Background of Uniform Crime Reporting
The Committee on Uniform Crime Records was established in 1930 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. This committee developed and initiated a voluntary national data collection effort. To best depict total crime and provide the most meaningful data to police administrators, it was determined that the Uniform Crime Reporting program would specifically collect data on known offenses and persons arrested by police departments. The FBI serves as the national clearinghouse for statistical information on crime.
The reporting of offenses was limited to specific crime classifications – crimes that are most likely to be reported and most likely to occur with sufficient frequency – to provide an adequate basis for comparison. These crimes classifications are broken down into two (2) categories,
Part I Crimes and Part II Crimes.