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Rate: Number of Crimes per 100,000 Inhabitants by Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Counties by Population Group, 2015

The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.

Important note about rape data

In 2013, the UCR Program initiated the collection of rape data under a revised definition and removed the term “forcible” from the offense name. The UCR Program now defines rape as follows:

Rape (revised definition): Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. (This includes the offenses of rape, sodomy, and sexual assault with an object as converted from data submitted via the National Incident-Based Reporting System.)

Rape (legacy definition): The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.

General comments 

• This table provides the rate per 100,000 inhabitants and the number of offenses known to law enforcement for violent crimes (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft) for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan county law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of complete data for 2015. In addition, the table furnishes the number of agencies meeting the criteria for inclusion in this table and provides the estimated population for each population group. 

• Metropolitan counties include sheriffs’ offices and county law enforcement agencies associated with a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). 

• Nonmetropolitan counties include sheriffs’ offices and county law enforcement agencies that are not associated with an MSA. 

• Offenses reported by state police agencies are not included in this table. 

• The UCR Program does not have sufficient data to publish arson offenses in this table. Information about arson can be found in Arson Tables 1 and 2. 

Methodology

• The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of complete data (except arson) for 2015. 

• The FBI derived the offense rates by first dividing the aggregated offense counts by the aggregated populations covered by contributing agencies for which 12 months of complete data were supplied and then multiplying the resulting figure by 100,000. 

• The rape rates were calculated using the population of the agencies based on the UCR definition of rape (revised or legacy) they used to submit data. See table below.

Populations used to calculate rape rates (based on rape definition used for submitted data) by Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Counties¹
by Population Group, 2015

¹Metropolitan counties include sheriffs’ offices and county law enforcement agencies associated with a Metropolitan Statistical Area. Nonmetropolitan counties include sheriffs’ offices and county law enforcement agencies that are not associated with a Metropolitan Statistical Area. The offenses from state police agencies are not included in this table.

Population groups

The UCR Program uses the following population group designations:

¹Includes universities and colleges to which no population is attributed.

²Includes state police to which no population is attributed.

Population estimation 

For the 2015 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2010 decennial population counts and 2011 through 2014 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency’s rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2014 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2015 population estimate.