Bureau of Justice Statistics U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bridging Gaps in Police Crime Data A Discussion Paper from the BJS Fellows Program 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percent of the U.S. UCR arrest statistics population covered in crime statistics of the Reporting Program Uniform Crime (UCR)  crime statistics of the Unifrm Crime Reporting Program (UCR)  UCR arrest statistics U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20531 Janet Reno Attorney General Raymond C. Fisher Associate Attorney General Laurie Robinson Assistant Attorney General No1l Brennan Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D. Director, Bureau of Justice Statistics Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Homepage: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov Bureau of Justice Statistics World Wide Web Homepage: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/ For information contact: BJS Clearinghouse 1-800-732-3277 U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics Bridging Gaps in Police Crime Data A Discussion Paper from the BJS Fellows Program by Michael D. Maltz Department of Criminal Justice University of Illinois at Chicago and Visiting Fellow Bureau of Justice Statistics September 1999, NCJ 176365 This paper is based on a Workshop on Uniform Crime Reporting Imputation, sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics Jan M. Chaiken, Ph.D. Director The points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. BJS Discussion Papers promote the exchange of information, analysis, and ideas on issues related to justice statistics and to the operations of the justice system. This document was prepared under cooperative agreement 95-BJ-CX- 0001 for the BJS Visiting Fellowship Program. The author may be reached at the following addresses: Professor Michael D. Maltz Department of Criminal Justice University of Illinois at Chicago 1007 W. Harrison Street (M/C 141) Chicago, IL 60607-7140 email: mikem@uic.edu Bridging Gaps ii in Police Crime Data I began work on this project because, although I had been using the UCR for many years, I had never understood all of its intricacies & and felt somewhat embarrassed to ask simple questions about why certain procedures were used, because obviously everyone else knew. It turned out, however, that most people seemed to be as much in the dark as I was, perhaps about different aspects of the UCR, and during this project we began to share our knowledge, each of us having an understanding of different aspects of the data collection and analysis process. This report is, then, more a collaboration than a single-authored effort, a kind of "open source" presentation of our collective knowledge. [Although the knowledge is collective, the interpretation of that knowledge is my own.] The information contained herein is based on a 2-day meeting held over 2 years ago; analyses of UCR data conducted since then; and conversations, letters, faxes, and e-mails between me and a number of colleagues. In particular, I wish to acknow- ledge the comments and advice of the following: ù From BJS – Jan Chaiken, Larry Greenfeld, Tom Hester, Charles Kindermann, Pat Langan, Sue Lindgren, Don Manson, Marilyn Marbrook, Mona Rantala, Steve Smith, Paul White, and Marianne Zawitz ù From the FBI – Yoshio Akiyama, Bennie Brewer, Kenneth Candell, Carlos Davis, Gil Gee, Antonio Hwang, Dawn Kording, Vicki Major, Jim Nolan, Sharon Propheter, and Maryvictoria Pyne ù From the research community – Dan Bibel, Becky Block, Roland Chilton, Chris Dunn, Bob Flewelling, Jamie Fox, John Jarvis, Jim Lynch, Mike Maxfield, and Howard Snyder. In addition, I wish to thank the UCR program personnel from the 50 States with whom my research assistants (Leanne Brecklin, University of Illinois at Chicago; Chris Kenaszchuk, University of Maryland; and Todd Minton and Matt Durose, BJS) and I corresponded and spoke. I received cooperation from officials in every State in putting together this report; I hope that the end result is of use to them and to others who deal with crime statistics. This report was written while I was a Visiting Fellow at the Bureau of Justice Statistics and completed while I was on sabbatical from the University of Illinois at Chicago. While I greatly appreciate the help I received from BJS, FBI, and State officials, they should not be held responsible for any errors in this report, and the opinions, con- clusions, and recommendations expressed herein are my own and should not be construed as the policy of any of these organizations. Michael D. Maltz Department of Criminal Justice University of Illinois at Chicago Visiting Fellow Bureau of Justice Statistics Acknowledgments Bridging Gaps iii in Police Crime Data Crime in the United States (CIUS), published annually by the FBI, is a compilation of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) provided by over 18,000 policing jurisdictions. It repre- sents one of the two primary sources of data about crime in the United States, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) being the other. While the NCVS is a very reliable indicator of national trends in crime, it is based on a survey of under 50,000 house- holds and thus cannot provide local informa- tion on crime, which is provided by the UCR and CIUS. [For a thorough understanding of the differences between the two statistical series, see Biderman and Lynch's (1991) Understanding Crime Incidence Statistics: Why the UCR Diverges from the NCS. The NCS, or National Crime Survey, was the predecessor to the NCVS. A briefer explana- tion can be found in The Nation's Two Crime Measures, found at http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/bjs/abstract/ntmc.htm and included annually in CIUS.] Not only does CIUS provide local information about crime incidence, it also compiles arrest data from these jurisdictions; these data permit us to form a picture of who is committing crime (or at least, who is arrested for committing crime). The quality of the data provided to the FBI, however, is uneven. Reporting to the FBI remains for many jurisdictions a voluntary activity; although many States now mandate that agencies report crime and arrest data to them (which they then forward to the FBI), even in those States local agencies do not always comply. Moreover, despite the efforts of the FBI to maintain their quality, there are many gaps in the data that make their use questionable. While this has had limited impact in the past, the fact that the UCR data have, for the first time, been used to allocate Federal funds brings issues about data quality to center stage. In addition, the FBI is moving to implement an improved crime and arrest reporting system, the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), to augment the summary UCR data published in CIUS. It is hoped that the study of deficiencies in UCR data will be of use in planning for the full implementation of NIBRS. This report describes the history of the UCR system and the data problems that it deals with in reporting crime, arrest and homicide. It describes the procedures used by the FBI to fill in gaps in the data when they exist and makes suggestions about how they might be improved. Summary Bridging Gaps iv in Police Crime Data I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Why We Need to Look at the UCR . . . . . . 2 The Information-Gathering Process 3 Report Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 II. UCR History and Coverage . . . . . . . . . . 4 State-Level Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Comparing Crime Data . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Coverage Gaps and Imputation . . . . 5 The UCR and Funding Decisions . . 7 The UCR and Electronic Access . . . 9 Use of Sub-National UCR Data . . . 10 The UCR and NIBRS . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 III. Incomplete Crime Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Error Checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Reasons for Incomplete Reporting . 16 IV. Incomplete Arrest Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 V. Processing and Publishing the Crime Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Publishing the UCR . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Archiving the UCR Data File . . . . . . 22 VI. Procedures Used for Imputing Crime Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 FBI Imputation Procedures for Crime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 NACJD Imputation Procedure . . . . 23 Imputation Procedures for Arrests . 24 Imputation and "Zero-Population" Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Updating UCR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 VII. Inaccuracies Produced by the Imputation Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Incomplete-Reporting Agencies . . . 26 Non-Reporting Agencies . . . . . . . . . 26 "Zero-Population" Agencies . . . . . . . 26 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 VIII. Suggested Imputation Philosophy . . 28 Suggested Imputation . . . . . . . . . . 28 Zero-Population Agencies . . . . . . . . 29 Incomplete and Non-Reporting Agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 IX. Supplementary Homicide Reports . . 31 Uses of the SHR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Incomplete Provision of SHR Data by Police Departments . . . . . . . . . . 33 Updating SHR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Availability of SHR Data Sets . . . . . . 35 SHR Imputation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Weighting the Victim File . . . . . . . . . . 36 Weighting the Offender File . . . . . . . 37 Problems with This SHR Imputation Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Suggested Alternative SHR Imputation Procedure . . . . . . . . . . 39 X. Conclusions and Recommendations . 40 Reporting Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Publishing and Archiving . . . . . . . . . . 40 Imputation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 NIBRS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Appendix A. Persons Attending the Workshop on UCR Imputation Procedures 43 Appendix B. State On-Line Publication of Crime Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Appendix C. Characteristics of State UCR Collection Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Appendix D. Extent of UCR Data Coverage, Alabama-Wyoming, 1958-97 . 47 Appendix E. Missing Data in UCR Files Used for the 1996 LLEBG Formula Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Extent of Missing Data, by State . . . 62 Characteristics of Agencies with Less than 36 Months of Violent Crime Data . . . . . . . . . . 64 Agencies with 0 Months of Data . . . 64 Jurisdictions with between 1 and 35 Months of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Impact of Incomplete Data . . . . . . . . 65 Addendum on "Zeropop" Agencies . 