Crime rates stayed constant from 2020 to 2021, according to new estimations from the FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics. However, national crime data remains incomplete with about 37% of law enforcement agencies not reporting data last year.
In 2020, the FBI switched data collection methods from the Uniform Crime Reporting database to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The NIBRS system requires agencies to submit more detailed data, which has caused the transition to the new system to be slow. In 2021, about 63% of law enforcement agencies submitted NIBRS data to the FBI.
To compensate for the lower participation rate, the FBI partnered with the Bureau of Justice Statistics to create crime rate estimations for 2021. The agencies used the existing NIBRS data along with the National Victimization Survey to create national crime rate estimates.
