# Where to find up to date crime statistics?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-up-to-date-crime-statistics/820438>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 28, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-up-to-date-crime-statistics/820438 "2018-08-28T21:51:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Contemplation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Contemplation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contemplation)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-up-to-date-crime-statistics/820438/1 "2018-08-28T21:51:00Z")

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What’s a good website to find current and accurate crime statistics on US cities?

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**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-up-to-date-crime-statistics/820438/2 "2018-08-28T22:15:38Z")

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I Googled - \*current and accurate crime statistics on US cities? \*and came up with this. Hope it helps.

[https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/](https://www.ucrdatatool.gov/)

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**Author:** ![etasyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9f8e36/32.png) [@etasyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etasyde)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-up-to-date-crime-statistics/820438/3 "2018-08-29T17:21:20Z")

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_Real_ crime statistics for things like national data _always_ lag. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had someone say “You can’t use crime statistics covering last decade/five years prior/last year! Where’s the crime statistics for this year?” Explaining “Well, it takes more than 10 seconds to formalize a cross state study…” just shoots over most people’s heads. Still, the FBI releases some decent data: [https://ucr.fbi.gov/](https://ucr.fbi.gov/)

If you want specific cities and not national studies, there’s a lot of sites but it becomes a lot more fragmented trying to find the data you need.

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**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2018, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-to-find-up-to-date-crime-statistics/820438/4 "2018-08-29T17:45:14Z")

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I don’t know if it’s relevant to the US experience, but we in the UK always get told that there is a difference between what’s recorded by the police and the regular crime survey asking people about their experience of crime - a lot of crime doesn’t get reported to the police, notoriously rape and sexual assault, and some is more likely to be recorded if there’s an insurance claim involved. It all depends what you’re trying to understand from the figures.