Foreword

The concept of collecting national crime statistics and using them to explore the complexion and scope of the country's crimes originated with discussions among law enforcement officials in the late 1800s. The topic continued to be of interest at national meetings of law enforcement, and the idea gained momentum as the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) took a leading role in promoting it. Finally, in January 1930, 400 cities from 43 of the 48 United States and the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico submitted their data to the IACP. The association compiled the information into the first national database of crime statistics and subsequently published them in a nine-page report. The IACP published the statistics that they collected thereafter in a monthly pamphlet titled Uniform Crime Reports for the United States and Its Possessions and distributed it to participating agencies and other interested parties.

Later in 1930, the years of planning further culminated in the IACP's successful implementation of a data collection program that we now know as the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. By August 1930, the Bureau of Investigation (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] in 1935) had assumed oversight of the UCR Program. At the time the IACP transferred the responsibilities of collecting and publishing crime statistics to the FBI, participation in the Program had grown to include 786 cities. In September, the fledgling UCR Program compiled the data into the first monthly report under the auspice of the FBI.

Although the Program experienced many changes throughout the decades that followed, its primary objective has never changed--to provide reliable criminal statistics for use by law enforcement, criminologists, sociologists, legislators, municipal planners, the media, and the general public. As the UCR Program developed through the years, crime categories were added and additional information pertaining to particular crimes were included. Consequently, the resulting reports grew in magnitude and scope. Today, the original pamphlet-sized publication, now titled Crime in the United States, has evolved into the current document that exceeds 450 pages and provides crime information from over 17,000 local and state law enforcement agencies.

Despite its long, rich history, the UCR Program is in many ways still in its infancy, and more changes lie ahead as it continues its development. FBI executives are exploring additional ways that the Program's data can be used to support the Nation's law enforcement and other governmental agencies as they struggle to combat crime in a new global environment. Moreover, as the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division joins the current movement to more efficiently use and share data, officials are focusing on the UCR Program's potential to enhance the Nation's criminal justice information network.

Robert S. Mueller, III Director

COPYRIGHT 2002 Federal Bureau of Investigation
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