Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Sex Offense Data

This dashboard is intended to provide an interactive tool for criminal justice agencies, researchers, and the community to access data collected by the Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis (BJIA), of the Wisconsin Department of Justice, through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Annual Reports on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment created and provided by the University of Wisconsin System as required under Wis. Stat. § 36.11(22) can be found here. Please note that sexual assault/offense counts between Clery Act reporting, Chapter 36, and UCR are not expected to match due to differing reporting guidelines between the three sources.

BJIA collects incident-level detail for sex offenses using the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) definitions from all reporting agencies in Wisconsin, including agencies reporting via the Summary-Based Reporting System (SBR). The sex offense dashboard includes all sex offenses reported by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies to the Wisconsin Department of Justice under the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program; the hierarchy and conversion rules that apply to the UCR offense and arrest dashboards are not applied to the sex offense dashboards. Therefore, the counts on the sex offense dashboards and the offense/arrest dashboards may be different. Incidents that were submitted as "Unfounded" by law enforcement agencies are not displayed on any of these visualizations. Agencies are responsible for submitting complete and accurate data.

This dashboard contains four areas of information: offense counts by agency/year, offense rates by agency/year, weapons and locations, and victim/offender information. Please visit the Definitions and Methodology tabs for more detail on sex offense classifications and counting methodology. 

Year:
For agencies who report via Summary-Based Reporting, the offense year is the year the incident was reported. For agencies who report via Incident-Based Reporting, the offense year is the year the incident occurred; if the incident year is unknown, the reported year is used.

Offense Counts:
The counts of each offense for each agency and year are based on the offenses the victims are victims of. For example, if a single victim is raped and sexually assaulted with an object during the same incident and the incident was reported to BJIA by the agency as such, there is 1 rape and 1 sexual assault with an object offense.

Please see the Methodology tab for examples of how different aspects of incidents are counted. 

Offense Counts:
The counts of each offense for each agency and year are based on the offenses the victims are victims of. For example, if a single victim is raped and sexually assaulted with an object during the same incident and the incident was reported to BJIA by the agency as such, there is 1 rape and 1 sexual assault with an object offense.

Location:
Locations are counted for every offense they are connected to. For example, if "Industrial Site" is the location of an assault with an object, and there were 3 victims of assault with an object during an incident, "Industrial Site" is counted three times as a location because 3 offenses took place there. Likewise, if a victim is raped and sexually assaulted with an object at an “Arena” location, “Arena” will appear twice because two offenses took place there. Location numbers are counts of how many offenses (not incidents) took place at that location.

Weapon:
The "Firearm" category includes handguns, rifles, shotguns, and other firearms. Weapons are counted for every offense they are connected to. For example, during a single incident, if 2 different people are raped by 5 offenders and there was a firearm connected to the rape, there are two offenses of rape and the firearm will display a count of 2. The count indicates that there were 2 rape offenses (not incidents) involving a firearm. The “Multiple Weapon” category includes any combination of 2 or more weapons connected to an offense; each offense with multiple weapons is counted once in the “Multiple Weapon” category. For example, if an offense involved a firearm and a knife, that offense will be counted once in the “Multiple Weapon” category, and not in the Firearm or Knife category.

Victim Counts:
Victim counts match the offense counts; within each type of offense, the victim count is a count of unique victims. However, because a single victim can be a victim of multiple offenses, if “All Offenses” is selected, the victim count is not a count of unique victims. For example, if in a single incident Jane Doe is sodomized and sexually assaulted with an object, Jane's demographic details will appear in both the sodomy/oral sex category and the sexual assault with an object category. If All Offenses are viewed together, Jane's details are counted twice.

Victim Age/Sex/Race:
For cases in which a victim's demographic information was not provided, "Unknown" was used. For cases in which an age range was provided, the midpoint of the range was used. Age 0-4 includes newborns and infants under 1 year old. Hispanic is considered an ethnicity and is not a race category in the Uniform Crime Reporting program.

Victim's Relationship to Offender:
Each victim's relationship to their offender(s) is reported from the victim's perspective. If a victim is assaulted by more than 1 offender, the collection of offenders fits in only one category. The hierarchy of relationship categories is in order: Current/Former Partner, Family, Known, Stranger, and then Unknown. For example, if Jane is raped by 1 acquaintance and another offender who is her former partner, the relationship is counted once as "Current/Former Partner" because there is one offense and the Current/Former partner category takes hierarchy over the acquaintance. If Jane was raped and sexually assaulted with an object, the relationship would count twice because there are two offenses. Therefore, the count of relationships is not the count of offenders; it is the count of offenses. The category of Current/Former Partner includes: common-law spouse, spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, same-sex relationship, ex-relationship, and ex-spouse. The category of Family includes: child, grandchild, grandparent, in-law, other family, parent, sibling, step-child, step-parent, and step-sibling. The category of Known includes: acquaintance, child in care of babysitter, child of boyfriend/girlfriend, employee, employer, friend, neighbor, otherwise known, babysitter, co-habitant, professional care provider, professional care receiver, roommate, other business relationship, and other domestic violence victim. The category of Stranger includes: victim was a stranger. The category of Unknown relationship includes: relationship unknown, and offender is unknown.

Offender Counts:
Offenders are counted for every victim/offense they are connected to. If one offender rapes and sexually assaults with an object one victim, they are counted as an offender twice because they committed two offenses, and will appear once under rape, once under sexual assault with an object, and twice if “All Offenses” is selected.

Offender Age/Sex/Race:
For cases in which the offender was unknown, or any piece of demographic information was unknown, “Unknown” was used. For cases in which an age range was provided, the midpoint of the range was used. Hispanic is considered an ethnicity and is not a race category in the Uniform Crime Reporting program.