Table 2 Data Declaration
January to June 2015-2016
Percent Change, by Region
The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
General comment
This table provides the percent change in offenses known to law enforcement, by region, for the first 6 months of 2015 and 2016.
Important note about rape data
In 2013, the FBI 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 [NIBRS]).
Rape (legacy definition): The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.
Since the implementation of the revised definition of rape in 2013, not all agencies/state UCR programs have had the ability to change their records management systems to accommodate the change. Therefore, this report provides a column for rape (revised definition) and a column for rape (legacy definition). The data shown in the rape (revised definition) column include those from agencies that reported rape under the UCR revised definition for 2015 and 2016 as well as converted data from agencies that reported data for rape, sodomy, and sexual assault with an object via the NIBRS for both years. The data shown in the rape (legacy definition) column include only those agencies that reported rape under the legacy definition via the Summary Reporting System (SRS) for 2015 and 2016; it does not include any converted NIBRS data.
Methodology
The data used in creating this table were from law enforcement agencies submitting 3 to 6 common months of offense reports for 2015 and 2016. If the FBI determined certain variables created unusual fluctuations in the data, those data were excluded from the tabulations.
The rape figures for those agencies that changed from reporting rape under the legacy definition in 2015 to the UCR revised definition of rape in 2016 are not included in this table. Because the UCR Program has not received two consecutive years of data for rape (legacy definition) or two consecutive years of data for rape (revised definition), the national UCR Program cannot provide a 2-year rape comparison for these agencies.
Because rape data reported by all agencies for 2015 and 2016 cannot be aggregated for reasons noted above, the percent changes from one year to the next are calculated with fewer agencies than in recent years. Offenses with fewer counts are often sensitive to minor differences when calculating trends.
Regions
The U.S. Census Bureau has established the four regions of the United States, which are used by the UCR Program in compiling the nation’s crime data. The following table lists the 50 states and the District of Columbia arranged according to the regions of the United States.
NORTHEASTERN REGION
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
MIDWESTERN REGION
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin
Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota
SOUTHERN REGION
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia
Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee
Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas
WESTERN REGION
Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming
Alaska
California
Hawaii
Oregon
Washington
If you have questions about this table
Contact the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division via e-mail at crimestatsinfo@ic.fbi.gov.
