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Home • Crime in the U.S. • 2016 • Crime in the U.S. 2016 • Tables • Table 18 • Table 18 Data Declaration

Table 18 Data Declaration

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Estimated Number of Arrests, United States, 2016

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 rape figure in this table is an aggregate total of the data submitted based on both the legacy and revised UCR definitions.

General comments

This table provides the estimated number of persons arrested in the United States in 2016.

Methodology

The data used in creating the national estimates for this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of arrest data for 2016.

Arrest estimation

  • The arrest totals presented are national estimates based on the arrest rates of all law enforcement agencies submitting a complete year of arrest data to the UCR Program.
  • The total estimated number of arrests in this table is the sum of estimated arrest volumes for 27 offenses, excluding suspicion.
  • The arrest data for each of the individual offenses in this table is the sum of the estimated volume for that offense within each of the eight population groups. (See Area Definitions.)
  • The FBI calculated arrest rates using data from all law enforcement agencies submitting a complete year of arrest data (i.e., complete reporters), then multiplying this complete-response arrest rate by the total population (including those of incomplete and non-reporters) in each arrest offense and population group and then multiplying by 100,000 for each arrest offense.
  • Arrest data is not imputed and then aggregated to the national level. The FBI UCR Program does not impute missing arrest data from either nonreporting or partially reporting jurisdictions. Published estimates are based only on data from those jurisdictions submitting 12 months of arrest data because the arrests from partial and incomplete reporting agencies are excluded from the rate calculation.