The Federal Bureau of Investigation makes the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data publicly available, and has even introduced a web-based tool to search the data in 2010. But Google’s Public Data service may offer the best option to quickly customize and display UCR crime data. You can even embed the charts in your website, but only if you can use iframe tags, which wordpress.com does not allow.
These graphs all look at the rate per 100,000 from 1960 to 2009. Click the images to go directly to the tables in Google Public Data, where you can change the variables to create your own graphs.
What’s interesting in these graphs?
Well, homicide is probably the best indicator of overall violent crime because almost all homicides are known to law enforcement. And, of course, the UCR data only include those crimes known to law enforcement. Compare homicide with forcible rape (FBI’s terminology and definition) with homicide, and I think what you largely see is differences in reporting rather than differences in actual rates in a year-by-year comparison.
What else do you see?
Louise Behiel
April 25, 2012
I’ve put this in my reference file for future use. thanks for the info.
CrimeDime
April 25, 2012
Thanks for stopping by, Louise. Glad you found it to be useful – and I think Google does a much better job with the making the data usable than the FBI.
Breezy Kiefair
May 4, 2012
Reblogged this on Breezy Kiefair and commented:
text of post reblogged here…. visit:
http://crimedime.com/2012/04/25/using-googles-public-data-service-to-visualize-fbi-uniform-crime-report-data/ for supporting graphs.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation makes the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data publicly available, and has even introduced a web-based tool to search the data in 2010. But Google’s Public Data service may offer the best option to quickly customize and display UCR crime data. You can even embed the charts in your website, but only if you can use iframe tags, which wordpress.com does not allow.
These graphs all look at the rate per 100,000 from 1960 to 2009. Click the images to go directly to the tables in Google Public Data, where you can change the variables to create your own graphs.
Homicide
Forcible Rape
Robbery
Aggravated Assault
What’s interesting in these graphs?
Well, homicide is probably the best indicator of overall violent crime because almost all homicides are known to law enforcement. And, of course, the UCR data only include those crimes known to law enforcement. Compare homicide with forcible rape (FBI’s terminology and definition) with homicide, and I think what you largely see is differences in reporting rather than differences in actual rates in a year-by-year comparison.
What else do you see?
Breezy Kiefair
May 4, 2012
reblogged… thank you.