Rate: Number of Crimes per 100,000 Inhabitants
Additional Information About Selected Offenses
by Population Group, 2008
The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
General comments
- This table provides the rate of offenses per 100,000 inhabitants for each population group (both city and county groupings) and the number of offenses known to law enforcement for forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and motor vehicle theft as well as the breakdowns associated with each type of offense. In addition, the table furnishes the number of agencies meeting the criteria for inclusion in this table and provides the estimated population for each population group.
- The totals provided in this table reflect only those offenses for which law enforcement agencies provided additional information to the UCR Program; therefore, the totals will not match those shown in other rate tables.
- The FBI publishes only data that conform to UCR data collection guidelines. For example, the data collection methodology for the offense of forcible rape used by the state UCR Programs administered by the Illinois State Police and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety do not comply with these guidelines, and, therefore, are not available for inclusion in this table. Instead, the FBI computes the rates by estimating forcible rape offenses for each population group for participating agencies in Illinois and Minnesota. The figures are estimated using the national rates for each population group applied to the population by group for Illinois and Minnesota agencies supplying 12 months of complete data.
- Suburban areas include law enforcement agencies in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants and county law enforcement agencies that are within a Metropolitan Statistical Area.
- 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.
- The UCR Program does not include murder or arson offenses in this table. Information about these offenses can be found in the respective sections of this report: Expanded Homicide Data and Arson.
Methodology
- The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies submitting 12 months of complete data (except arson) for 2008.
- The FBI derived the offense rates by first dividing the total aggregated offense estimates by the aggregated populations covered by contributing agencies for which 12 months of complete data were supplied and then multiplying the resulting figure by 100,000.
Population groups
The UCR Program uses the following population group designations:
| 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 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.