By 

Sue A. Lindgren

Marianne W. Zawitz

BJS Statisticians

Since the 1930's the FBI's Uniform

Crime Reporting (UCR) program has

collected data on crimes reported to

the police and on arrests. These data

come from State and local law enforcement agencies, and for the UCR the

FBI developed its own agency identifiers. 

Most other Federal data collections,

including the decennial census and the

census of governments, use geocodes

and government entity identifiers developed by the Census Bureau or by what

is now the National Institute for

Standards and Technology (NIST).

Because the UCR and other data

sources do not share place identifiers,

analysis of crime data in conjunction

with data from other sources has been

difficult. 

To overcome this obstacle, the Bureau

of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the

National Archive of Criminal Justice

Data (NACJD) have created a data file,

the Law Enforcement Agency Identifiers Crosswalk, that lists agencies by

the FBI's codes as well as the other

major identifying standards in use

today. This report describes this file

and its uses. The file is available free

of charge from the NACJD. (See box

on page 9 for information about how to

acquire this file.)

Origin of the crosswalk 

The immediate need for a crosswalk

was administration of the Local Law

Enforcement Block Grant program,

enacted in 1996, and the Juvenile

Accountability Incentive Block Grant

program, enacted the following year. 

In both these programs, government

awards are based on a formula that

includes a 3-year average of violent

crimes from the UCR. The juvenile

block grant program also uses government expenditure data from the

Census Bureau’s finance survey files.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)

and the National Archive of Criminal

Justice Data (NACJD) recently developed the Law Enforcement Agency

Identifiers Crosswalk. For the firsttime, criminal justice researchers and

statisticians will be able to analyze

crime and arrest data reported by

nearly 20,000 State and local law

enforcement agencies in conjunction

with socio-demographic data from

other official datasets.

The crosswalk merged data from three

major datasets:

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting

(UCR) program file containing 18,725

records, one for each law enforcement

agency in the Nation that had ever

reported to the UCR as of 1996

The BJS 1996 Directory of Law

Enforcement Agencies (DLEA) file of

18,745 law enforcement agencies, a

complete census of publicly funded

police and sheriffs’ departments

employing at least one part-time or

full-time sworn police officer with full

arrest powers

The Census Bureau’s Governments

Integrated Directory (GID), which is a

complete listing of all 86,745 recognized local governments in the United

States.

The resulting file has 23,170 records: 

 14,313 from both the UCR and the

DLEA

 4,418 from only the UCR

 4,439 from only the DLEA.

Each record in the file contains the

following geo-coding information

where matches were possible:

The law enforcement agency’s ORI

code 

The Census Bureau’s Governments

Division code (GOVID), identifying the

parent government of the law enforcement agency

The National Institute of Standards

and Technology (NIST) FIPS codes,

identifying the geographic area of the

agency.

 Highlights

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Technical Report

Linking Uniform Crime

Reporting Data to Other Datasets

 May 2001, NCJ 185233
The UCR coding does not associate

the agency with its parent government.

The current crosswalk was originally

designed to link the number of violent

crimes reported by individual police

agencies to specific local governments

for formula grant purposes. 

FBI UCR codes (ORI)

Law enforcement agencies voluntarily

report summary crime and arrest data

monthly to the FBI. Initially most

reporting agencies were in large cities,

and before 1957 the FBI did not aggregate data, even to the national level.

Over the years the number and types

of agencies reporting crime have

increased. 

Every agency that reports to the UCR

is assigned a unique Originating

Reporting Agency Identifier or ORI.

For the most part, police agencies

have an ORI and report crimes, but

other agencies  like fire marshals,

alcoholic beverage control agencies,

regional and special purpose task

forces, Federal agencies, and private

colleges  also have law enforcement

responsibilities and are assigned ORI

codes.

By design, the ORI codes are the first

seven digits of the FBI's National Crime

Information Center (NCIC) number.

Established in 1967, NCIC is a nationwide computerized system that

provides law enforcement with ready

data about wanted persons, stolen

property, and other information.

The ORI codes begin with a two-letter

State designation which is similar, but

not identical, to that used by the U.S.

