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GlossaryCrime classifications

Crimes against society

Crimes against society is a NIBRS grouping for specified prohibited activities. Learn why a society victim record is not a count of people or a claim that conduct causes no harm.

Crimes against society is a National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, grouping for specified prohibited activities categorized as offenses against society rather than an individual or property interest. Examples include certain drug and gambling offenses. The term is a statistical grouping; it does not mean the conduct has no human effects or that a recorded victim represents a particular person.

What the grouping organizes

The FBI's manual divides NIBRS offenses among crimes against persons, property, and society. The society grouping includes activities such as drug violations, gambling, and animal cruelty under the program's categories. Membership comes from the classification table, not from an analyst's judgment about how serious an event seems. FBI NIBRS category discussion

The grouping also affects interpretation of victim fields. A society/public victim value should not be translated into an unidentified human victim. Likewise, an event can have additional offenses in other groupings when the applicable rules permit them.

Because these are recorded offenses, totals can also reflect enforcement and reporting practices. The number documented is not automatically the total frequency of every prohibited activity in a community.

Example

Hypothetical example: An agency documents a qualifying drug-law offense and reports it within the society grouping. The record contains a society/public victim designation. A separate incident documents property taken from an individual.

The society/public entry is not one additional person harmed. It identifies the program's reporting role for the first offense. Adding it to individual victim records and calling the sum “residents victimized” would misstate the data. The example assumes a qualifying reported offense, not a conclusion from a dispatch concern alone.

Common confusion

Crimes against society is not simply another name for all nonviolent crime. The parallel property grouping includes many nonviolent offenses and also robbery. The person/property/society structure answers a different question from a violent/nonviolent grouping.

“Victimless crime” is also not a necessary synonym. A statistical society designation does not settle the broader question of harm. Nor does it establish the legal charge or guilt of an identified person.

Reading a published total

Check included offenses, reporting standard/version, period, agencies, and unit of counting. Determine whether the table includes reported incidents, arrests only, or both under distinct categories. Changes in enforcement focus, participation, or offense definitions can affect comparisons. A society-offense total should not be described as a direct measure of all substance use, community distress, or the number of people needing services.

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