66 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Contents Bridging Gaps v in Police Crime Data The Uniform Crime Reporting Pro- gram (UCR)1 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been collecting crime and arrest data from police departments throughout the United States since 1930. The data are published in the annual report, Crime in the United States (CIUS), and represent one of the more widely used sources of longitudinal data in the social sciences. The UCR is based on monthly summary reports of crimes known to the police and arrests made by the police, that are provided to the FBI by over 17,000 of the more than 18,000 police agencies in the United States and its territories.2 The FBI office that deals with the UCR is the Program Support Section (PSS), a section of the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division. Five of the eight units within PSS are concerned with various aspects of CIUS: ù The Statistical Unit collects, checks, and manages the data coming in from the police agencies. ù The Communications Unit is involved in publications and data dissemination. ù The Education and Training Services Unit trains local agencies in UCR data collection procedures. ù The Crime Analysis Research and Development Unit analyzes data and develops specifications for new methods of presenting the data. ù The CJIS Audit Unit performs quality assurance reviews to maintain the quality of the UCR. The UCR includes a Crime Index, a count of certain specific crimes occurring over the past year in each jurisdiction. These are called “Index crimes,” and, listed in order of their presumptive seriousness, are murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Arson was added to the Crime Index in 1979 although it is not as likely as the other Index crimes to be reported to the police, because arsons are often categorized as “fires of suspicious origin.” Except for arson, these particular crimes were chosen because they were frequent, generally serious in nature, and most likely to be reported to the police; victims, their relatives, and/or bystanders who witness the incident are likely to know that incidents of those types are criminal in nature and are likely to report them. Although the UCR has some limitations (indeed, the aim of this report is to address some of them), even these limitations provide important information. For example, incomplete citizen reporting to the police of certain types of crimes has been used as an indicator of a number of police-related factors: how the relationship between offender and victim affects citizen reporting of crime; the extent to which citizens trust the police; and the effect of police policies and problems on reporting behavior. Yet the public is generally unaware that the UCR system is essentially a voluntary system; there is no federal legislation that requires states or local jurisdictions to report their crime data to the FBI. The voluntary nature of the UCR, of course, affects the accuracy and complete- ness of the data. Although the FBI devotes a great deal of attention to the quality of the data it publishes in CIUS, it cannot mandate agencies to provide data on time (or at all). As a consequence, the FBI must deal with problems of missing or late data, and has developed a mechanism to account for these gaps: it imputes (or estimates) data where gaps exist, which limits the accuracy of the estimated crime statistics published in CIUS. I. Introduction Bridging Gaps 1 in Police Crime Data 2Police agencies also report on other topics to the FBI, including hate crimes, personnel statistics, and law enforcement officers killed and assaulted. These topics are not covered in this report. 1The first mention of an acronym in this report is printed in bold. Also see Glossary, page 72. Why We Need to Look at the UCR Despite these problems with the data, adjustments for missing data have not been of major consequence in the past, since the primary purpose of the data was to present national and State trends & and estimates were adequate for this purpose. Researchers, police administrators, and some journalists are aware of the limitations of the UCR, but it mattered little to others outside the field. However, in the recent past four changes were made in the environment in which the UCR data are being employed: ù UCR data are being used to allocate Federal funds. ù The data are now instantly accessible on the Internet. ù Because of the greater accessibility of the data, researchers are increasingly analyzing UCR statistics at sub-national levels, but the results of their analyses may be suspect because of the way missing data are handled. ù A new reporting system (the National Incident-Based Reporting System or NIBRS) now being implemented to augment the summary UCR data will increase the amount of data collected on each crime and arrest. Thus, the collection, analysis, and publication of crime data are now occurring in a new environment, due to changes in legislation, changes in the ease of access by citizens and researchers to the data, and changes in crime reporting. This means that the FBI’s imputation procedures, which were adequate for handling many of the weaknesses in the current data collection system, may have to be revised. Toward this end, a Workshop on UCR Imputation Procedures was held in Washington, DC, April 24-25, 1997, and attended by key personnel from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), as well as by researchers familiar with UCR data and their problems. The list of attendees is given in Appendix A. Just prior to the workshop the FBI had moved the Program Support Section to Clarksburg, West Virginia. The move resulted in a turnover of personnel and equipment. The workshop thus came at an opportune time for the FBI, which recognizes the need to update the procedures it has been using for over 40 years & when the UCR had its last major revision (FBI, 1958). The workshop provided an opportunity for statisticians and researchers from both of these Federal agencies and from the user community to discuss ways of improving UCR data collection and estimation procedures. The goal of the workshop was to recommend new ways to ensure that the American public is provided with the best possible police- collected information related to crime and criminality, and to move toward that end in the most expeditious and feasible way possible. This report is based on the findings and discussions from that workshop. Issues relating to standard UCR data (i.e., crime counts, arrests) were not the only topics addressed at the workshop. Attention was also devoted to the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), forms filled out by police departments that provide a more detailed description of each homicide than just the raw statistics of number of homicides. The workshop explored how these data could be made more useful, and this report discusses those findings as well. Issues related to Federal crime data are not included in this report. Thus, the accuracy or completeness of the statistics of crimes committed on Indian reservations, military installations, and national parks are for the most part excluded. This report also includes information gathered from State criminal justice agency personnel and data analyses subsequent to the workshop. Bridging Gaps 2 in Police Crime Data The voluntary nature of the UCR system means that there is a high degree of State-to-State variation in UCR reporting. Specifically, some States mandate reporting and require reports to be channeled through (and checked by) State agencies before being transmitted to the FBI, while in other States individual jurisdictions report directly to the FBI. Although the FBI institutes quality control checks on the data it receives, the lack of uniform reporting standards and procedures results in a lack of uniformity in the Uniform Crime Reports.3 The Information-Gathering Process Some of the material included herein is based on informal conversations with FBI and BJS personnel and State officials who use or collect the data, and some of their statements about the UCR (or my interpretations of what they meant) may be in error. Although I have tried to verify all statements, some errors may have slipped through. Should a reader find mistakes in this report, please notify me (mikem@uic.edu), and corrections will be added to an errata sheet that will be posted on the BJS website. It seems that every decade or so I look into the intricacies of crime data (Maltz, [1972] 1999; 1984: 141) and find the following caution about official statistics from Josiah Stamp (1929: 258) applicable: The individual source of the statistics may easily be the weakest link. Harold Cox tells a story of his life as a young man in India. He quoted some statistics to a Judge, an Englishman, and a very good fellow. His friend said, "Cox, when you are a bit older, you will not quote Indian statistics with that assurance. The Government are very keen on amassing statistics – they collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But what you must never forget is that every one of these figures comes in the first place from the chowty dar [village watchman], who just puts down what he damn pleases." While strides have been made in improving the coverage and accuracy of police-reported crime data (in India as well as in this country), there is still need for a great deal of improvement. My hope is that this report helps to realize this goal. Report Organization The organization of this report is as follows: The next section gives a brief summary of how the coverage of the UCR has increased over the past few decades, both in terms of population covered and State collection efforts. Section III describes the reasons for incomplete crime data and Section IV problems with arrest data. Section V documents the steps necessary to verify and publish CIUS. The imputation procedures used by the FBI to account for these gaps are described in Section VI, and the problems with these imputation procedures in Section VII. Some suggested changes in the imputation procedures are described in Section VIII. Issues related to the SHR data are addressed in Section IX. Conclusions and recommenda- tions are found in Section X. Five appendixes are included: Appendix A lists the attendees at the BJS/FBI workshop. Appendix B is a compendium of crime-related data available on the Internet from State agencies. Appendix C lists some of the characteristics of State UCR collection programs. The crime reporting history of each State is charted in Appendix D. Appendix E, written by Sue Lindgren of BJS, describes the procedures used to account for missing data in calculating the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant funding for each jurisdiction. Bridging Gaps 3 in Police Crime Data 3The lack of uniformity is due primarily to variation in completeness of State reporting, not to variation in what is reported. The PSS Education and Training Services Unit works with individual police agencies to ensure uniformity in reporting practices. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) created the UCR in January 1930. It was created in large part to forestall newspapers from manufacturing “crime waves” out of thin air (IACP, 1929; Maltz, 1977). A national system of crime reporting, it was felt, would put the inevitable (and unpredictable) swings of crime incidence in a single jurisdiction into a proper context, reducing the media pressure put on any particular jurisdiction or police chief. This pressure has led to police departments “cooking the books” and reducing the amount of crime they recorded instead of the amount of crime reported to them. At the request of the IACP, the FBI assumed stewardship of the UCR in 1930, soon after it started. Police departments that provided crime (and other) data sent the data directly to the FBI, which compiled the data and published periodic reports. [A note on terminology: the FBI identifies all police and other agencies that report crime data with an ORI (for ORIginating Agency Identifier) number. In this report I use the terms "ORI," "reporting agency," "police department," and "jurisdiction" interchangeably.] Initially there was not enough coverage of the entire United States to permit estimation of the crime rate for the Nation as a whole. From 1930 through 1957 the FBI published the data in tables according to size of the reporting jurisdiction and did not aggregate the data to the national level. In 1958, based on a review of the UCR by a consultant committee (FBI, 1958), it was felt that there was enough coverage to begin to estimate annual crime rates for the Nation as a whole, which the FBI began to do with the publication of the 1958 report. State-Level Reporting In the late 1960’s a few States that had been compiling their own statistics arranged with the FBI to act as the data collection point for all ORIs within the State, and began to send the entire State’s data directly to the FBI, in an effort to make the process more manageable for the FBI. Other States also began to compile their crime statistics; under the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), funds were made available to the States to establish statewide programs as part of State criminal justice Statistical Analysis Centers (SACs). The SACs were developed in an effort to build analytic capability in States, so that they could deal with their crime problems by themselves. The FBI then developed requirements for State UCR collection programs; currently, 44 States have met these requirements and send all of their agencies' data to the FBI.4 See figure 1, which shows how the program developed over the past four decades. Although some of the SACs disap- peared or were scaled down after Federal funding declined, States have continued to compile their own crime data. Most States and territories have set up State-level