Postal Service. For example, Nebraska

in the ORI numbers is NB, whereas the

postal abbreviation is NE. 

2 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets

The crosswalk opens many

opportunities for criminal justice

research because it allows linking

UCR offenses known, persons

arrested, hate crimes, and supplementary homicide files to other official

datasets. Beyond this linking, the

crosswalk makes available the

complete Federal Information

Processing Standards (FIPS) geocoding for more complete geographic

mapping of UCR data than previously

possible. (For a list of abbreviations or

acronyms associated with the crosswalk and for where to find data referenced here, see boxes on page 9.)

Researchers have always been able

to aggregate UCR data to the State,

county, and metropolitan area using

those FIPS codes on the UCR tapes.

With the crosswalk, however, the more

detailed FIPS codes and government

identification (GOVID) codes on the

crosswalk allow more detailed analyses at finer geographic levels. The

GOVID also allows analysis of multiple

datasets, further enriching analytic

possibilities. 

Using the GOVID researchers can

link UCR data to –

• BJS surveys and censuses of

correctional programs that collect data

on facility operations and staffing as

well as about inmates 

• Census Bureau’s Governments

Division files on government finance,

expenditure, and employment,

especially the quinquennial Census of

Governments, last done in 1997, that

collects data on all known governments rather than a sample

• the Federal Assistance Award Data

System of the Census Bureau’s

Governments Division that produces

datasets on all types of Federal financial assistance awards to all types 

of recipients. 

Using the FIPS codes researchers

can link the UCR files to data sets

from the Census Bureau, Bureau of

Labor Statistics, and other Federal

agencies, including 

the Decennial Census of Population

and Housing, conducted every 10

years, that provides data on the full

range of population and housing information, with extensive sociodemographic and economic data on

persons and households, and about

the housing stock. 

the Current Population Survey that

provides data on employment, unemployment, earnings, and hours of

work. Data are available by demographic characteristics, occupation,

industry, and class of worker. Supplemental questions produce data on

topics like school enrollment, income,

previous work experience, health,

employee benefits, and work hours.

• the Survey of Income and Program

Participation that provides information

on source and amount of income;

labor force participation; participation

in income supplementing programs

such as food stamps, pension

systems, private health insurance

coverage, public or subsidized rental

housing, low-income energy assistance, and school breakfast and lunch

programs; and general demographic

characteristics. 

• the National Vital Statistics System

Mortality Data, Multiple Cause-ofDeath Public-Use Data Files that

provide mortality data for cities,

counties, and standard metropolitan

areas. These data are produced by

the National Center for Health Statistics from certificates filed for deaths

occurring in each State. For example,

the crosswalk file was used to link

homicide data from the National Vital

Statistics System to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports for an

analysis of the agreement between the

two sources at the county level.*

*Brian Wiersma and others, “A Comparison of

Supplementary Homicide Reports and National

Vital Statistics System Homicide Estimates for

U.S. Counties,” Homicide Studies, 4,4, Nov.

2000, pp. 317-340.

Research uses for the Law Enforcement Agency Identifiers Crosswalk
The remaining five digits of the ORI

code are generally numeric. Depending

on the State, the first two or three digits

identify the county within the State and

the remaining digits identify the reporting agency within the county. The last

five digits sometimes incorporate alpha

characters, such as SP for State police

agency, WL for wildlife police, HP for

highway patrol, and other combinations. (See Appendix 1 on page 7 

for more information on the variations

in ORI coding across the States.)

A government can have more than one

agency with an ORI code. This is

particularly true of State governments

in which the State police have a

barracks in every county, each with its

own ORI code (table 1). Add to this,

State wildlife agencies and alcoholic

beverage control agencies, and the

number of ORI's assigned to a State

can be large. Florida has the most, with

497 separate ORI’s assigned to the

State level of government. 

About 96% of the general purpose

local governments have one ORI in the

UCR file (table 2). But 382 have 2, and

New York City has 20. Of the 1,873

ORI’s in multiple-ORI governments,

half are in Texas, as a result of constables being added to the crosswalk 

from the 1996 Directory of Law

Enforcement Agencies (DLEA). 

