Turn on the news these days, and you are shown startling statistics about crime. Just this week, the FBI released startling data that homicides in the Unites States in 2020 rose by nearly 30% over the previous year, the largest increase since the Bureau began keeping statistics. While violent crimes are up, robbery and property crime rates decreased, which isn’t surprising considering the state of the world in 2020, with most people staying home during the day.
Crime statistics come from two major sources: The FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The FBI compiles data from local, state and federal agencies, although not all types of crimes are reported, and not all agencies report. Currently, eight out of every ten agencies report to the FBI, which creates a gap in the data. The BJS tracks crime using a annual survey, which asks Americans if they have been a victim of crime in the last six months. Since the start of crime statistics in America, many crime rates are going down, including violent crimes and property crimes, despite a rise in the last year.
Moving forward, the FBI is moving to a new system beginning in 2021 to expand their data and increase accuracy. The new system will be called the National Incident-Based Reporting System, and will increase both the number of crimes the FBI gathers information about, and specific details about the crime, including demographic information of victims and offenders.
Of course, a mainstay for AGS data for decades has been CrimeRisk, a geographically detailed and comprehensive crime assessment database. Using advanced statistical methodologies and a rolling seven-year database of FBI and local agency statistics, CrimeRisk provides a highly accurate view of the relative risk of specific crime types for any geographic area. It is not a database of crime occurrence, but rather, the relative risk of any location compared to the United States in entirety.
At AGS, we are working diligently to keep up with the changes coming to crime data reporting, and will begin to integrate this new data into CrimeRisk over the next few years. We always welcome the opportunity to work with additional data, in this case additional crimes and demographic data, to expand and make our databases more valuable to you. Our goal remains the same: to get you the best quality data available. As we incorporate the new data, we will continue to update you on how it changes CrimeRisk.
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