The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI have launched an online data tool, aimed at making it easier to research and analyze crime data. The data tool lets users perform queries on custom variables like year, agency, and type of offense. Until now, making comparisons of Uniform Crime Report data required searching annual reports and manually crunching the numbers. The new tool aims to make it easier for users to make use of the raw numbers, the FBI says.
BJS developed the UCR data tool for the FBI as part of a collaboration between the agencies to improve crime data accessibility. The ucrdatatool.gov replace sa long-standing data BJS online tool that presented crime trends from the FBI’s UCR. More information about the methodology and best practices for using the new tool are available on the site.Link to online data tool
Kentucky Journal of Criminal Justice Education & Research
