These are common statements heard daily, but what are the facts? Crime can be broken down and measured in many different ways. There are many different types of crime, including property crimes, violent crimes, white-collar crimes, and cybercrimes. The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program identifies violent crime as four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. The number (incidences) of these four crimes has increased in the past decade due to population changes; however, in order to account for changing populations, the UCR uses a prevalence rate of crimes per 100,000 people. This allows for consistent reporting.

In this Discussion, you estimate the number of violent crimes that have occurred in a U.S. city, county, state, or region in the past year. You then compare your estimates to the actual numbers from the UCR.