Uniform Crime Reporting Program National Incident-Based Reporting System
Crimes Against Persons, Property, and Society In the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), each offense reported is either a Group A or Group B offense type. There are 23 Group A offense categories, comprised of 52 Group A offenses and 10 Group B offense categories. (At the recommendation of the Criminal Justice Information Services Advisory Policy Board, the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program combined the offense categories of Sex Offenses [formerly Forcible] and Sex Offenses, Nonforcible. Beginning with the 2018 data, all offense types previously published in those two categories are now published in one category as Sex Offenses.) Law enforcement agencies report Group A offenses as part of a NIBRS incident report, but they report only arrest data for Group B offenses.
Each offense collected in NIBRS belongs to one of three categories: Crimes Against Persons, Crimes Against Property, or Crimes Against Society. Crimes Against Persons, e.g., murder, rape, and assault, are those in which the victims are always individuals. The object of Crimes Against Property, e.g., robbery, bribery, and burglary, is to obtain money, property, or some other benefit. Crimes Against Society, e.g., gambling, prostitution, and drug violations, represent society’s prohibition against engaging in certain types of activity and are typically victimless crimes.
The categorization of an offense is significant because law enforcement uses it to determine how to report it to the UCR Program. For counting purposes, agencies should count one offense for each victim of a Crime Against Person, one offense for each distinct operation of a Crime Against Property (except for motor vehicle theft, in which one offense is counted for each vehicle stolen), and one offense for each Crime Against Society.
The listings of the Group A and Group B offenses appearing in this section indicate whether offenses are Crimes Against Persons, Property, or Society. The crime categories are presented in alphabetical order within each offense grouping.
Group A Offenses Offense Category Offense Type Crime Against Animal Cruelty Animal Cruelty Society Arson Arson Property
NIBRS, 2018 U.S. Department of Justice—Federal Bureau of Investigation Released Fall 2019