Table 31 Data Declaration
Number and Rate of Arrests by Population Group, 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.
General comments
- This table provides the number of persons arrested and the arrest rate per 100,000 inhabitants for the eight UCR population groups (see below), U.S. cities collectively, and for the nation in 2019.
- These data represent the number of persons arrested; however, some persons may be arrested more than once during a year. Therefore, the statistics in this table could, in some cases, represent multiple arrests of the same person.
Methodology
- The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of arrest data for 2019.
- The FBI derived the arrest rates by first dividing the total aggregated arrests by the aggregated populations covered by contributing agencies and then multiplying the resulting figure by 100,000.
- The rape figures in this table are aggregate totals of data submitted using both the legacy and revised UCR definitions of rape.
Population groups
The UCR Program uses the following population group designations:
Population Group |
Political Label |
Population Range |
I |
City |
250,000 and more |
II |
City |
100,000 to 249,999 |
III |
City |
50,000 to 99,999 |
IV |
City |
25,000 to 49,999 |
V |
City |
10,000 to 24,999 |
VI1,2 |
City |
Less than 10,000 |
VIII (Nonmetropolitan County)2 |
County |
N/A |
IX (Metropolitan County)2 |
County |
N/A |
1Includes universities and colleges to which no population is attributed.
2Includes state police to which no population is attributed.
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.