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Home Crime in the U.S. 2018 Crime in the U.S. 2018 Tables Table 26 Table 26 Data Declaration

Table 26 Data Declaration

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Percent of Offenses Cleared by Arrest or Exceptional Means, by Geographic Region and Division, 2018

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

Important note about rape data

In 2013, the FBI’s UCR Program initiated the collection of rape data under a revised definition within the Summary Reporting System. The term “forcible” was removed from the offense name, and the definition was changed to “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.”

In 2016, the FBI Director approved the recommendation to discontinue the reporting of rape data using the UCR legacy definition beginning in 2017. Therefore, the rape data reported by those agencies using the UCR legacy definition are not included in this table.

General comments

  • This table provides the number of violent crimes and property crimes with a breakdown of the offenses known to law enforcement and the percentage of those offenses that were cleared by arrest or exceptional means by region and geographic division.
  • This table furnishes national clearance data and clearances broken down for the nation’s four regions and nine geographic divisions.
  • The number of agencies meeting the criteria for inclusion in this table and the 2018 estimated population for those agencies are provided by region and geographic division.
  • Not all agencies submit data reports for arson to the FBI. Therefore, the agency counts and estimated population presented in this table do not represent participation for the reporting of arson.

Methodology

  • The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting at least 6 months of complete offense reports for 2018.
  • The FBI bases percent cleared statistics on aggregated offense and clearance totals. The percentage of crimes cleared by arrest is obtained by dividing the number of offenses cleared by the number of offenses known and then multiplying the resulting figure by 100.
  • The rape figures are based only on those agencies reporting rape using the revised definition. See table below.

Populations used to calculate rape clearances
by Geographic Region and Division, 2018

 

Agency count and population (based on revised rape data) 

Geographic Region and Division 

Agency count 

Population 

Total all agencies 

14,944 

291,658,478 

Northeast 

3,525 

55,710,493 

New England 

911 

14,637,644 

Middle Atlantic 

2,614 

41,072,849 

Midwest 

3,818 

51,006,142 

East North Central 

1,836 

30,775,814 

West North Central 

1,982 

20,230,328 

South 

5,538 

109,162,023 

South Atlantic 

2,436 

53,152,871 

East South Central 

1,240 

16,941,672 

West South Central 

1,862 

39,067,480 

West 

2,063 

75,779,820 

Mountain 

877 

23,521,163 

Pacific 

1,186 

52,258,657

Regions and geographic divisions

The U.S. Census Bureau has established the four regions of the United States along with nine geographic divisions that the UCR Program uses to compile the nation’s crime data. The following table lists the 50 states and the District of Columbia arranged according to the regions and geographic divisions of the United States.

NORTHEASTERN STATES

New England

Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Rhode Island
Vermont

Middle Atlantic

New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania

MIDWESTERN STATES

East North Central

Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
Wisconsin

West North Central

Iowa
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
South Dakota

SOUTHERN STATES

South Atlantic

Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Maryland
North Carolina
South Carolina
Virginia
West Virginia

East South Central

Alabama
Kentucky
Mississippi
Tennessee

West South Central

Arkansas
Louisiana
Oklahoma
Texas

WESTERN STATES

Mountain

Arizona
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Utah
Wyoming

Pacific

Alaska
California
Hawaii
Oregon
Washington 

Population estimation

For the 2018 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 2017 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 2017 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2018 population estimate.