Table 12, Data Declaration

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Crime Trends
by Population Group, 2007-2008

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

General comments

This 2-year trend table provides the number of offenses for 2007 and 2008 and the percent change between these 2 years, listed by population group.
Metropolitan counties include sheriffs’ offices and county law enforcement agencies associated with a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA).
Nonmetropolitan counties include sheriffs’ offices and county law enforcement agencies that are not associated with an MSA.
Suburban areas include law enforcement agencies in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants and county law enforcement agencies that are within an MSA.
Suburban areas exclude all metropolitan agencies associated with a principal city. The agencies associated with suburban areas also appear in other groups within this table.

Methodology

The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting at least 6 common months of complete offense reports for 2007 and 2008.
A crime trend represents the percentage change in crime based on data reported in a prior equivalent period. In calculating trends, the UCR Program includes only common reported months for individual agencies.

Population group

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
VI^{1, 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 2008 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 2000 decennial population counts and 2001 through 2007 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 2007 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2008 population estimate.

If you have questions about this table

Contact the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division via e-mail at cjis_comm@leo.gov or by telephone at (304) 625-4995.