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An overview of how the USDOJ counts crime, including the use of the National Crime Victimization Survey.
“If” the FBI is counting only one crime per incident (instead of multiple crimes per incident) for its annual reports, it means that the number of crimes reported in any jurisdiction is likely a vast undercount.
Using state counts of multiple state charges per incident from Harvard (below), there may be double or triple the amount of crimes reported by the FBI in their annual crime reports (see appendix for the FBI’s response). This is not an estimate, projection, or claim—only an illustration of the potential scale of undercounting if multiple offenses per incident are excluded.
The National Crime Victimization Survey from the USDOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (see appendix) states that most crimes are not reported to law enforcement. Recent NCVS reports offer a considerable increase in rates of violence for the last three years.
The FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) was designed to change how we count and understand crimes reported to law enforcement. It changes the number of crimes per incident from one to ten.
I wish national and local crime counts were simple. It’s the wild west of sociology. Anyone can make any claim they want about crime based on data from the US Department of Justice.
Official crime counts don’t lie, but they don’t tell the whole truth either.
CrimeinAmerica.Net-Chat GPT’s “Top 10 Sources for Crime in America” based on primary statistical sources with trusted secondary analysis.
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