What is UCR (Uniform Crime Reports)

The UCR is a nationwide, cooperative, statistical effort of more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention. The program's primary objective is to generate a reliable set of criminal statistics for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management.

Each month, law enforcement agencies report the number of known index crimes in their jurisdiction to the FBI. This mainly includes crimes reported to the police by the general public, but may also include crimes that police officers discover and/or through other sources. Law enforcement agencies also report the number of crime cases cleared.  

For reporting purposes, criminal offenses are divided into two major groups: Part I offenses and Part II offenses.

Part I Index crimes are broken into two categories: violent and property crimes.  Murder, Robbery, Aggravated Assault, and Forcible Rape are classified as violent while Arson, Burglary, Larceny-Theft and Motor Vehicle Theft are classified as property crimes.

Part II offenses include: simple assault, curfew offenses and loitering, embezzlement, forgery and counterfeiting, disorderly conduct, driving under the influence, drug offenses, fraud, gambling, liquor offenses, offenses against the family, prostitution, public drunkeness, runaways, sex offenses, stolen property, vandalism, vagrancy, and weapons offenses.