Federal Crime Data
When the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program began publishing federal crime data for 2015, the first report in the fall of 2016 promised a fluid process that was committed to finding ways to present federal crime data and expand on it yearly. Making good on that promise, this UCR Federal Crime Data report has added additional data each year and framed the data to more closely fit the established UCR standard.
The Traditional Model of UCR
The concept of offenses known was adopted in 1929 by the International Chiefs of Police as the data that would be collected in the UCR Program. The aim was to get a true sense of crime in the nation. The UCR Program was designed to be an innate step for state and local agencies to report the crimes that were most common and most likely to come to the attention of law enforcement. However, because of the types of crimes federal agencies investigate, the way they investigate and build cases is often fundamentally different than that of state and local agencies. As a result, it has typically been difficult to fit the square peg of federal crime data into the round hole of UCR.
A few agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and several agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), investigate in ways similar to state or local authorities. These federal agencies have long reported data to the UCR Program. However, other federal agencies, the FBI included, found it more challenging to fit into the UCR model. This annual report was originally designed as a stepping-stone to finding ways to provide a similar transparency and access to federal crime data the UCR Program has brought to state, local, and tribal crime data for nearly 90 years.
Each year, Federal Crime Data moves closer to that goal. The arrest data from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the United States Marshals Service (USMS), the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG), and the Environmental Protection Agency Office of the Office of the Inspector General (EPA OIG) have all been mapped to correspond to the UCR’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) offense codes. This makes the overlay of federal data with state and local data much easier.
Federal Agencies Presenting Traditional UCR Data
The federal agencies (e.g., the DOI and the NIH) that have previously provided traditional UCR offense data and employee counts to the Program through established UCR Summary collection methods were, for many years, included in Table 11 and Table 81 of Crime in the United States. The data declaration pages, which help the user better understand the data, and the methodology used for these two tables are located in the Data Declarations and Methodology section at the end of this report.
- Table 1 - Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, by Federal Agency, 2019
- Table 2 - Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees, by Federal Agency, 2019
Additional Federal Data
Comparability of federal data to state and local data
All crime data create some concerns regarding comparability. In UCR Statistics: Their Proper Use, the UCR Program cautions “There are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place.” It is important for users of UCR data, including federal data, to avoid drawing such simplistic conclusions as one area is safer than another or one agency is more or less efficient than another based solely on crime counts.
The best approach to viewing the federal data offered in this compilation is to use it to gain an overall impression of the intensity of certain types of offenses within a specific area by overlaying the federal arrests in conjunction with the state and local information. As expansion of the data collection continues to occur, more details will become available from federal agencies, and these impressions will become more sharply focused.
Federal crime data are often different from state and local data, not only in their collection, but also in their generation. The UCR Program has built its traditional data collection on three triggering events common to state and local agencies. Offense information begins with either, first, a complaint of a victim/citizen or, second, the observation of a crime in progress by a law enforcement officer. A third trigger for data occurs when an arrest is made, and information related to that occurrence is reported.
For federal agencies, the initiation of investigation may be prompted in different ways. Many crimes, such as human trafficking and hate crime and their associated data, are brought to the attention of the FBI in much the same fashion:
- Reports from victims
- Liaisons with other law enforcement agencies
- Information about victims (e.g., human trafficking, hate crime) brought to the attention of the FBI by nongovernmental organizations
- Reports from the media
The decision to handle a crime as a federal investigation or as a local investigation is determined on a case-by-case basis. Some of the factors that enter into the decision for federal agencies to pursue an investigation are the available evidence, the availability of resources at the local level, and, in the case of hate crime, statutory provisions that determine whether the U.S. Attorney will accept the case as a federal one. In addition, some states do not have a hate crime statute under which to pursue a case. (Hate crime arrests at the federal level by the FBI will be available in the annual Hate Crime Statistics report.)
Why federal numbers are smaller than those of other UCR agencies
As mentioned previously, federal investigations, by nature, often begin under different circumstances and proceed and conclude on different timeframes than investigations conducted by state and local agencies. Just as federal agencies often do not have traditional offenses known to report, they also typically do not have a number of offenses to report until a case has been built and an arrest or indictment has occurred. Perhaps most impactful on the federal numbers is the fact federal agencies often play a collaborative role with state and local agencies in crime investigations. Because the UCR Program has the “most local reporting” rule, which specifies the agency involved that is the most local jurisdiction should report the incident to the UCR Program, investigations and arrests that federal authorities have been involved with are often reported by state, county, city, or tribal agencies.
Why don’t the offenses in the tables match those presented in Crime in the United States?
Since its origination, this report’s aim has been to assimilate federal crime data into the UCR environment. UCR staff have been working since the beginning of this report series to align data from federal record-keeping systems with the UCR model. The 2016 edition of Federal Crime Data accomplished that by mapping federal data to NIBRS offense codes. However, Crime in the United States currently presents UCR data using the older Summary Reporting System’s offenses. Going forward, as the entire UCR Program moves to NIBRS by 2021, the national UCR staff will continue to strive to make the presentation of federal data more consistent with the standard of UCR.
Federal Arrest Data
The data declaration pages, which help the user better understand the data presented in this report, and the methodology for all tables are located in the Data Declarations and Methodology section at the end of this report.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
This section provides federal data in the form of the number of arrestees by FBI field offices.
- Table 3 - FBI Number of Arrestees, by NIBRS Offense Code by FBI Field Office, 2019
- Table 3F - FBI Number of Arrestees for Child Exploitation, by FBI Field Office, 2019
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
This section provides federal data in the form of the number of arrestees by the ATF within judicial districts.
- Table 4 - ATF Number of Arrestees, by NIBRS Offense Code by Judicial District, 2019
United States Marshals Service (USMS)
This section provides federal data in the form of the number of arrestees by the USMS within judicial districts. The data are divided between two tables, one for arrests from federally-issued warrants and one for arrests from state-issued warrants.
- Table 5 - USMS Number of Arrestees from Federally-Issued Warrants, by NIBRS Offense Code by Judicial District, 2019
- Table 6 - USMS Number of Arrestees from State-Issued Warrants, by NIBRS Offense Code by Judicial District, 2019
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (DOJ OIG)
This section provides federal data in the form of the number of arrestees by the DOJ OIG within judicial districts.
- Table 7 - DOJ OIG Number of Arrestees, by NIBRS Offense Code by Judicial District, 2019
- Table 8 - EPA OIG Number of Arrestees by NIBRS Offense Code, by Judicial District, 2019