UCR programs & some under SACs, some under the State police, and some in other agencies & and now publish annual crime reports, and the FBI continues to compile and publish the data for the Nation as a whole. Appendix B provides a (partial) listing of the availability of State on-line publication of crime data. Comparing Crime Data The annual publication of CIUS is still an occasion for the media to compare a jurisdiction’s crime rates with those of other jurisdictions and with its past experience, so media pressure has not been entirely dispelled. But nowadays reporters and the public are more sophisticated and recognize that the police have only a limited ability to affect many types of crime. This has eased the pressure on police administrators“ to keep the crime rate down” by reporting less crime than had occurred, although the pressure to falsify crime data still persists, II. UCR History and Coverage Bridging Gaps 4 in Police Crime Data 4The decrease in the early 1980’s was due to the loss of LEAA funding. from Philadelphia to New York City to Atlanta to Boca Raton.5 Other problems with the data are due to inadequate systems and procedures. But as local jurisdictions automate their crime record systems we should be able to see improve- ments in crime data accuracy. New software products for police records management include provisions for auto- mated reporting of UCR and NIBRS data in the correct formats. And the accuracy of crime data seems to have been improving. As figure 2 shows, the UCR estimates of violent crime recorded by the police have been drawing closer to (and following the same general pattern of) estimates of violent victimi- zations that victims say they reported to the police (the two middle lines).6 Coverage Gaps and Imputation However, in recent years more and more of the crime statistics reported by the police have not been based on crime counts but on imputed crime counts. Figure 3 shows how the percentage of the population covered by the UCR has changed over time; as can Bridging Gaps 5 in Police Crime Data 6The victimization data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which began in 1972. In it a random sample of U.S. households is chosen, and household members age 12 and over are asked about their victimization experiences. The crime data are from CIUS, modified to be made comparable to the victimization data; that is, for robbery it means that all commercial robberies are excluded, as are rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults whose victims were under 12 years old. That the two sources of data are now converging means that the crimes that citizens say they have reported to the police are being recorded more completely by the police in their statistics. For a more complete description of the characteristics of the two crime measures, see The Nation’s Two Crime Measures (BJS/FBI, 1995, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/ntmc.pdf and in recent issues of CIUS). 5See The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 1, 1998, “How To Cut City's Crime Rate: Don't Report It;” The New York Times, August 3, 1998, “As Crime Falls, Pressure Rises To Alter Data;” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 21, 1998, “Manipulation of Crime Figures Alleged;” and The Miami Herald, May 3, 1998, “Sugarcoating? Officer Faked Boca Crime Stats.” 1970 1995 0 10 20 30 40 50 Number of States submitting data directly to the FBI 1975 1980 1985 1990 Figure 1. Number of States Submitting UCR Data Directly to the FBI Source: CIUS, 1969-97, and States responding by letter, e-mail, and telephone Figure 2. Four Measures of Serious Violent Crime Source: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/cv2.htm be seen, a long period of improvement in coverage has been followed in recent years by a reduction in coverage. This rather considerable decline in population coverage in the 1990’s is due in part to problems at the State level, in converting their crime reporting systems to comply with NIBRS requirements. As problems are dealt with, the coverage should return to above 95%. The missing coverage is not uniform over space and time. Most jurisdictions provide largely accurate crime reports every month while others do not, for reasons described later in the report. Since 1969 more and more States have passed legislation mandating the submission of crime data by local jurisdictions to state agencies, but very few incur penalties if they do not comply with such requirements. See Appendix C for a listing of the characteristics of State UCR reporting procedures. Appendix D (page 47) shows the extent to which the 50 States have provided crime reports to the UCR since 1958, the year that national and State crime rates were first published. As can be seen from the patterns, some States have historically been able to provide close to 100 percent UCR coverage (and therefore low imputation rates). This response is true of about 20 States. The infusion of LEAA funding in the 1970’s apparently permitted an additional 12 States to improve their UCR reporting systems. All experienced a reduction in the percent of crime imputed in the 1970’s and continue to have low percentages of imputed crime. Some States, however, have experienced substantial problems in UCR reporting: ù Complete data for Illinois, for example, have not been included in the UCR since 1985, initially because the Illinois statutory definition of sexual assault is inconsistent with the UCR definition of rape,7 and since 1992 because the Illinois UCR submissions did not adhere to the UCR’s “hierarchy rule” (see page 14). ù A number of States have had problems in implementing NIBRS, reflected in recent major increases in the percentage of imputed UCR data or in the complete absence of data. ù In still other States, there has been a recent gradual growth in the percent imputed, reflecting a gradual withdrawal of local jurisdictions from the UCR reporting program. These reporting omissions (i.e., data that are missing or are reported too late to meet the publication deadline of CIUS) have generally been considered to be of little consequence, because most do not account Bridging Gaps 6 in Police Crime Data 7“Until 1984, ‘rape’ was defined as the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will. On July 1, 1984, Illinois’ sexual assault laws became gender neutral and the old concept of rape was broadened to include many types of sexual assault. This index crime now includes all sexual assaults, completed and attempted, aggravated and non-aggravated.” (Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 1987, p. 5.) 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percent of U.S. population covered by the UCR Figure 3. Percent of the U.S. Population Covered by the UCR Source: CIUS, 1953-97 for a significant percentage of overall crime & as can be seen in figure 3, despite the reporting gaps depicted in Appendix D, the UCR still represents 87 percent of the U.S. population. Moreover, the FBI has developed procedures to accommodate such omissions. These procedures in essence “fill in the gaps” by imputing data when the data are either missing or not furnished to the FBI until after its publication deadline. Such imputations permit the FBI to make national, regional, and State estimates of crime data despite the missing data, and thus keep the annual publication of CIUS on schedule with relatively comparable data from year to year. But researchers have been using county-level data to study crime characteris- tics, without realizing that some counties' crime statistics are based on a substantial amount of imputed data.8 The county-level data set is compiled from the raw jurisdictional data provided by the FBI to the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), which uses its own county-level imputation procedures (described in Section IV.). NACJD is maintained by the University of Michigan’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Funded by BJS, NACJD obtains the FBI's archived raw crime and arrest data sets to archive them on their own website in a form suitable for research use. NACJD has agency- level data files from 1966-96 and data files aggregated at the county level for 1977 through 1996. Imputation procedures used by NACJD in aggregating data to the county level are described in Section IV. As mentioned earlier, in some cases the data for a whole State have been problematic. In particular, over the past decade some or all of the data from Delaware (1995), Florida (1988, 1996), Illinois (1985-97), Iowa (1991), Kansas (1993-97) Kentucky (1988, 1996-97), Michigan (1993), Minnesota (1993), Montana (1994-97), New Hampshire (1997), Pennsylvania (1995), and Vermont (1997) have not been included by the FBI for tabulation in CIUS, as seen in figure 4 on page 8. In other words, to develop national estimates of crime, data for States have been imputed in whole or in part. Imputation to such an extent may no longer be appropriate or desirable, especially now that UCR crime data are legislatively required to be used in formulas for allocating certain Federal funds. The UCR and Funding Decisions In 1994, in reauthorizing the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the U.S. Congress appropriated additional anticrime funding for jurisdictions under the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program. The amount of funds received by a jurisdiction was to be based on the number of violent crimes they had experienced in the 3 most recent years (1992-94). According to the statute, the UCR was to be the source of the crime data. This marked the first time that funding decisions were to be made on the basis of the data in the UCR, and caused a number of other agencies within the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to deal directly with the short- comings of this data set. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) was charged with the task of allocating the funds; BJA called on BJS, with its statistical expertise and know- ledge of the UCR's characteristics, to develop the allocation formula according to the law’s provisions. [Appendix E gives the background for the development of this formula.] BJS used the actual raw crime data as reported by each police agency to the FBI, rather than the imputed data, in the allocation formula. But in reviewing the raw UCR data, BJS immediately recognized their limitations: Of the 18,413 police agencies that reported to the FBI in 1992-94, 3,516 (19%) did not provide crime data for any month during the Bridging Gaps 7 in Police Crime Data 8Neither estimated city nor county data are disseminated outside the FBI. They are used solely to arrive at State and national estimates. Bridging Gaps 8 in Police Crime Data Correction: Alaska is shown to be reporting UCR data since 1970. The State contact for Alaska is Kathleen Mather, 907-269-5701. Figure 4. State-Level Reporting of UCR Data to the FBI Sources: CIUS, 1969-96, and responses from State officials by letter, email, and telephone. *These 3 States ceased submitting State-level data in the 1980’s. States that had problems with some or all of the submitted data States reporting UCR data to the FBI 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 Wisconsin Vermont Rhode Island Pennsylvania New Jersey Nebraska Montana California Alaska Minnesota Kentucky Florida West Virginia Delaware North Carolina Michigan South Carolina Oregon Oklahoma New Mexico* Nevada Maine Illinois Idaho Arkansas Virginia Tennessee* New York Maryland Louisiana Kansas Iowa Hawaii Georgia Arizona Texas Ohio* Colorado Alabama Wyoming New Hampshire Massachusetts Connecticut North Dakota Washington District of Columbia South Dakota Utah Missouri Mississippi Indiana 36-month period used in the formula and another 3,197 (17%) reported between 1 and 35 months (table 1). Although most gaps in the data were found to be relatively inconsequential, this was not true across the board. Of the 3,516 non-reporting agencies, all but 866 either were within jurisdictions that had other agencies report for them or were State agencies or special police agencies (such as transit police, fish-and-game police, or park police) that probably were not eligible for a formula award.9 However, the remaining 866 agencies that provided no crime data for the 36-month period included some major jurisdictions: the primary police agencies in 3 cities and counties with populations