What is Uniform Crime Reports?

• A. An FBI program compiling crime data reported by police agencies.
• B. A system for recording officer performance evaluations.
• C. A method for collecting traffic violation data.
• D. A guide to community policing strategies.

Answer: (A)

Uniform Crime Reports are a nationwide program run by the FBI that collects crime data reported by police agencies. Agencies submit counts of crimes known to the police, and the FBI compiles these into national and state-level statistics. The system traditionally uses summarized counts and applies a hierarchy rule, counting only the most serious offense in a incident. This data helps track crime trends and inform policy and research. It’s not about officer performance evaluations, traffic violations, or policing strategy guides. In recent years, detailed incident-level data collection has been expanded with the National Incident-Based Reporting System, which complements and, in some cases, replaces parts of the original UCR approach.