Uniform Crime Reports

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program is the starting place for law enforcement executives, students of criminal justice, researchers, members of the media, and the public at large seeking information on crime in the nation. The program was conceived in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to meet the need for reliable uniform crime statistics for the nation. In 1930, the FBI was tasked with collecting, publishing, and archiving those statistics nationally.

Since 1982, the Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS), Division of Statewide Services (DSS), has administered the UCR program for Alaska.The Criminal Records and Identification Bureau (CRIB), located within the DSS, collects, tabulates, reports, and publishes UCR data submitted by Alaska law enforcement agencies.

As a community service, the Alaska Justice Information Center (AJiC) has converted hard copies of Alaska's uniform crime report publications from 1976-1999 into the searchable PDF documents available below.

Alaska UCR Archives

 

National UCR Data

Crime in the United States, the FBI publication of data reported for the Uniform Crime Reporting program, is available on the FBI website: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

Uniform Crime Reports

Recognizing the need for national crime statistics, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) developed the foundations in the 1920s for the current UCR program.In June 1930, Congress designated the FBI as the agency authorized to collect, compile, and distribute crime records in an effort to measure the volume of crime in the United States.The UCR program collects monthly information from more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies that voluntarily reporting data on crimes reported to them.The primary objective of the UCR program is to produce reliable data on crime for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management.UCR data are not intended to be used to rank agencies or the jurisdictions in which they are located, and thus UCR data should not be used to designate American cities, counties, or other jurisdictions as "safe" or "dangerous" in the absence of careful consideration of the limitations of these data.

The UCR records data for eight serious crimes (called Part I offenses) and more than twenty less serious offenses (called Part II offenses). Part I offenses include four violent crimes —murder and nonnegligent manslaughter (homicide), forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault —and four property crimes —burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

UCR in Alaska

Since 1982, the Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS), Division of Statewide Services (DSS), has administered the UCR program for Alaska.The Criminal Records and Identification Bureau (CRIB), located within the DSS, collects, tabulates, reports, and publishes UCR data submitted by Alaska law enforcement agencies.As is the case nationally, submitting agencies retain responsibility for the accuracy of the data.While UCR reporting to the FBI is voluntary, AS §12.62.130 requires Alaska law enforcement agencies to submit crime data to DPS.

If you have questions or comments about this project or the information presented here, please e-mail Brad Myrstol.