over 100,000; 17 cities with populations between 50,000 and 100,000; and almost 200 cities with populations over 10,000. Note that fully 5 percent of the regular police agencies provided no reports for 3 full years. A subsequent analysis found that 15 percent of the regular agencies did not provide any data for 1992, and reporting behavior worsened in succeeding years (reanalysis by S. Lindgren, May 27, 1999). In less populous States, even cities with populations of 10,000 received awards. Thus, the lack of complete reporting had financial consequences for a significant number of jurisdictions. The legislation does make provision for determining funding if UCR data are not available, but it may also serve as a spur for ORIs to improve their reporting practices. The UCR and Electronic Access Another recent change in the crime data environment is the greater degree of public access to crime data. They have always been available to the public on paper, in the annual CIUS publications. For the most part, analyzing the data in the past usually meant entering data from the paper version of CIUS into one’s own computer.10 As discussed earlier, for many years they have been made available (primarily to researchers) in electronic form (e.g., magnetic tape), but they are now also accessible to the general public from various websites. The FBI, BJS, and NACJD now have regularly updated websites that provide access to UCR data, so it can be anticipated that more people will be encountering the inconsistencies in the data. Each site contains crime data, but in different forms and formats: ù The FBI site is http://www.fbi.gov; it contains the UCR data as published in CIUS, beginning in 1995. ù The BJS site is http://www.ojp. usdoj/bjs In the section Crime and Justice Electronic Data Abstracts (CJEDA), it provides UCR crime data by State from 1960 to 1997, UCR crime and arrest data for the 90 largest counties for 1990-96, and 1985-97 homicide data for cities with populations over 100,000. ù The NACJD site is http://www.icpsr. umich.edu/nacjd/ucr.html; it contains downloadable arrest and offense data at the agency level from 1966 to 1996 and at the county level from 1977 to 1996. Bridging Gaps 9 in Police Crime Data 5 866 Regular agency 14 2,650 Special agency 19 3,516 No reports 17 3,197 Partial reporting (1-35 months) 64% 11,700 Full reporting (36 months) 100% 18, 413 Total Percent Number Reporting frequency Police agencies Table 1. Reporting Behavior of 18,413 Police Agencies, 1992-94 10When I started as a Visiting Fellow at BJS in early 1995, BJS statisticians were still doing this on a regular basis. 9But by not reporting crimes that occurred within the jurisdiction, they may have affected the statistics of agencies that were eligible for an award, and thus the crime figures reported to the FBI for that jurisdiction may be lower than had actually occurred. In some States an agency reporting as few as five violent crimes in the 3-year period qualified for a grant of over $10,000. The State estimates provided by the FBI (and found on the BJS website) are based on the FBI’s imputation and estimation proce- dures and are not directly comparable to NACJD's county-level data. Now that any person in the world with a computer and modem can download the data and do comparisons, it would be helpful to resolve the data inconsistencies as much as possible and to provide explanations for the inconsistencies when resolution is not possible.11 Use of Sub-National UCR Data The ready availability of UCR data at the subnational level has resulted in researchers using these data to answer policy questions. Unfortunately, the data may not be up to the task. To understand why this is so, a brief account of the history of their collection, aggregation, and initial uses would be beneficial. Prior to 1958, UCR data were collected from individual jurisdictions and aggregated to give, for each crime type in the crime index: urban and rural crime rates and year-to-year changes; crime counts by size of city (for reporting cities) and year-to-year changes; crime counts by State for reporting cities in each State, and year-to-year changes; and crime counts in cities by size of city, and year-to-year changes. State-level data were based on only those cities that reported to the FBI, and State-level crime rates were calculated by dividing the crime counts for these cities by their aggregate population. State-level data. Despite the known deficiencies in the data, the UCR State-level homicide data for the years 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, and 1970 were used by Ehrlich (1975) to estimate that every execution deters eight homicides, a finding that the U.S. Supreme Court cited (Maltz, 1996, p. 36). Critics pointed out some of the analytic problems, but it was assumed that State-level homicide data would be more accurate than data concerning other crimes. However, the State-level homicide rates for 1930, 1940, and 1950 were doubt- less based on jurisdictions covering less than 70 percent of the Nation. (See figure 3.) The variation in coverage from State to State was probably considerable. Although I have not examined the data from this era, it seems likely that much of the reporting was from urban agencies. Thus, a State that was 75 percent rural and 25 percent urban, but in which the urban agencies were much more diligent than rural agencies in reporting UCR data, would have its homicide rate based primarily on the homicide experience of its urban areas rather than on the experience of the State as a whole. County-level data. In 1983 BJS published Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice (Zawitz, 1983), a snapshot of the state of crime and justice at that time. It featured a choropleth map of the county-by-county violent crime rate in the United States in 1980 (figure 5).12 To produce this map, BJS Bridging Gaps 10 in Police Crime Data 12A choropleth map of crime displays levels of crime with different shadings or colors. 11Many of the downloadable data sets currently contain explanations for some inconsistencies (see, for example, the data set at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dtdata.htm#crime), but the explanations are not complete. Figure 5. County-Level UCR Violent Crime Rates, 1980 Source: Zawitz, 1983 tasked NACJD with estimating the crime rate of each county. This was done by aggregating the crime count for all the jurisdictions in the county and dividing by the aggregated population for those jurisdictions. Some counties reported no data; they are represented in white in the figure. ORIs that did not report at least 6 months of data to the FBI were also excluded; those that did report 6 months or more, but provided less than 12 months, had their data imputed. The imputation procedure simply multiplied the violent crime rate by 12/N, where N was the number of months reported. This implicitly assumes that the crime rate for non-reporting months is the same as for the reporting months. Moreover, if some agencies in a county did not report, or reported less than 6 months of data, their data and their population were excluded from the crime rate calcula- tions. This implicitly assumes that the crime rate for nonreporting ORIs is the same as for the reporting ORIs in the county, which is probably a stretch. It should be noted that the imputation procedure was developed as an ad hoc procedure to make the 1980 data reasonably comparable from county to county so as to provide a snapshot, and not as a final means of dealing with missing data. However, this report was received so favorably that BJS decided to update it. In 1988 it released the second edition of Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice (Zawitz, 1988a), based on UCR data from 1984. (See figure 6.) NACJD used the same imputation procedure to fill in the missing data.13 Because of favorable reception of the reports and the data on which they were based, BJS decided to make county-level data sets routinely available through NACJD. The deficiencies or conse- quences of using the ad hoc imputation procedure were not considered, because up to that time the county-level data had only been used for cross-sectional comparisons and not for more rigorous analytic purposes. Since then, however, these data have been used for other purposes. For example, a recent study used the data to conclude that right-to-carry laws reduce crime (Lott, 1998). This finding was contested on methodological grounds (Black and Nagin, 1998), but not from the standpoint of the data quality. It turns out that smaller counties are more likely than the larger counties to have a significant fraction of their data imputed (C. Dunn, at the 1997 workshop); the fact that smaller counties are more rural may have a decided effect on this analysis. One data documentation feature that NACJD now uses (until an improved imputation procedure is implemented) is a “coverage factor” in the county-level data set. This feature (described in Section VI) at least warns the analyst that the data are limited in coverage. Bridging Gaps 11 in Police Crime Data 13The procedure is described in Zawitz (1988b), p. 8. Figure 6. County-Level UCR Violent Crime Rates, 1984 Source: Zawitz, 1988a The UCR and NIBRS A fourth change in the crime data picture concerns the way crime data are to be reported to the FBI. Over 10 years ago a study commissioned by the FBI and BJS provided a “blueprint” for changing the way crime data were to be reported to the FBI (Poggio et al., 1985). The recommended changes have been adapted and incorporated in a set of new procedures that comprise NIBRS; NIBRS has already been implemented in a number of states and is expanding to cover the entire United States. The change in data collection is considerable. Under the UCR program an agency provides a monthly summary report of crime, called Return A (figure 7); each line of the report refers to a single type of crime; it contains a count of the number of crimes of that type that had occurred in that month. Under NIBRS each incident is to be reported in detail, with a number of records devoted to describing the characteristics of each crime. For a single incident, information is recorded for each included offense (type, weapons, location, motivation method of entry, etc.); victim, offender, and arrestee; type of property; and so on. See figure 8 (from Akiyama and Nolan, 1999a). NIBRS will provide a great deal of detail about the nature of criminal activity: for example, one will be able to determine to what extent aggravated assaults were committed by family members or strangers, or what fraction of burglaries occurred in apartments or in private homes, by time of day, and in other ways. This will give both the police and the public with detailed information on the risk of crime to enable them to develop more useful policies and tactics. Bridging Gaps 12 in Police Crime Data Bridging Gaps 13 in Police Crime Data Figure 7. Replica of the FBI’s UCR Return A GRAND TOTAL c. Other Vehicles b. Trucks and Buses a. Autos 7. MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT TOTAL (Except Motor Vehicle Theft) 6. LARCENY-THEFT TOTAL c. Attempted Forcible Entry b. Unlawful Entry - No Force a. Forcible Entry 5. BURGLARY TOTAL a. Other Assaults s Simple. Not Aggravated d. Hands, Fists, Feet, Etc. - Aggravated injury c. Other Dangerous Weapon b. Knife or Cutting Instrument a. Firearm 4. ASSAULT TOTAL d. Strong-Arm (Hands, Fists, Feet, Etc.) c. Other Dangerous Weapon p. Knife or Cutting Instrument a. Firearm 3. ROBBERY TOTAL b. Attempts to commit Forcible Rape a. Rape by Force 2. FORCIBLE RAPE TOTAL b. MANSLAUGHTER BY NEGLIGENCE 1. CRIMINAL HOMICIDE a. MURDER AND NONNEGLIGENT HOMICIDE (score attempts as aggravated assault) If homicide reported, submit Supplementary Homicide Report 6 NUMBER OF CLEARANCES INVOLVING ONLY PERSONS UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE 5 TOTAL OFFENSES CLEARED BY ARREST OR EXCEPTIONAL MEANS (INCLUDES COL. 6) 4 NUMBER OF ACTUAL OFFENSES (COLUMN 2 MINUS COLUMN 3) (INCLUDE ATTEMPTS) 3 UNFOUNDED, I.E., FALSE OR BASELESS COMPLAINTS 2 OFFENSES REPORTED OR KNOWN TO POLICE (INCLUDE "UNFOUNDED" AND ATTEMPTS) 1 CLASSIFICATION OF OFFENSES D065(Rev. 7-28-87) Form Approved OMB No. 1110-0001 5(7851 $ 0 0217+/< 5(7851 2) 2))(16(6 .12:1 72 7+( 32/,&( This report is authorized by law Title 28, Section 534, U. S. Code. While you are not required to respond, your