Section II: crime index offenses reported

Uniform Crime Reports: Crime in the United States, Annual, 2002

Crime Index

Definition

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program's Crime Index is composed of selected offenses used to gauge fluctuations in the volume and rate of crime reported to law enforcement. The UCR Crime Index was first recommended to the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in the report Uniform Crime Reporting: Report of the Consultant Committee (September 1958). This recommendation was accepted by the FBI and the term Crime Index first appeared in Crime in the United States, 1960.

The offenses selected to make up the Crime Index were the Part I crimes--the violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault and the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. These crimes were considered by experts of the time to be the most serious and the most commonly reported crimes occurring in the Nation. The UCR Program created the Modified Crime Index to include arson, which was added to the Program in 1979 by congressional mandate. The definition of these offenses can be found in Appendix II of this report.

Trend

                                          Rate per 100,000
Year               Number of offenses       inhabitants

2001                   11,876,669             4,162.6
2002                   11,877,218             4,118.8

Percent change             *                    -1.1

* Less than one-tenth of 1 percent

National Volume, Trends, and Rates

Nationally, the 2002 Crime Index, with an estimated 11,877,218 offenses, rose by less than one-tenth of a percent when compared to the 2001 Index. Five- and 10-year trend data showed that in 2002 the Crime Index was 4.9 percent lower than the estimate from 1998 and 16.0 percent below the 1993 estimate. The Crime Index for 2002 was comprised of 12.0 percent violent crime and 88.0 percent property crime. The offense of larceny-theft accounted for the greatest part of the Crime Index, 59.4 percent. Murder, the least often committed crime in the Index, contributed slightly more than one-tenth of a percent to the total.

The Crime Index rate, which reflects the number of Index offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, for the Nation was 4,118.8. Two-, 5-, and 10-year trend data indicated that in 2002 this rate represented a 1.1 percent decrease over the 2001 Crime Index rate, a 10.9 percent drop from the rate in 1998, and a 24.9 percent decline from the estimated rate for 1993. (See Table 1.)

Community Types

The UCR Program defines three community types: Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), cities outside the MSAs, and rural counties which are discussed in detail in Appendix III of this report. MSAs are comprised of a central city of at least 50,000 people, the county in which the city is located, and any other adjacent counties with solid economic or social links to the central city and county. In 2002, 80 percent of the U.S. population lived within an MSA. MSAs as a community type posted an estimated Crime Index rate of 4,409.1 offenses per 100,000 people. Cities outside the MSAs, accounting for 8 percent of the Nation's inhabitants, experienced a Crime Index rate of 4,524.0. Rural counties, with 12 percent of the country's population, had an estimated Crime Index rate of 1,908.7 per 100,000 inhabitants. (See Table 2.)

Regional Offense Trends and Rates

The UCR Program divides the Nation into four regional areas: the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, and the West. (A map depicting the regions and divisions of the United States is presented in Appendix III.) The characteristics of the 2002 Crime Index in the regions of the Nation were as follows:

The Northeast

The Northeastern Region, which comprised 18.8 percent of the Nation's population, accounted for an estimated 13.2 percent of the Crime Index offenses committed. This reflected a 3.2 percent decrease in offenses compared to the 2001 estimate. This region experienced an estimated rate of 2,889.0 Crime Index offenses per 100,000 in population. In 2002, this was the lowest rate of occurrence among the four regions. (See Tables 3 and 4.)

The Midwest

The region of the Midwest, home to 22.6 percent of the U.S. population, had an estimated 21.3 percent of the Crime Index offenses committed, a 1.9 percent decrease from 2001. The Midwest had an estimated Crime Index rate of 3,883.1 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. (See Tables 3 and 4.)

The South

The South, with 35.8 percent of the country's inhabitants, was the region with the most population. Accordingly, it also had the highest volume of Crime Index offenses, an estimated 41.1 percent. This was a 0.1 percent rise in offenses compared to the 2001. The rate of Crime Index offenses per 100,000 individuals in the Southern region was 4,721.9, the highest estimated rate among the regions. (See Tables 3 and 4.)

The West

The West, with 22.8 percent of the population of the United States in 2002, registered an estimated 24.4 percent of Crime Index offenses. A two-year trend (2001-2002) showed a 3.3 percent increase that was the largest increase among of the four regions. An examination of the Crime Index rate showed 4,418.8 offenses per 100,000 people. (See Tables 3 and 4.)