What Counts as Violent Crime and Property Crime in FBI Data?

The short answer

In the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, "violent crime" means four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. "Property crime" means burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. A reported crime rate for either group counts only those offenses, and nothing else the word might suggest.

What "violent" means here

The FBI's Crime in the United States, 2013 says: "Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force."

The four violent offenses are the ones named above. Anything not on that list, such as a fight that never became an aggravated assault, is not part of the violent crime group in this data.

What "property" means here

The same FBI publication says of the theft-type offenses: "The object of the theft-type offenses is the taking of money or property, but there is no force or threat of force against the victims."

Arson sits in the property group even though it is not a theft. The FBI explains: "The property crime category includes arson because the offense involves the destruction of property; however, arson victims may be subjected to force."

The FBI also cautions that arson data are thin: "Because of limited participation and varying collection procedures by local law enforcement agencies, only limited data are available for arson."

The hierarchy rule: one offense per incident

The FBI's published tables follow what it calls the Hierarchy Rule, "which requires that only the most serious offense in a multiple-offense criminal incident be counted." The order, from most to least serious, is murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, followed by burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft.

Arson is the exception: "the Hierarchy Rule does not apply to the offense of arson. In cases in which arson occurs in conjunction with another violent or property crime, both crimes are reported."

A worked example in words

Suppose one incident involves a robbery and also the theft of a wallet. Under the Hierarchy Rule, only the robbery is counted, because robbery ranks above larceny-theft. The incident adds one to the violent group and nothing to the property group. Now suppose a fire is set during a burglary. Because arson is exempt from the rule, both the burglary and the arson are counted.

This is why this guide quotes no agency figures: the point is how offenses are sorted, and the sorting is the same for every agency. When you read an agency's violent and property rates side by side, each rate counts a different group of offenses, and a single incident is placed in at most one group, except where arson is involved.

What a violent or property rate leaves out

• Offenses outside the lists. A reported crime rate for either group counts only the offenses named above.
• Crime nobody reported to police. A reported crime rate counts only what reached the police and then the FBI.
• How serious each incident was. One robbery and one murder each add one offense to the violent group.
• Why a place's rate is what it is. The data does not say why.

What this guide does not cover

The hierarchy description above comes from the FBI's 2013 publication. This guide does not cover how the FBI's newer reporting system, called NIBRS, counts offenses, or whether the rule applies the same way there. For the definition change in rape, see What Changed When the FBI Redefined Rape in 2013?. For how to set two agencies side by side, see How to Compare Crime Rates Between Two Cities.

Use the tool

Compare Two Agencies shows violent crime and property crime as separate rows for two police agencies, with the reported crimes, population and rate for each. Read each row as the group of offenses defined above.

Sources

• FBI, Crime in the United States, 2013: Violent Crime
• FBI, Crime in the United States, 2013: Property Crime

This guide is for informational purposes only and is not professional advice. A reported crime rate describes what one police agency reported to the FBI. It says nothing certain about any one home, street or school.

Last reviewed: October 2026 · Against the sources cited in the body.