cooperation in forwarding this report by seventh day after the close of the month to Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D. C. 20535, will assist in compiling comprehensive, accurate national crime figures on a timely basis. CHECKING ANY OF THE APPROPRIATE BLOCKS BELOW WILL ELIMINATE YOUR NEED TO SUBMIT REPORTS WHEN THE VALUES ARE ZERO. THIS WILL ALSO AID THE NATIONAL PROGRAM IN ITS QUALITY CONTROL EFFORTS. NO SUPPLEMENTARY HOMICIDE REPORT SUBMITTED SINCE NO MURDERS, JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES, OR MANSLAUGHTERS BY NEGLIGENCE OCCURRED IN THIS JURISDICTION DURING THE MONTH. NO SUPPLEMENT TO RETURN A REPORT SINCE NO CRIME OFFENSES OR RECOVERY OF PROPERTY REPORTED DURING THE MONTH. NO LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS KILLED OR ASSAULTED REPORT SINCE NONE OF THE OFFICERS WERE ASSAULTED OR KILLED DURING THE MONTH. . NO AGE, SEX, AND RACE OF PERSON. ARRESTED UNDER I8 YEARS OF AGE REPORT SINCE NO ARRESTS OF PERSONS WITHIN THIS AGE GROUP. NO AGE, SEX, AND RACE OF PERSONS ARRESTED 18 YEARS OF AGE AND OVER REPORT SINCE NO ARRESTS OF PERSONS WITHIN THIS AGE GROUP. NO MONTHLY RETURN OF ARSON OFFENSES KNOWN TO LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORT SINCE NO ARSONS OCCURRED. * * * * * * CORES ADJUSTED ENTERED EDITED RECORDED INITIALS DO NOT USE THIS SPACE __________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ Month and Year of Report Agency Identifier Population ______________________________________________________ Date _________________________________________________________________________________ Prepared By Title __________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Agency and State Chief, Commissioner, Sheriff, or Superintendent One of the problems with current UCR reporting that should be ameliorated by NIBRS is caused by a characteristic of the UCR system known as the hierarchy rule. The hierarchy rule for reporting crimes was instituted by the FBI in the 1930’s, to ensure that there would be no double-counting of crimes. A criminal event that includes two different crime categories is thus counted only once, and only in the most serious crime category. For example, if a convenience store robbery results in the death of the store clerk, this would be classified as a homicide rather than a robbery & because homicide is a more serious crime than robbery. Yet this expedient, important in the pre-computer age, masks the nature of what happened. It would certainly be better to recognize both characteristics of the incident, if only to be able to provide an estimate of risk, in the form of the fraction of incidents that start out as robberies but result in homicide (see, e.g., Maltz, 1976b). Even with NIBRS implemented, summary data will doubtless be aggregated and compiled for each agency, and data for some agencies may continue to be missing, delinquent, or in error. In other words, there will still be a need for imputation procedures after NIBRS is implemented nationwide. In fact, missing data may become a greater problem under NIBRS, because of the huge increase in categories and the complexity of definitions. This may make it more difficult to assume that the counting rules and definitions are being applied uniformly. Bridging Gaps 14 in Police Crime Data Bridging Gaps 15 in Police Crime Data òôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 52 Disposition of Arrestee < 18 îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 51 Arrestee Resident Status îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 50 Arrestee Ethnicity îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 49 Arrestee Race ARRESTEE îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 48 Arrestee Sex òôôôôôF 40 ôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôêôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 47 Arrestee Age ó Arrestee Seq # îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôF 46 Arrestee Was Armed with ó îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 45 UCR Arrest Offense Code ó îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 44 Multi Arrest Segments Indicator ó îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 43 Type of Arrest ó OFFENDER òô‡39 Off Race îôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 42 Arrest Date îôôôôF 36 ôôôôôôôôêô‡38 Off Sex ïôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 41 Arrest Transaction Number ó ïô‡37 Off Age ó ó ó òôôôôôôôôF 34 Offender Number(s) to Be Related ôôôô‡35 Relationship(s) ó ó of Victim to Offender(s) ó îôôôôôôôôF 33 Type Injury ó îôôôôôôôô‡ 32 Additional Justifiable Homicide Circumstances ó îôôôôôôôôF 31 Aggravated Assault/Homicide Circumstances ó VICTIM îôôôôôôôô‡ 30 Victim Residence Status îôôF 23 ôôôôôôôôôôêôôôôôôôô‡ 29 Victim Ethnicity ó îôôôôôôôô‡ 28 Victim Race ó îôôôôôôôô‡ 27 Victim Sex ó îôôôôôôôô‡ 26 Victim Age ó îôôôôôôôô‡ 25 Type of Victim ORI # ó ïôôôôôôôôF 24 Victim Connected to UCR Offense Code(s) 1 ôF 2 ôôôôôì Incident # ó òôôôôôôôôF 20 Suspected Drug Type ôôôôôôô‡ 21 Estimated Drug Quantity ó ó ïôôôô‡22 Type of Drug Measure ó PROPERTY îôôôôôôôô‡ 19 Number of Recovered Motor Vehicles îôôôôôF 14 ôôôôôôôîôôôôôôôô‡ 18 Number of Stolen Motor Vehicles óType Property ó ó Loss/Etc. ó òôôôôôôô‡ 17 Date Recovered ó ïôôôôôôôôF 15 Property Description ôôôôì ó ïôôôôôôô‡ 16 Value of Property ó ó ó òôôôôôôôôôôôôF 13 Type Weapon/Force Involved ó îôôôôôôôôôôôôF 12 Type Criminal Activity ó OFFENSE îôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 11 Method of Entry îôôôôF 6 ôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôîôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 10 Number of Premises Entered ó UCR Offense Code îôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 9 Location Type ó îôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 8A Bias Motivation ó îôôôôôôôôôôôôF 8 Offender(s) Suspected of Using ó ïôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 7 Offense Attempted/Completed ó ó ó ó ADMINISTRATIVE òôôôô‡ 4 Cleared Exceptionally ôôôôô‡5 Exceptional Clearance Date ïôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôì ïôôôôôôôôôôôôôôôô‡ 3 Incident Date/Hour Figure 8. The Structure of NIBRS Data Elements Source: Akiyama and Nolan, 1999a Two separate streams of crime data are sent to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Section: one from individual police agencies, the other from State UCR collection programs. Although 36 States now have statutes mandating the reporting of crime and other criminal justice information, not all police departments submit this information to their State agency designated to collect the data, or they may submit it too late for entry in CIUS. Occasionally some of the data may appear to be in error & too high or too low, based on the jurisdiction’s past crime experience. This section describes the procedures used by the FBI to correct errors in reporting and, when reporting gaps occur, to impute data as necessary. It also discusses when and how UCR data files are updated. Error Checking Potential errors in the data are checked in different ways, depending on how the UCR reports were sent to the FBI and depending on the size of the jurisdiction. If the data are first collected by the State agency, that agency itself may undertake follow-up procedures to verify the data. When the errors are glaring, they can be found by simply inspecting the data or by using simple graphical techniques. One State agency refers to such errors as “tent poles” and “craters” — excessively high or low figures compared to the surrounding data (R. Christ, personal communication). Such errors often come from transposing numbers in returns submitted manually. Small errors, however, will probably not be caught in this manner. If the State does not have auditing procedures, or if the data are sent directly to the FBI, staff members in the FBI’s UCR Section may note the omission or anomaly and request the State agency to follow up. In cases in which the data are sent directly to the FBI, the FBI may follow up with the police agency by mail. If, however, the agency has a population of over 100,000, personnel from the UCR Section call the agency directly to verify the data (D. Kording, at the 1997 workshop). When errors are found in the data, they are corrected, and the corrected counts are included in the statistics. Depending on when the errors were discovered and corrected, they may not be incorporated in CIUS (if the corrections occur after the FBI's publication deadline), but they may be included in the public-use data set archived at NACJD (J. Lynch, at the 1997 workshop). This means that someone trying to determine the extent of crime in a jurisdiction will encounter unexplained differences between CIUS statistics and the data archived by NACJD. Reasons for Incomplete Reporting Aside from these errors in reporting, police agencies may not provide complete (or any) reports to the FBI. The agencies may be delinquent or incomplete in their reporting of crime for a number of reasons: ù Some agencies experienced natural disasters that prevented them from getting their data in on time (or in some instances, at all). ù As has been the case with other public agencies, budgetary restrictions on the police have meant that some agencies have had to cut back on services. Although crime reporting is considered an essential function because it provides information about community safety to the public, some agencies that are especially strapped may forgo these routine clerical activities so as to ensure that suffi- cient resources exist for patrolling the streets. ù Retirements, promotions, and other personnel changes may mean that the person experienced in the preparation of UCR crime and arrest data is replaced by someone — — who has little experience in its preparation (and consequently makes numerous errors) — who is not given sufficient training — who gives the task a low priority — or who doesn’t prepare the data in a timely manner. Bridging Gaps in 16 Police Crime Data III. Incomplete Crime Data ù With respect to training, some jurisdictions may rely completely on handbooks on UCR reporting produced by the Program Support Section, and there may be ambiguities in the reports that require more complete descriptions than are included in the handbooks. ù Phasing in a new reporting system or computerization of the old system may cause delays or gaps in the crime reporting process. This may be especially true as agencies convert to NIBRS. (See Appendix C.) ù Small agencies with little crime to report may feel it unnecessary to fill out reports that are filled almost entirely with zeros. [In fact, in some cases small agencies file reports for only 1 month; they want to ensure that their agencies’ employee statistics are included in CIUS, and reporting their data for 1 month will accomplish this.] y A State may have offense definitions that are incompatible with UCR definitions, leading to data being submitted but not accepted. Thus, there are a number of reasons that crime reports may be incomplete, late, or in error. The extent to which this is a problem in an individual State can be seen in Appendix D (page 47), which shows the UCR reporting behavior of each State over the past 40 years. Note that the impact of LEAA funding of State statistical systems in the 1970’s is apparent in these graphs, as is (in some States) the impact of its termination. Note also that while some States have a history of consistently good reporting, other States have a history of consistently poor reporting, and yet others have exhibited highly erratic reporting behavior. In particular: ù The data for six States were excluded from the 1997 UCR, with the data from one of those States not having been included since 1993. ù Six States have consistently poor reporting, missing reports on the crime experienced by more than 20% of their population. Some of the recent erratic reporting by States is attributable to their conversion to NIBRS. In particular, some States and agencies that have begun the NIBRS conversion process are working with software that currently does not have the ability to produce UCR reports. Over the long term we can expect that many of these reporting problems will disappear or at least diminish. Many smaller agencies that are currently automating are purchasing computer software that provides near-automatic reporting (including audit checks) of these