Federal Information Processing

Standards (FIPS) codes

FIPS codes were developed to

uniquely identify geographic and

population areas such as States,

counties, cities, Metropolitan Statistical

Areas, congressional districts, foreign

geographic entities, and incorporated

and unincorporated places. More than

a single code, FIPS refers to standardized systems of numeric and/or alphabetic coding issued by the NIST, a

Department of Commerce agency. 

Geographic elements to be assigned

codes are alphabetized and then

assigned codes serially, generally with

gaps that permit additions.1

 Codes for

entities in a State are unique within that

State. The basic geographic code

formats used in the crosswalk are 

States  2 digits

Counties and county equivalents 

3 digits

Places, including incorporated and

unincorporated places and Census

Designated Places  5 digits

Metropolitan Statistical Areas 

4 digits

Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical

Areas  2 digits.

1

For FIPS information see <http://www.census.

gov/geo/www/ tiger/glossary.html> and <http://

www.census.gov/geo/www/cob/pl_info.htm>.

See also <http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/index.

htm>. 

The Census Bureau's Governments

Integrated Directory and GOVID

The Census Bureau maintains the

Governments Integrated Directory, a

listing of all known local governments

in the United States. 

(See <http://www.census.gov/govs/

www/index.html>.) 

The directory includes 

 3,043 county governments

 19,373 municipal governments

 16,629 township governments

 34,684 special districts such as

housing and transit authorities

 13,726 independent school districts

that are independent of any other

government such as a county or a

State.

The Census Bureau assigned a unique

9-digit GOVID code to each of these

87,000 State and local government

entities. The GOVID consists of 

 Digit Content

1-2 State ID

 3 Type of government code

4-6 County code

7-9 Unit code

 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets 3

Wyoming 5

Wisconsin 21

West Virginia 124

Washington 10

Virginia 169

Vermont 17

Utah 13

Texas 48

Tennessee 19

South Dakota 5

South Carolina 117

Rhode Island 17

Pennsylvania 232

Oregon 79

Oklahoma 31

Ohio 22

North Dakota 8

North Carolina 274

New York 280

New Mexico 13

New Jersey 44

New Hampshire 14

Nevada 13

Nebraska 99

Montana 8

Missouri 17

Mississippi 27

Minnesota 17

Michigan 99

Massachusetts 83

Maryland 62

Maine 58

Louisiana 24

Kentucky 137

Kansas 17

Iowa 9

Indiana 110

Illinois 71

Idaho 16

Hawaii 3

Georgia 122

Florida 497

Delaware 17

Connecticut 29

Colorado 30

California 138

Arkansas 23

Arizona 12

Alaska 9

Alabama 32

State government Number of ORI's

Table 1. Number of ORI's assigned

to State government, by State

1 20 0

3 10 0

4 9 0

2 8 0

13 7 0.1

16 6 0.1

80 5 0.5

39 4 0.2

88 3 0.5

382 2 2.2

16,962 1 96.4

17,590 Total 100%

Percent

Number 

of ORI's

assigned

Number of

governments

Table 2. Number of general purpose

local governments, by number 

of ORI's assigned to them
A particularly useful component of the

GOVID is Government type. This

single digit identifies 

 Value Government type

 0 State 

1 County 

2 Municipal 

 3 Township 

4 Special district

5 Independent school district 

6 Federal agency

 7 Tribal 

How ORI relates to FIPS and GOVID

Although the coding schemes have

similarities, each results in codes that

are not the same for a particular

agency or locality. For example,

Minneapolis City, in Hennepin County,

Minnesota, has the following codes

from the three coding schemes

included in the crosswalk:

Minnesota State ID

UCR ORI MN

GOVID 24

FIPS 27

Hennepin County ID

UCR ORI 027

GOVID 027

FIPS 053

Minneapolis City, full ID

UCR ORI MN 027 11

GOVID 24 2 027 020

FIPS 27 053 43000

Crosswalk description

The crosswalk file contains records for

over 23,000 agencies. It was created

by matching electronic files and

manually looking up agency, government, and location information. 

