criminal
offenses reported via the National Incident-Based Reporting System
(NIBRS) in 2014. The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s latest
report, NIBRS, 2014, provides a diverse range of information about
victims, known offenders, and relationships for 23 offense categories
composed of 49 offenses. It also presents arrest data for those offense
categories, plus 11 more offenses for which only arrest data are
collected. NIBRS, 2014 provides agency-level offense data by state;
however, there are no estimates for agencies that did not submit NIBRS
data to the UCR Program.
Unlike data reported via the Summary Reporting System in Crime in the
United States, data in NIBRS, 2014 includes all offenses within an
incident, as well as additional aspects about each event such as
location, time of day, and clearances. The data-rich nature of NIBRS is
the main reason that FBI Director James B. Comey has made
across-the-board implementation of NIBRS one of his priority
initiatives. In his remarks to the International Association of Chiefs
of Police in Chicago on October 26, 2015, Director Comey said,
“...without information, every single conversation in this country
about policing and reform and justice is uninformed, and that is a very
bad place to be. So I hope you will join me in getting us all to move
to NIBRS.” Comprehensive and accurate data are paramount to sound
decision-making in law enforcement and intelligence. Director Comey
also commented in a speech given at Georgetown University in February
2015, “The first step to understanding what is really going on in our
communities and in our country is to gather more and better data
related to those we arrest, those we confront for breaking the law and
jeopardizing public safety, and those who confront us. ‘Data’ seems a
dry and boring word but, without it, we cannot understand our world and
make it better.” Moving all law enforcement agencies to submitting
their data via the NIBRS is the first step in gathering more
comprehensive data, an important goal of the UCR Program. The
information in NIBRS, 2014 is an example of the kind of “better data”
about which the Director is speaking.
Making use of these better data, the special report Sex Offenses
Reported via NIBRS in 2013 is included inNIBRS, 2014. This monograph is
a brief illustration of the kind of granularity that can be achieved on
a topic when more and deeper data are collected.
An Overview of NIBRS, 2014
In 2014, 6,520 law enforcement agencies, representing coverage of more
than 93 million U.S. inhabitants, submitted NIBRS data. While not yet
nationally representative, this coverage represents 35.2 percent of all
law enforcement agencies that participate in the UCR Program. A more
detailed look at these data is available with the new interactive NIBRS
map, which presents statistics for each agency that reported 12 months
of NIBRS data in 2014.
NIBRS agencies reported 4,759,438 incidents that involved 5,489,485
offenses, 5,790,423 victims, and 4,414,016 known offenders. In
addition, these agencies reported 3,099,779 arrestees. The number of
reported arrestees for 2014 is not comparable to previous years’
numbers due to a change in the methodology for calculating this number.
The change included adding all persons arrested for Group B offenses to
arrestees connected to Group A offenses, which were the only arrestee
numbers published in previous years. (The Arrestees page of NIBRS, 2014
provides further detail.)
Of the reported offenses, 63.6 percent involved crimes against property
(i.e., those crimes in which the object is attaining property), 23.0
percent involved crimes against persons, (i.e., crimes whose victims
are always individuals), and 13.4 percent included crimes against
society (i.e., typically “victimless crimes” that represent society’s
prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity, such as
gambling).
NIBRS victim types, collected for all reported offenses, may be an
individual, a business, an institution, or society as a whole. Of the
4,032,600 individual victims reported in 2014, 24.0 percent were
between 21 and 30 years of age. A little more than half (51.0 percent)
were female, 48.1 percent were male, and sex was unknown for 0.8
percent. The majority (72.0 percent) were white, 21.1 percent were
black or African-American, 1.3 percent were Asian, 0.6 percent were
American Indian or Alaska Native, and less than 0.1 percent were Native
Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. Race was unknown for 5.0 percent of
victims.
In 2014, there were 4,414,016 known offenders, meaning that some aspect
of the suspect—such as the age, sex, or race—was identified and
reported. Of these, nearly a third (32.3 percent) were between 16 and
25 years of age. By gender, the majority (63.9 percent) were male, and
25.6 percent were female; gender was unknown for 10.5 percent. By race,
more than half (57.1 percent) of known offenders were white, 27.8
percent were black or African-American, and 1.7 percent were of other
races. The race was unknown for 13.4 percent of reported known
offenders.
Concerning the relationship of victims to known offenders, there were
1,273,602 victims of crimes against persons (e.g., murders, sex
offenses, assault offenses) and of robbery offenses from the crimes
against property category. Of these victims, 52.7 percent knew their
offenders (or at least one offender where more than one was present)
but did not have a familial relationship to them. Nearly a quarter
(24.8 percent) of victims were related to their offenders (or at least
one offender where more than one was present).
Law enforcement agencies submitted data through incident reports—and,
in 2014, also through arrest reports—for 3,099,779 arrestees in 2014.
Of these, 18.8 percent were 21 to 25 years of age. By gender, 71.9
percent were male, and 28.1 percent were female. By race, the majority
(71.0 percent) of arrestees were white, 25.0 percent were black or
African-American, and 2.4 percent were of other races. The race was
unknown for 1.5 percent of arrestees.
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