data. However, in the near term we can expect these problems to continue, for standards for such software do not currently exist. (See Appendix C.) Bridging Gaps in 17 Police Crime Data As with offense data, there are major gaps in arrest data. To some extent the problems with arrest data are greater because of three factors: ù The percent of arrests reported by police is substantially lower than the percentage of crimes reported. ù By publishing the characteristics of arrestees, there is an implicit assumption that they also characterize those who commit similar crimes but are not arrested. ù Whereas crimes reported to the police are generally considered to be (and have been shown to be) similar to crimes not reported to the police, arrests reported by the police are as much a reflection of police priorities as they are of criminal activity. Agencies are less diligent in reporting arrest data than crime data. The FBI attempts to ensure completeness of arrest data by rejecting an agency’s adult arrest data if it does not also send in juvenile arrest data, nor is arrestee race information accepted without age and sex information (V. Major, at the 1997 workshop). This means, however, that information on arrests is considerably less complete than information on crimes. Moreover, the arrest data published in CIUS are biased even in comparison to the arrest data eventually reported to the FBI.14 For example, Snyder compared the 1980 CIUS arrest data with the final counts of arrests, after all of the late-reporting ORIs submitted their data (H. Snyder, personal communication, 1999). He found that juvenile arrests (as a percentage of all arrests) were overrepresented in the published statistics. He attributed this to the fact that large urban agencies, with higher percentages of juvenile arrestees, generally reported early (in time for publication) and the late reporters tended to be less urban agencies, with lower percent- ages of juvenile arrestees. So, not only are the arrest data published in CIUS not a representative sample of all arrests, they are not a representative sample of arrest data eventually reported to the FBI. Figure 9 shows how 1997 arrest reporting varies by State. As can be seen, 4 States and Washington, DC, did not provide acceptable arrest data, and more than half of the population was not represented in an additional 12 States. Figure 10 shows the extent nationally to which arrest data have been reported to the FBI for the past four decades. The percent- ages are consistently lower than those for crime data (cover figure), but their time trend shows the same declining pattern. As with the decline in crime reporting, it is probably attributable for the most part to the difficulties in shifting to NIBRS. Note that compared to the reporting of crime data, there is a greater degree of annual variation in the reporting of arrest data. Year-to-year differences of close to ten percent in the reporting population are not uncommon. This variation is due in part to the changes in reporting standards for arrests. For example the large “notch” in arrest reporting in 1974 was probably due to the changeover from annual to monthly arrest reporting, which took some time for agencies to systematize (V. Major, personal communication, May 20 and August 23, 1999). In prior years only agencies that reported arrests every month (i.e., were “12-months complete”) were included in the arrest tallies; starting in 1974, when monthly arrest data began to be collected, arrest data were aggregated for all agencies with 6 months or more of arrest data. This changed again after 1981; from 1982 on, the FBI reverted to reporting aggregate arrests for only those agencies that provided 12 months of arrest data. The effect of this change can be seen in the 1981-82 drop in the population represented in arrest reports. Bridging Gaps 18 in Police Crime Data IV. Incomplete Arrest Data 14The FBI accepts data that it receives after its publication deadline date and includes them in data files sent to NACJD, so the data files include reports not included in CIUS. This lack of completeness and consistency (and, more importantly, lack of representativeness) of the reporting of arrest data can have major consequences because of implicit assumptions made by some individuals in “analyzing” the arrest data. For example, Snyder shows how these arrest data have been used improperly to infer offense rates of juveniles (Snyder, 1999) Bridging Gaps 19 in Police Crime Data Corrections: This figure is based on FBI data, which include arrests only from agencies that submit arrest data for all 12 months (see p. 18). In some States & for example, Georgia & the State UCR agency has records of more arrests than are shown in the figure. Connecticut had 100% coverage, originally shown to be 85%. District of Columbia Florida Kansas New Hampshire Vermont Kentucky Illinois Georgia Mississippi Montana Delaware Tennessee Alaska South Dakota Nevada New York Pennsylvania Ohio Indiana Missouri Washington NewMexico Colorado Utah Wisconsin Louisiana Michigan Iowa Massachusetts Arizona Oregon Arkansas North Dakota Alabama Maine Nebraska West Virginia New Jersey Hawaii Texas Idaho Wyoming Virginia California North Carolina South Carolina Minnesota Maryland Oklahoma Connecticut Rhode Island 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% Percent of population covered by reported arrest data Figure 9. Percent of Population Covered in Arrest Data Reported to the FBI, 1997 Source: CIUS, 1997 Bridging Gaps 20 in Police Crime Data by police agencies providing arrest data 1960 1970 1980 1990 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percent of U.S. population represented 1997 Figure 10. Percent of U.S. Population Represented by Agencies that Provide Arrest Data Source: CIUS, 1960-97 Figure 11. Part of the Printout of the FBI’s Crime-by-County File 22 646 139 36 23 6 2 874 874 25,007 COUNTY TOTAL 1 1 8,621 BARBOUR 8 AL00600 003 12 1 28 15 4 4 52 703 LOUISVILLE 7 AL00604 003 12 4 8 3 7 1 1 24 1,635 CLAYTON 7 AL00602 003 12 17 610 120 25 18 5 2 797 14,048 EUFAULA 5 AL00601 003 12 218 3,049 1,004 229 79 38 5 4,623 4,622 116,677 COUNTY TOTAL 69 486 364 56 22 15 2 1,014 1,014 64,493 BALDWIN 9 AL00500 547 002 12 6 216 65 5 3 295 295 2,690 ORANGE BEACH 6 AL00512 547 002 12 3 59 14 3 1 1 81 81 832 SUMMERDALE 7 AL00509 547 002 12 19 467 127 14 11 3 641 641 14,820 DAPHNE 5 AL00508 547 002 12 5 86 25 7 1 124 124 3,106 ROBERTDALE 6 AL00505 547 002 12 12 366 115 11 2 506 506 4,584 GULF SHORES 6 AL00504 547 002 12 1 57 943 160 70 23 8 2 1,264 1,263 6,726 FOLEY 6 AL00503 547 002 12 37 365 113 54 13 7 1 590 590 10,771 FAIRHOPE 5 AL00502 547 002 12 10 61 21 9 6 1 108 108 8,655 BAY MINETTE 6 AL00501 547 002 12 12 95 1,167 312 88 57 17 3 1,751 1,739 39,223 COUNTY TOTAL 1 13 70 96 14 3 2 1 200 199 14,534 AUTAUGA 9 AL00400 556 001 12 11 82 1,097 216 74 54 15 2 1,551 1,540 24,689 PRATVILLE 5 AL00401 556 001 12 ARSON MTR VEH THEFT LAR- CENY BURG- LARY AGGRA- VATED ASSAULT ROB- BERY FORCI- BLE RAPE MUR- DER MODI- FIED INDEX INDEX POPULA- -TION AGENCY NAME G ORI SMA CTY MO UCR55100 03/05/99 CRIME BY COUNTY 1997 After the data are received by the FBI (specifically, by the Program Support Section of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division), they are stored in a data file that contains (among other data) offense data for each ORI taken from Return A (figure 7): month-by-month counts of each of the offenses listed. A computer program processes this file, in which the 12 months of data for each offense are summarized by two numbers: total for that offense and number of months reported. A page of output from one of the many programs used by the FBI to process the data is shown in Figure 11. This output file, "Crime by County," is one of the more widely distributed files. Note that— ù The ORIs are grouped by State and by county within each State. ù An ORI's population and its Standard Metropolitan Area (SMA & not the same codes as used by the U.S. Bureau of the Census) and population group indicators are given. (See table 2.) ù Both the total number of Index crimes and modified Index crimes (the first seven Index crimes plus arson) are given.15 ù Although not apparent from the printout, only the reporting ORIs are included in this compilation. If an ORI does not submit any UCR data for a year, it is omitted from the data file, and its population is not included in the county total. Publishing the UCR The deadline for submitting UCR data to the FBI is late March of the following year. Data submitted beyond this date are accepted by the FBI and incorporated in the data file until the FBI closes out the data file for that year. The date that this file is closed out is not fixed; for example, the 1997 file was not closed out until early April 1999. The paper version of CIUS for a given year is published in the fall of the following year, usually in October or November. Between the March cutoff date and the publication date the staff of the Program Support Section perform the error checks and prepare the data for publication. January and February are devoted to writing to the larger ORIs to verify data and/or to request missing months; listings of missing months are routinely prepared during this period. Data from agencies that do not provide 12 months of data are analyzed to identify any month(s) deviating from agency norms due to special circumstances affecting those agencies (e.g., floods, tornadoes, and fire). By early March all agencies with delinquent data have been contacted. By mid-February population estimates are calculated, based on Census Bureau data, and included in the raw data file. By mid-April the data processing unit prepares a preliminary set of tables; this permits the Crime Analysis Research and Development Unit to begin to look for patterns in the data and draft the text and analysis for the report. In addition, the tables are sent to Bridging Gaps in 21 Police Crime Data V. Processing and Publishing the Crime Data 15The arson totals provided in figure 11 are summaries of all arson on file for the respective agencies and may not be representative of the number of months reported in the MO column. Note: Group VII, missing from this table, consists of cities with populations under 2,500 and universities and colleges to which no population is attributed. For compilation of CIUS, Group VII is included in Group VI. aIncludes universities and colleges to which no population is attributed. bIncludes State police to which no population is attributed. . . . Countyb IX (Suburban County) . . . Countyb VIII (Rural County) Less than 10,000 Citya VI 10,000 to 24,999 City V 25,000 to 49,999 City IV 50,000 to 99,999 City III 100,000 to 249,999 City II 250,000 and over City I Population range Political label Population group Table 2. FBI Classification of Population Groups the outside contractor to format the tables for printing. The material for CIUS is sent to an contractor in three installments. The first installment is delivered to the contractor in May. It consists chiefly of the appendixes, which have few tables and do not change much from year to year, the methodology section, and tables of law enforcement personnel, which had been collected from the ORIs in October. Over the next month the FBI corrects the proofs and returns them to the contractor twice in succession. Installment 2, consisting chiefly of Crime Index Offenses Cleared, is sent to the contractor in early June and, as with the first installment, is proofread and returned to the contractor twice for revision over the next month. The third installment consists primarily of tables and text on offenses and arrests, as well as the program summary (Section I) and the inclusion of some data that were omitted from sections that had been prepared earlier. For example, the schedule for the 1998 CIUS projects completion of these three installments by the end of July, and a final check of the entire report by early August. Archiving the UCR Data File At the request of BJS, the raw data file is provided to NACJD for archiving. The file is then restructured by NACJD and additional fields are included to make it more accessible for research purposes. In the past this restructuring has resulted in errors such as mismatched fields; consequently, the FBI cannot respond to queries about the data archived by NACJD. The file that NACJD archives is not the one used to produce CIUS; rather, it