A crime report is a written document filed by law enforcement to describe an incident. The information is recorded in order to track the progression of a crime and identify the perpetrator. The crime report includes a description of the event, a description of any items involved in the incident and the names and ages of people who were present during the crime.
Depending on the crime, the report may also include a statement about whether the suspect used force or fear during the crime. The police department will also ask for a description of the suspect’s physical characteristics such as height, weight, hair color and eye color. It is important to be as detailed as possible when making a crime report to help police officers investigate the incident and arrest the suspect.
Each year the UCR presents nationwide crime statistics based on data collected by nearly 18,000 city, college and university, town, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies. These reports provide an approximate snapshot of crime in the United States and are useful to criminologists, sociologists, legislators, the media, city planners, school administrators and researchers in criminal justice.
DCJS is moving from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS is designed to improve the quality of crime data by capturing all offenses in one incident rather than only counting the most serious crimes. This provides more complete and accurate data for police management and research staff. The new reporting system also collects more significant information about each incident such as offender and victim identification, links all offense types to the underlying incidents and counts all weapons used in each incident.