Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets, A BJS Technical Report, outlines the contents and uses of the new Law Enforcement Agency Identifiers Crosswalk file. Because the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) uses a unique set of agency identifiers, linking crime reports to other types of local data has been almost impossible. This new data file identifies each agency that participates in the UCR by the commonly used geographic identifiers from the Census Bureau and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). For example, researchers using the crosswalk file will be able to link crime data to --
- geographic coordinates permitting mapping
- socio-economic data like that from the Decennial Census for each jurisdiction
- correctional data on jail and prison facilities and on inmates
- data on government finance and expenditures
- the Vital Statistics cause of death data.
The crosswalk file was originally created to administer the formula grants under the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program and the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant Program. It was created by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data and is available in a public use file for use by researchers and government analysts interested in linking crime data to other data.