is the updated file that contains the additional data received by the FBI after the March publication deadline. This has meant that analyses using the raw data cannot be compared to the tables in CIUS, because they are based on different data sets. NACJD also produces county-level files from the raw data file (see Section II) which are available for downloading from NACJD (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/nacjd/ ucr.html) . Notes accompanying those files state that "UCR county-level files are not official FBI UCR releases and are being provided for research purposes only. Users with questions regarding these UCR county-level data files can contact the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at ICPSR." Thus, two sets of UCR data are made available to the public. One, published in CIUS and available through the FBI website, contains the data sent to the FBI before its publication cutoff date. The other, available through the NACJD website, contains data sent to the FBI before its data file cutoff date, which may be considerably later than the publication cutoff date. The difference between the two is usually not great, but has led to some misunderstandings. Bridging Gaps 22 in Police Crime Data It should be noted at the outset that the FBI does not publish or release data that include imputations below the State level. Its imputation procedures are used solely for estimating crime rates at the State and national levels. NACJD, however, does publish offense data that have been imputed at the county level. In this section we describe the imputation procedures used by both the FBI and NACJD. FBI Imputation Procedures for Crime Whether an ORI reports through the Summary UCR Program or through NIBRS, the FBI will still need to use imputation techniques that allow it to make reasonable estimates of crime and arrests. The imputation procedures used by the FBI for estimating crime rates are described below. Since 1958 the FBI has used two different means of imputing crime data for a police agency.16 If the agency reports 3 or more months, one procedure is used, while another is used when less than 3 months is reported. Partial Use of Data. If an agency has provided reports of crime data for 3 or more months, the imputation procedure is based on those reports. The total annual crime for that jurisdiction is estimated by multiplying the reported number of crimes by 12/N, where N is the number of months for which reports exist. Thus, an agency that reports 4 months of crime data (a third of the year) would be estimated to have 12/4, or 3 times the number of crimes that it reports for that period. Data Not Used. If an agency reports for 2 or fewer months, the number of crimes is estimated from scratch. These agencies are considered to be nonreporting agencies, and the FBI bases the imputed data for such agencies on the crime rates for the same year for similar agencies. “Similar agencies” are considered to be those in the same Population Group in the same State, but only those that provided 12 months of data. Table 2 (page 21) shows how the FBI categorizes these groups. Thus, if an agency in Alabama with a popula- tion of 150,000 reports 2 months or less of crime data in 1997, and the 1997 aggravated assault rate for Group II agencies (population between 100,000 and 249,999) in Alabama is 620.2 per 100,000, then the agency is estimated to have had 930.3 (620.2 x 150,000 / 100,000) aggravated assaults for 1997.17 NACJD Imputation Procedure Every year NACJD obtains a data set from the FBI containing the raw UCR figures from the FBI, archives it, and uses it to develop a file containing crime and arrest data for each county in the US. NACJD also has to contend with missing data, in aggregating to the county level. It has used two different imputation procedures: one for the 1980-93 data sets and the other for datasets from 1994 onward. As stated earlier, the original county-level imputation procedure was developed to be used to plot crime by county for a single year, 1980. When BJS decided to continue providing county-level data through NACJD, they continued to use the same imputation procedure, similar to the FBI procedure but with a different cut point: agencies that provided reports for 6 or more months were estimated to have 12/N crimes, where N is the number of months reported. Those reporting less than 6 months were estimated to have the same offense rates as the rest of the county (not State and population group). If an agency with 10 percent of a county’s population provided reports for 5 months or less, then the county’s rates were used for that agency, and the estimated number of crimes for the county became C/.9, where C is the number of crimes reported by the rest of the county. However, from the 1994 data file onward Bridging Gaps 23 in Police Crime Data VI. Procedures Used for Imputing Crime Data 17If there are no comparable ORIs in the State, the estimate is based on the rates of occurrence in the region: New England, Middle Atlantic, East North Central, etc. 16Crime data are not imputed for all agencies; see “Imputation and Zero-Population Agencies.” NACJD has used essentially the same imputation procedure as the FBI. Coverage Factor. More recently, in consultation with BJS, NACJD began to include a new element, “coverage factor,” in its county-level data files. This factor represents the extent to which the crime and arrest figures for a county are based on real data and the extent to which they are based on imputed figures. For example, if a county with a population of 500,000 includes an agency with a population of 100,000 that reported for only 9 months (all other agencies reporting fully), then the coverage factor for that county would be 1.00 - (3/12) x (100,000/500,000) = .95, or 95 percent, because a fourth of the data are missing for 20 percent of the county population. If that agency reported for 2 months or less, then the coverage factor would be 1.00 - (12/12) x (100,000/500,000) = .80, or 80 percent, since all 12 months are considered missing. This does not correct the problems of imputation so much as it puts the users of the data on notice that the data they are using have been estimated to some degree. Imputation Procedures for Arrests Arrest data are missing to a much greater extent than crime data. Imputing the missing arrest figures thus becomes much more difficult. The imputation procedure used by the FBI to account for missing or late arrest data is applied to all ORIs that report fewer than 12 months of data, i.e., are not "12-months complete." It is similar to that used for crime data, with two exceptions: first, arrests are estimated only at the national level; and second, instead of basing the imputation on the arrest rates in the same population group and State, it is based on the arrest rates in the same population group throughout the country. NACJD has used a similar arrest imputation procedure since the 1994 data year, except that data for the nonreporting agencies (2 or fewer months) are imputed based on the arrests rates in the same population group and the same State. Imputation and “Zero-Population” Agencies In compiling its crime and arrest statistics, the FBI tries to ensure that both the numerators (number of crimes and arrests) and denominators (number of people) are based on accurate data and estimates. This means that populations that are policed by more than one agency should be counted only once. Some jurisdictions are policed by State or county police departments, or even by other cities. For example, Chicago is in Cook County, Illinois. But the number of crimes reported by the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department (CCSPD) is for the areas policed by the CCSPD, and only for those areas (both unincorporated areas and municipalities that contract with CCSPD); it does not include the crimes in Chicago or any other Cook County jurisdiction not policed by the CCSPD. Since the crime rate is the number of crimes divided by the population, the population in question should live only in the areas policed by the CCSPD. As noted earlier (and in the footnotes to table 2), not all police agencies have populations associated with them in the UCR program. These “zero-population” agencies (transit police, park police, university police, and similar agencies) may be entirely within “primary” police jurisdictions (Groups I-VI in table 2) that already report crime to the FBI. Were these special police agencies to be associated in the UCR with the populations they serve, it would be tantamount to double-counting those populations. When these agencies report crime data, the data are attributed to that ORI and are included in the respective counties of the agencies. When they are not reported (or are delayed in reporting, or report only partially), no imputation is made of the missing figures. State police agencies are usually considered “zero-population” agencies because, for the most part, they police State highways and rural areas not covered by municipal agencies. When these agencies report crime or arrest data, the data are also Bridging Gaps 24 in Police Crime Data attributed to their ORI (for example, each State police barracks may have its own ORI) and are included in the respective counties of the agencies. And similarly, when these agencies’ data are not reported or are delayed in reporting or are reported only partially, no imputation is made of the missing figures. Updating UCR Files As previously noted, UCR files are updated when additional or corrected information is made available . For example, suppose a jurisdiction was missing Decem- ber’s Return A, but then sent it in after the publication cutoff date and prior to the date that the data file is archived. In such a case the data file (but not the published material) is updated to include the additional information. The updated file is then sent to NACJD for archiving, and contains different data than the printed version. Bridging Gaps 25 in Police Crime Data As is the case with all estimates, those produced by the FBI’s imputation procedures are not entirely accurate. It may actually be that the inaccuracies due to imputation do not amount to much, at least for some uses of the crime data. But currently we have no way of knowing whether they produce major or minor discrepancies in the crime data, because the extent to which this imprecision affects our estimate of the crime rate has not been determined. Most observers believe that the effect on the estimate of the overall crime rate in the United States would be minimal, but that it could be quite problematic when investigating the crime rate for a smaller unit such as a State or county, or when looking at rural crime rates. The potential effects of the imputation procedures are described in this section. They include those used for primary police agencies reporting between 3 and 11 months (called “incomplete-reporting agencies”), for agencies that report less than 3 months (called “nonreporting agencies”), and for police agencies with no associated population (called “zero-population” agencies). Incomplete-Reporting Agencies Included in this category are agencies that report between 3 and 11 months of data, for which full-year estimates are made by inflating the data to cover the entire year. Even when this imputation procedure is used, biases may exist. This would be especially true for crimes that vary seasonally. If the months that were not reported are historically lower in crime, then basing the jurisdiction’s annual crime rate on the remaining months would result in an overestimate. For example, an agency in a resort area may report its crime only during the tourist season (when there are more officers and more crime), so the imputed crime rate might be considerably higher than the actual crime rate. Nonreporting Agencies Included in this category are agencies that report data for 2 or fewer months, since their data are not incorporated in the agency's estimated crime rates. As described earlier, imputation of the crime rates of these agencies is based on other agencies in the same population group and State. However, it may be that the nonreporting agencies do not report specifically because they have little crime to report. If this is the case, then this procedure may overestimate the amount of crime. For the most part, the nonreporting agencies are in jurisdictions with