Agencies in the RTCI publish data through either Uniform Crime Report Part I or National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) categorizations. NIBRS offers more offense types than are available through UCR Part I so NIBRS offenses have been translated to match their Part I counterparts to ensure a generally apples-to-apples comparison across agencies regardless of reporting system. A previous study by the FBI showed that transitioning from UCR Part I to NIBRS reporting can lead to a small increase in property crimes with minimal impact on violent crimes. Offense definitions can also be found on the FBI’s website.
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Translating NIBRS Offenses
The FBI has traditionally reported major crime for the above seven categories under the Summary Reporting System (SRS). Arson was added as a category in 1979, but it is so underreported that the FBI does not calculate national arson estimates.
The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) became the primary reporting system for most agencies in 2021. NIBRS collects data on more categories of crime, so the RTCI translates NIBRS offense types back to SRS categories to make an apples-to-apples crime comparison for agencies that have transitioned to NIBRS.
Additionally, while agencies only recorded the most serious offense under SRS (known as the Hierarchy Rule), NIBRS allows for up to 10 offenses to be collected for one incident. Studies by both the FBI and Jacob Kaplan of the impact of the Hierarchy Rule on NIBRS crime counts have found its effect to be minor with the impact almost exclusively isolated to a roughly 2 percent increase in property crimes. Most of that impact would be accounted for in the RTCI in 2021 data with likely little or no impact on present year reporting.
FBI Regions
The FBI defines four geographical regions in the United States: Midwest, Northeast, South, and West. For consistency, we use the same regions when constructing our nationwide regional samples. Agencies with complete murder data through the most recent month are assigned to the regional sample where they are located. You can see these regions outlined on the Participation Map along with agencies’ locations. The list of states corresponding to each region are as follows:
Midwest
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- South Dakota
- Wisconsin
Northeast
- Connecticut
- Maine
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New York
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- Vermont
South
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Delaware
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maryland
- Mississippi
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Virginia
- West Virginia
West
- Alaska
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Montana
- Nevada
- New Mexico
- Oregon
- Utah
- Washington
- Wyoming