Methodology
Where does RecordsPedia get its crime statistics?
RecordsPedia crime statistics are based on the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) data available from the FBI (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr). The UCR data are reported individually by a variety of law enforcement agencies to the FBI which then analyzes, collates and periodically releases the data. UCR crime data cover more than 93% of the U.S. population. RecordsPedia displays these data in an easy to use, graphical format so that everyone has access to them.
There are, unfortunately, a number of limitations to the UCR data:
UCR "city" data are not actually city data, but rather police department data. As a result, they sometimes correspond to an area covering more than one city. Joint police departments and regional authorities complicate the situation further. Additionally, the names of police departments may not correspond to the names of the cities they serve. After examining the data, it is clear that "city" data actually include city, multi-city, county, multi-county, regional, city-county hybrids, and even "state" police data.
To create an accurate city dataset, RecordsPedia approached cities in the following way:
- Multiple corrections to city names were made (outdated city names, mis-spellings, lack of continuity year-to-year, and idiosyncratic police department names not corresponding to city names). Each of these cases (numbering in the hundreds) was individually researched and corrected.
- In the case of consolidated cities (e.g. Augusta-Richmond, GA), RecordsPedia relied on whether the law enforcement agency identified itself at the county or city level and reports the crime data accordingly (e.g. Richmond County, Georgia).
- In cases where UCR data are reported jointly for two cities, RecordsPedia assigns the crime statistcs to the first named city (for example the Snowflake-Taylor Police Department).
- If this occurred for multiple cities, as in the case of regional police departments, or departments in rural areas which act regionally, these data were more appropriately included at the county level.
County level crime data present another challenge:
UCR "county" statistics do not actually reflect the total crime which occurs in that county - only the crime reported by the county-level agencies (e.g. county police departments) - which usually have little correlation to total crime in the county. RecordsPedia addresses this limitation by reporting crime for the county which includes not only county-level data, but also aggregates all the crime statistics for cities that are members of that county.
- To address cases where a city resided in more than one county, or did not reside in any county (independent cities technically reside outside of counties), RecordsPedia uses a technique called population-weighting to assign crime in proportion to the population of each city. Each city (or city portion, as appropriate) is included in the county or counties where the city is geographically located, and to the degree that it resides in those counties.
- We feel this gives a much more accurate reporting of "county" level crime, and to our knowledge, RecordsPedia is the only source of information, anywhere, for true county crime statistics.
Have more questions about crime statistics?
We are constantly working to improve RecordsPedia and provide easy access and transparency for both public records and crime statistics.
- If you have questions or suggestions for us, we love to hear them! Please let us know what we can do to make RecordsPedia better by contacting us via our Contact Page.
- If you have questions with the FBI UCR data, you can refer to the data quality guidelines, or contact the FBI Communications Unit at cjis_comm@leo.gov or by phone at (304) 625-4995.
- For general information on crime statistics, the Justice Research and Statistics Association, the American Society of Criminology, and the Journal of Quantitative Criminology are also excellent resources.
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