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Home • Crime in the U.S. • 2015 • Crime in the U.S. 2015 • Tables • Table 35 • Table 35 Data Declaration

Table 35 Data Declaration

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Five-Year Arrest Trends, by Sex, 2011–2015

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.

The 2011 rape figures are based on the legacy definition and the 2015 rape figures are aggregate totals based on both the legacy and revised definitions. For this reason, a percent change is not provided.

General comments

  • This 5-year trend table provides the number of males and females arrested in 2011 and 2015 and the percent change (except for rape) when the data for these 2 years are compared. The table furnishes a breakdown of these data by gender for juveniles (persons under age 18) and for all ages. 
  • These data represent the number of persons arrested; however, some persons may be arrested more than once during a year. Therefore, statistics in this table could, in some cases, represent multiple arrests of the same person. 

Methodology

The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of arrest data for both 2011 and 2015.

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.

The FBI calculated 2011 state growth rates using the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 decennial state/national population figures and 2011 provisional state/national population estimates. The FBI then estimated population figures for city jurisdictions by applying the 2011 state growth rate to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data.