The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily reporting data on crimes brought to their attention".
A violent crime, violent felony, crime of violence or crime of a violent nature is a crime in which an offender or perpetrator uses or threatens to use harmful force upon a victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, assault, rape and assassination, as well as crimes in which violence is used as a method of coercion or show of force, such as robbery, extortion and terrorism. Violent crimes may, or may not, be committed with weapons. Depending on the jurisdiction, violent crimes may be regarded with varying severities from homicide to harassment. There have been many theories regarding heat being the cause of an increase in violent crime. Theorists claim that violent crime is persistent during the summer due to the heat, further causing people to become aggressive and commit more violent crime.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice.
Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2023, over five million people are under supervision by the criminal justice system, with nearly two million people incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. The United States has the largest known prison population in the world. Prison populations grew dramatically beginning in the 1970s, but began a decline around 2009, dropping 25% by year-end 2021.
Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been trained to extinguish. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Justice that operates U.S. federal prisons and is responsible for the care, custody, and control of federal prisoners.
Prison rape commonly refers to the rape of inmates in prison by other inmates or prison staff. In 2001, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 4.3 million inmates had been raped while incarcerated in the United States. A United States Department of Justice report, Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, states that "In 2011–12, an estimated 4.0% of state and federal prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission to the facility, if less than 12 months." However, advocates dispute the accuracy of the numbers, saying they seem to under-report the real numbers of sexual assaults in prison, especially among juveniles.
The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that focuses on crime prevention through research and development, assistance to state, local, and tribal criminal justice agencies, including law enforcement, corrections, and juvenile justice through grants and assistance to crime victims.
In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups; a 2005 study by the American Journal of Public Health observed that the odds of perpetrating violence were 85% higher for blacks compared with whites, with Latino-perpetrated violence 10% lower. However, academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as blacks have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system used by law enforcement agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data on crimes. Local, state and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their records management systems. Data is collected on every incident and arrest in the Group A offense category. These Group A offenses are 52 offenses grouped in 23 crime categories. Specific facts about these offenses are gathered and reported to NIBRS. In addition to the Group A offenses, 10 Group B offenses are reported with only the arrest information.
Crime has been recorded in the United States since its founding and has fluctuated significantly over time, with a sharp rise after 1900 and reaching a broad bulging peak between the 1970s and early 1990s. After 1992, crime rates have generally trended downwards each year, with the exceptions of a slight increase in property crimes in 2001 and increases in violent crimes in 2005-2006, 2014-2016 and 2020-2021. While official federal crime data beginning in 2021 has a wide margin of error due to the incomplete adoption of the National Incident-Based Reporting System by government agencies, federal data for 2020-2021 and limited data from select U.S. cities collected by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice showed significantly elevated rates of homicide and motor vehicle theft in 2020-2022. Although overall crime rates have fallen far below the peak of crime seen in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the homicide rate in the U.S. has remained high, relative to other "high income"/developed nations, with eight major U.S. cities ranked among the 50 cities with the highest homicide rate in the world in 2022. The aggregate cost of crime in the United States is significant, with an estimated value of $4.9 trillion reported in 2021. Data from the first half of 2023, from government and private sector sources show that the murder rate has dropped, as much as 12% in as many as 90 cities across the United States. The drop in homicide rates is not uniform across the country however, with some cities such as Memphis, TN, showing an uptick in murder rates.
Quantitative methods provide the primary research methods for studying the distribution and causes of crime. Quantitative methods provide numerous ways to obtain data that are useful to many aspects of society. The use of quantitative methods such as survey research, field research, and evaluation research as well as others. The data can, and is often, used by criminologists and other social scientists in making causal statements about variables being researched.
Race in the United States criminal justice system refers to the unique experiences and disparities in the United States in regard to the policing and prosecuting of various races. There have been different outcomes for different racial groups in convicting and sentencing felons in the United States criminal justice system. Although prior arrests and criminal history is also a factor. Experts and analysts have debated the relative importance of different factors that have led to these disparities.
According to the latest available data at the World Prison Brief on May 7, 2023, the United States has the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world, at 531 people per 100,000. Between 2019 and 2020, the United States saw a significant drop in the total number of incarcerations. State and federal prison and local jail incarcerations dropped by 14% from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million in mid-2020. In 2018, the United States had the highest incarceration rate in the world.
The Second Chance Act of 2007, titled "To reauthorize the grant program for reentry of offenders into the community in the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, to improve reentry planning and implementation, and for other purposes," was submitted to the House by Representative Danny Davis (D-IL) to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to reauthorize, rewrite, and expand provisions for adult and juvenile offender state and local reentry demonstration projects to provide expanded services to offenders and their families for reentry into society. H.R. 1593 was signed into law April 9, 2008.
As of 2013, across the world, 625,000 women and children were being incarcerated in correctional facilities, and the female prison population was increasing in all continents. The list of countries by incarceration rate includes a main table with a column for the historical and current percentage of prisoners who are female.
Prison overcrowding is a social phenomenon occurring when the demand for space in prisons in a jurisdiction exceeds the capacity for prisoners. The issues associated with prison overcrowding are not new, and have been brewing for many years. During the United States' War on Drugs, the states were left responsible for solving the prison overcrowding issue with a limited amount of money. Moreover, federal prison populations may increase if states adhere to federal policies, such as mandatory minimum sentences. On the other hand, the Justice Department provides billions of dollars a year for state and local law enforcement to ensure they follow the policies set forth by the federal government concerning U.S. prisons. Prison overcrowding has affected some states more than others, but overall, the risks of overcrowding are substantial and there are solutions to this problem.
Incarceration prevention refers to a variety of methods aimed at reducing prison populations and costs while fostering enhanced social structures. Due to the nature of incarceration in the United States today caused by issues leading to increased incarceration rates, there are methods aimed at preventing the incarceration of at-risk populations.
Decarceration in the United States involves government policies and community campaigns aimed at reducing the number of people held in custody or custodial supervision. Decarceration, the opposite of incarceration, also entails reducing the rate of imprisonment at the federal, state and municipal level. As of 2019, the US was home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. possessed the world's highest incarceration rate: 655 inmates for every 100,000 people, enough inmates to equal the populations of Philadelphia or Houston. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinvigorated the discussion surrounding decarceration as the spread of the virus poses a threat to the health of those incarcerated in prisons and detention centers where the ability to properly socially distance is limited. As a result of the push for decarceration in the wake of the pandemic, as of 2022, the incarceration rate in the United States declined to 505 per 100,000; meaning that the United States no longer has the highest incarceration rate in the world, but remains in the top 5.
