Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 1 · Crime
How has crime changed in your state since 1985?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
Choose any state to see its violent and property crime rates each year since 1985, next to the U.S. rate, as police reported them to the FBI. It opens with California: police there reported about 435 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2025, against a peak of 1,121 in 1992. A state's year is left out when police departments covering fewer than 3 in 4 of its people reported a full year, as in California and many other states in 2021, when the FBI took only reports from its newer system (NIBRS) and many departments hadn't switched. Rates count only the agencies that reported.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: FBI Crime Data Explorer, Uniform Crime Reporting Program (Public domain (U.S. government work); source FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program) · Data as of Dec 31, 2025
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