Table 26 Data Declaration
Percent of Offenses Cleared by Arrest or Exceptional Means, by Geographic Region and Division, 2019
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 2019 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 2019.
- 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 |
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Agency count and population (based on revised rape data) |
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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 2019 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 2018 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 2018 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2019 population estimate.