Findings
On the first Friday of each month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases estimates of employment and unemployment for the nation, states, and selected local areas.1 Comprehensive, official national statistics on crime, on the other hand, are released annually and lag by nearly a year. Data collected by the federal government on homicide and other serious violent and property crimes for all of 2023, for example, will not be published until the fall of 2024.
Timely, accurate, complete, and usable crime trends are critical to guiding the nation’s efforts to control and prevent crime. Real-time national data on crime trends–which crimes are rising, which are falling, and by how much–are needed to help policymakers spot emerging issues that require urgent attention and to guide the development of appropriate interventions. Timely national data can also ground politically charged policy conversations and public perceptions about crime in facts rather than anecdotes, and, in so doing, can help shape data-driven policymaking.
The recent volatility in homicide rates provides a case in point. In 2020, the United States saw an historic rise in murder, a 29% spike that was the largest single-year increase on record. Homicides increased again in 2021 but dipped in 2022. In 2023, it appears that homicides dropped even more substantially. But the source for these recent and compelling changes in violence and victimization isn’t the federal government, but rather nongovernmental organizations that pull information from a small sample of cities with publicly available crime data. In the meantime, the nature and extent of homicide have become fodder for competing political narratives about the causes and proper level of concern, fueling a disparate array of police, community, and policy responses.
While we may be in the midst of the largest one-year decline in homicides in well over half a decade, the current debate about shoplifting offers another vivid illustration. National retail chains and local retailers alike report a significant spike in theft since 2020; many are locking products behind cabinets, shutting down self-checkout lanes, beefing up security, and closing dozens of stores. At the same time, law enforcement data from a sample of cities shows that while shoplifting levels have risen, they have done so only back to their pre-pandemic levels.2 Confidence in the numbers from both sources is low, and yet dramatic policy responses abound: California dedicated $267 million to law enforcement agencies to combat retail theft;3 24 states have created statewide or regional retail theft task forces, passed tougher criminal sentences, or rolled back previous reforms; and Congress is considering new federal penalties and creating an Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center. Perhaps these measures are appropriately designed and scaled; without timely, accurate data, however, we just don’t know.
In a concerted effort to improve data on crime, including the timeliness with which data are reported, the federal government recently shifted how crime data are collected and reported by the nation’s 19,000-plus state, local, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies, moving all reporting to the National Incident-Based Reporting System.4 But despite those efforts, national crime data still fall short of what we need to sufficiently inform policy, practice, and political dialogue. At stake are billions in government spending on public safety and criminal justice, the viability of businesses and urban centers, and the extent to which Americans are safe, and feel safe, in their homes and communities.
National crime data still fall short of what we need to sufficiently inform policy, practice, and political dialogue. At stake are billions in government spending on public safety and criminal justice, the viability of businesses and urban centers, and the extent to which Americans are safe, and feel safe, in their homes and communities.
There is a blueprint to begin the important work of improving national crime statistics. In 2009, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published the first in a series of three reports on the U.S. justice statistics system.5 The first report identified significant gaps in data collection and highlighted the need for more accurate and more relevant information to guide policymakers. The report also recommended restructuring how the federal government collects and reports crime data, strengthening connections with state and local agencies, identifying best practices, and investing in criminal justice statistics. A subsequent report, Modernizing Crime Statistics, published in two parts in 2016 and 2018, critiqued current U.S. crime classification systems and reiterated many of the concerns raised in the 2009 report. It emphasized the need to expand crime categories to include newer types of crimes, such as cyber threats, financial crimes, and others that have emerged with changes in technology. It also highlighted the benefits of standardizing definitions and methodologies, the opportunities that new technologies afford for having more timely and accurate crime statistics, and the need for greater stakeholder engagement and investments in justice statistics.
To build on this work, the Council on Criminal Justice Crime Trends Working Group, a diverse group of producers and consumers of crime trends data, explored key challenges and possible solutions to improve crime data. Deliberations of the Working Group focused almost exclusively on existing gaps in knowledge related to street crime. Beyond its own expertise, the Working Group consulted with numerous federal, state, and local public safety experts, public health data experts, and other subject matter experts and built on previous efforts, aiming to fill existing gaps and identifying those looming on the horizon. The group also benefited from liaisons at the Federal Bureau of Investigation Criminal Justice Information Services Division and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as well as consultations with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the National Institute of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Working Group deliberations produced consensus on multiple areas for urgent action by federal, state, and local agencies. The recommendations are followed by estimates of what they will cost to implement. Taken together, the group’s proposals create an actionable roadmap essential to accelerating progress toward the collection and dissemination of timely, accurate, complete, and usable national crime trends data.
1. Timeliness
The 9-to-10-month lag in the release of comprehensive annual data on crimes reported to police limits the value of the data to law enforcement agencies, policymakers, the public, and the media. The delay has become more problematic in recent years as the internet, social media, and other technologies permit the rapid spread of new types of crime.
2. Accuracy
Quality data are dependent on a number of factors, some of which are common to large data enterprises (enhancing quality control and reducing errors), while others emerge when comparing data sources that measure crimes in different ways as well as reports that measure crime across different time periods. These factors can pose challenges to the interpretation and use of the data. In addition, data involving firearms are often inaccurate due to the miscoding of some assaults as accidents.
3. Completeness
There has been significant progress in transitioning law enforcement agencies to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), but substantial obstacles to generating a more comprehensive view of American crime remain. These include achieving full NIBRS coverage, effectively tracking non-fatal firearms assaults and injuries data, and expanding coverage of other important types of crime, such as white-collar, environmental, and cybercrimes, that are not captured well by existing systems.
4. Usability
Law enforcement agencies tend to see national crime data reporting as an administrative task; few make full and effective use of the insights that the rich NIBRS data can provide. The primary federal online data tool is cumbersome and does not always allow even expert users to easily extract the statistics they seek.
5. Governance and Funding
A variety of federal agencies collect crime-related data across multiple departments, but the Executive Branch lacks a structure for coordinating these efforts. Years of underfunding have made it difficult for the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to perform its mandated functions.