The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) for 2020 was released on Monday. There was a nearly 30% rise in the number of murders in the United States for 2020. And the number of violent crimes also rose for the first time in four years.
The UCR program collects law enforcement data from agencies across the country. It generates comprehensive and accurate statistics that can be used on all levels of law enforcement. This information can also be used by students of criminal justice, the media, researchers, and the public at large.
Since 1930 the UCR program has been providing crime statistics. And it has been publishing the data since 1960.
In the last two decades with computers and agency databases, the process has become more reliable.
The UCR website claims that “The UCR Program includes data from more than 18,000 cities, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. Agencies participate voluntarily and submit their crime data either through a state UCR Program or directly to the FBI’s UCR Program.”
