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GlossaryCrime reporting systems

Crime Data Explorer

Crime Data Explorer is the FBI website for accessing UCR statistics. Learn how to distinguish submitted data, estimates, filters, and coverage.

Crime Data Explorer, or CDE, is the FBI's public website for accessing Uniform Crime Reporting statistics. It provides published crime and other law-enforcement data, including charts and downloadable information. It is a statistical access platform, not a complete collection of local incident narratives or a live dispatch feed.

Start with the selected product

The FBI directs the public to CDE for its UCR releases and describes the site as a way to access data through charts and graphs. UCR includes several collections with different scopes, such as crime incidents, hate crimes, and law-enforcement measures. FBI UCR overview

The platform name alone does not establish the methodology of a displayed number. An agency's submitted count, a national estimate, and a rate can all concern crime while answering different questions. Users need the selected collection, geography, time period, unit, and accompanying notes.

For example, BJS describes NIBRS estimates as using imputation and weighting to account for nonresponse and missing data. Those estimates can be analyzed at incident, offense, victim, or arrestee levels. They should not be represented as a simple unadjusted sum of all agency submissions. BJS estimates overview

Example

Hypothetical example: A researcher downloads an agency's reported offenses and separately views an estimated statewide total. The state estimate exceeds the sum of the agency records the researcher downloaded because the products have different coverage and methodology.

That discrepancy is not, by itself, evidence of an arithmetic error. The researcher first checks whether the state product adjusts for missing agencies, uses the same offense grouping, and covers the same period. The resulting comparison should name both products rather than call each simply “the FBI number.”

Common confusion

CDE is the access site; NIBRS and SRS are reporting frameworks. Downloading a table from CDE does not make every table NIBRS incident-level data. Historical products and estimates require their own documentation.

A missing agency result also does not establish zero crime. The agency may lack a qualifying submission or may not be covered by the selected product. Participation information must be assessed separately from the displayed count.

Citing a result

Record the dataset or table name, selected filters, covered dates, release or access date, and whether the figure is reported or estimated. Where possible, retain the downloaded table and its notes. These details make a result reproducible even if the website's navigation or default view changes. Public release schedules also differ from the dates on which incidents occurred.

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