quite small populations; however, in some counties the effect of such imputation may increase the estimated crime rate considerably. “Zero-Population” Agencies Included in this category are those agencies that have statewide jurisdiction (e.g., State police, fish and game police), or that are entirely within jurisdictions policed by agencies that already provide crime reports (e.g., university police), or are cities with populations under 2,500. When these “zero-population” agencies do not report crimes or arrests, no imputation is made of their estimated crime. For example, crimes and arrests made by the University of Michigan Police are reported to the FBI for UCR purposes. However, if the University of Michigan Police neglect to report the data or are late in getting the data to the State, no imputation is made of the missing data. This omission may distort the picture of crime and arrest volume, depending on the amount of crime that is not reported. For another example, suppose a State police agency’s crime statistics are not produced in time for the FBI’s publication cutoff date for CIUS. Suppose further that in one (rural) county the State police barracks is responsible for half of the crime reports. Since no provision is made for their imputation, the crime figures for that county would be underestimated by about 50 percent. In other words, the effect of not imputing zero- population agencies may not have much effect in terms of national or State-level statistics, but it can have a measurable effect on city- or county-level statistics. Bridging Gaps 26 in Police Crime Data VII. Inaccuracies Produced by the Imputation Procedures Summary In 1958, when the FBI first began to provide national estimates — based on the recommendations of its Consultant Committee on Uniform Crime Reporting (FBI, 1958) — about half of the States had over 90 percent coverage, and now about three-quarters have over 90 percent coverage. Yet, despite the increases in coverage, the missing data can distort the crime picture in subnational estimates. When a primary police agency (i.e., in Groups I-V in table 2) does not report, or provides partial reports, an attempt is made to rectify the omissions by imputation. The imputation procedures that are used, however, may serve to overestimate the amount of crime that actually occurred. When reports from a zero-population agency are missing, no matter how large the agency or how important it is in terms of crime reporting, no estimates are made to compen- sate for the missing reports. Thus, the effect of this policy may be to underestimate crime and arrest rates for counties and rural areas. The FBI initiated these procedures over four decades ago, well before the time when computing was widespread, and when compilation of crime and arrest data from each individual agency was a difficult and time-consuming process. Although it is still difficult and time consuming, the current state of computer hardware and software makes it possible to make adjustments to the data with much greater ease. That this imputation procedure has continued to the present is probably attributable to — (a) the desire on the part of the FBI to maintain consistency in its data series (b) the assumption that it made little difference at the national level (at most 1 or 2 percent) and would not greatly affect the general trends in the data (c) the fact that there had been no need in the past to make any changes & ”If it ain’t broke (or if no one cares if it’s broke), don’t fix it.” But now that UCR data are being used at the jurisdictional level to determine funding, it is clear that the crime reporting system needs to be improved.18 According to NACJD personnel, even before the new Federal legislation brought the problems to the forefront, it was quite evident that the crime rates in some counties had substantial discrepancies due to missing data (C. Dunn, at the 1997 workshop). Even though the FBI does not impute at the county level (and does not condone such uses), it is a fact that the data are imputed at this level & and that policies are proposed based on the imputed data. It is for this reason that the FBI should consider revising its imputation procedures. A small percentage difference in overall crime is one thing, but when looking at a level like rural crime in a single State (or more specifically, like a single jurisdiction’s crime rate), the difference might be more substantial. Bridging Gaps 27 in Police Crime Data 18Data for individual jurisdictions are not imputed in the calculation of funds; "however, the State-level estimates we use to determine the amount to be distributed across the States are based on imputations. To the extent that these imputations cause errors that are not consistent across all States, it does affect the dollar amounts to be distributed across the States" (S. Lindgren, memorandum to the author, March 20, 1999). Therefore, the agencies within States that have higher imputed estimates of crime than they actually experienced will get larger awards than they should, and those in States with too low estimates will get lower awards. [This section is based on conversa- tions with and memoranda written by Yoshio Akiyama and James Nolan, III. While I am deeply indebted to them for their advice and consultation, as with the rest of this report the opinions and recommendations are mine and should not be taken as policy of the FBI or BJS.] The UCR imputation procedures used by the FBI have been generally effective. The goal of the FBI has been to estimate national and State rates, and the methods perform that task effectively. The extension of imputation to smaller units of analysis (where problems arise) was first done by NACJD at the behest of BJS, to provide a more fine-grained national picture of crime, and has since been done on a yearly basis by NACJD. This may have led researchers to (incorrectly) assume that the imputed data were accurate at this level. However, because the UCR data are the only source of crime and arrest data at the jurisdictional level and because they have been used to allocate Federal funds, it may well be worthwhile to update the imputation procedures to an extent. This will permit the FBI to provide as accurate an estimate of jurisdictional data as possible; however, it should be accomplished without unduly burdening the FBI with complicated procedures. No specific imputation procedures are recommended. Only those who have a detailed knowledge of the data collection and analysis processes can specify what makes sense in practice. However, some general principles can be considered. Suggested Imputation Philosophy At the jurisdiction level, a longitudinal estimation procedure (i.e., over time within the same jurisdiction) appears to be preferable to a cross-sectional one (i.e., for the same year across jurisdictions). Longitudinal estimation assumes that the best indicator of a jurisdiction’s current and future crime and arrest activity is its own crime and arrest history, not the history of “similar” jurisdictions. This means that an estimate based on the jurisdiction’s crime experience in the previous year is better than an estimate based on other jurisdictions’ crime experience during the current year, and an estimate for a missing month that is based on the same month last year is better than one based on the reported months for this year. Current research in criminology strongly supports this approach. Recent studies have clearly shown that “all crime is local” (Sherman et al, 1997; Lattimore et al, 1997). That is, different jurisdictions have different crime patterns (and different neighborhoods in a jurisdiction have different crime patterns). This should be recognized in terms of how gaps in criminal justice data are filled in by imputation. For global estimates of missing agencies, however, cross-sectional methods should be seriously considered. They assume that the best indicator of a group of agencies is the average of similar agencies for the same year, as sampling theory indicates. Among the points that must be considered in developing an imputation scheme are (a) whether an agency reported data in the previous year (to permit longitudinal estimation), (b) the historical reporting behavior of a delinquent agency, (c) whether non-reporting agencies constitute a random sample of all jurisdictions, (d) whether the agencies in question have changed their borders during the time period in question. Different procedures need to be considered for zero-population agencies and for regular agencies that are incomplete- and non-reporting agencies. Some of the issues that might affect the imputation procedures are described below. Bridging Gaps 28 in Police Crime Data VIII. Suggested Imputation Philosophy Zero-Population Agencies Currently no imputation is made of missing data from zero-population agencies. This policy should be reconsidered. Although the crime counts from these agencies may constitute a small fraction of the whole, it may be advisable to investigate the extent to which ignoring these agencies' data affects the estimates of crime rates for specific sub- populations – rural areas, certain types of crimes, etc. In particular, before any specific imputation procedure can be recommended, a study should be undertaken to determine (a) if different types of zero-population agencies should be handled differently and (b) whether they provide reports to other governmental entities (cities, States) from which an estimate of their statistics can be made. The examples given earlier, of university or State police agencies not providing data consistently, indicate that they may have some effect on biasing the crime picture; it is worth determining the extent to which this is the case. Different strategies might be tried for different situations. Imputing data for a non- reporting State police department might be based on the crime rate for the State as a whole; if it has decreased by 5 percent, then a reasonable estimate for the State police might also be a decrease of 5 percent. Imputing data for a university police department, on the other hand, might be based more properly on the change in crime rate for the city in which the university is located. [Although it might be more accurate to base the imputation on the change in crime rate for the neighborhood of the university, such detail is beyond the capability or needs of the UCR program.] Incomplete and Non-Reporting Agencies As Akiyama and Nolan (1999b) point out in their memorandum, "UCR Data Imputation: Longitudinal vs Cross-Sectional Approaches," the bulk of the delinquent agencies report fewer than 4 months (i.e., there are relatively few incomplete-reporting agencies as compared to non-reporting agencies). Imputing the missing data for these agencies might best be accomplished by imputing each missing month separately. This has the effect of simplifying the imputation process by putting all agencies with missing data into the same category (and eliminating the arbitrary 3-month cut-point), but it also would permit seasonality to be taken into account by providing monthly estimates. There are two different cases to consider for primary police agencies that submit no reports. First, there are agencies that virtually never provide reports of crimes. The voluntary nature of the UCR program precludes the FBI from taking any measures to require reporting from non-reporting agencies. The fact that they do not report to the FBI, however, does not mean that they provide no reports of their activity at all; most agencies must do so, to some governmental body. A sample of these reports could be analyzed to determine the extent to which the current imputation procedure (i.e., using the same crime rate as in “similar” jurisdictions) reflects their true crime rates. For example, if a particular municipal police department does not provide crime data to the FBI or State criminal justice agency, it still may prepare an annual report to the municipality: a police department must normally justify its annual budget with an accounting of its activity. To determine the extent to which crime is underreported, it might be worthwhile to get in contact with a random sample of non-reporting agencies and obtain their annual reports. In this way an estimate could be made of the extent of crime and arrest activity in these and similar non-reporting jurisdictions. Bridging Gaps 29 in Police Crime Data