Three main electronic source files 

were used:

A file supplied by the FBI that

contained ORI numbers, agency

names, and UCR State and county

codes for every ORI that had ever

been issued. Mailing addresses of

most agencies were also included.

The BJS Directory of Law Enforcement Agencies (DLEA), 1996, that lists

all active police agencies, regardless 

of UCR participation, with one or more

part-time or full-time law enforcement

officers with arrest power (sworn law

enforcement officers). It was derived

from a complete enumeration of all

State and local police agencies in the

United States. This file contained NCIC

numbers as reported by the respondent agencies and the GOVID. The

first seven digits of the NCIC number

were assumed to be the ORI number.

The date of this file  1996  was the

date assigned to the crosswalk file.

• The Governments Integrated Directory, supplied by the Census Bureau,

listed all local governments as defined

by the Census Bureau for general

statistical purposes  counties, cities,

townships, special districts, and

independent school districts  with

name, address, GOVID, and FIPS

State, county, metropolitan area, and

place codes (where applicable).

Through the ORI codes, the FBI file

was matched to the DLEA file, which

contained both ORI and GOVID. The

result was matched to the GID using

GOVID. The third file that emerged

contained ORI, GOVID, and FIPS

State, county, and place variables.

Matches were obtained for 62% of the

23,000 records in both the UCR and

DLEA files. A few thousand records

from each file remained unmatched.

For most nonmatches, the agency was

included in either the FBI file or the

DLEA file. 

In a few instances the ORI code in the

DLEA differed from the ORI in the

UCR. After verifying that the two

records were from the same agency,

the ORI from the UCR was used. 

It was apparent from agency names

and the absence of UCR reporting that

many agencies in the UCR files no

longer exist. In addition, the ORI

dataset includes some Federal

agencies such as China Lake Naval 

Air Weapons Station, California, and

Butner Federal prison in North

Carolina, regional task forces, private

colleges, and so on that do not meet

the DLEA definition of a State or local

law enforcement agency. 

4 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets

Contents of the crosswalk file

FBI UCR 

Originating Agency Identifier (ORI)

Agency Name

Agency Covered By Another ORI Flag

Multiple County Flag

State Code

County Code

County Name

Metropolitan Statistical Area

Population Group Code

Population Covered

Reporting Agency Address

Reporting Agency Zip Code

Bureau of the Census (GOVID)

Governments Division State Number

Government ID (Numeric)

Government ID (String)

Census Government Type (Or BJS Assigned)

Government Name

Population 1994

Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)

State Code

County Code

Place Code

Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) Code

Metropolitan Statistical Area Name

Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area Code (CMSA)

DLEA only 4,439 19.2

UCR only 4,418 19.1

UCR and DLEA 14,313 61.8

Total 23,170 100.0%

Percent

Number 

Source of records
Of the agencies in the DLEA that do

not match an ORI from the UCR, about

3,000 of these have an ORI derived

from the first seven digits of the NCIC

number they reported in the DLEA

census. A police agency can have an

NCIC number assigned for participation in the NCIC program but not have

an ORI because they do not participate

in the UCR program.

In addition, the DLEA lists only the

main or headquarters offices and not

individual branches for multibranch

agencies, such as State police. The

FBI lists all branches.

Agencies covered by another ORI

Some police agencies report data to

the UCR program for other localities.

Sometimes this results from one jurisdiction contracting with another for

police protection services rather than

having its own police force. In other

cases the arrangement may be less

formal. In these situations the reporting

agency may include the crime and

arrest data in its own reports or may

report separately using the other

agency’s ORI number. 

Overall, about 10% of the general

purpose local government agencies in

the UCR files indicate that they are

covered by another reporting agency,

but many of these agencies appear to

no longer operate; that is, the jurisdiction once had a police agency with an

ORI number in the UCR system but

has ceased to exist. About half of the

agencies in the UCR coded as covered

by another agency were not detected

during the 1996 DLEA.

Whether an ORI is covered by another

reporting agency is indicated on the

UCR and crosswalk files. This varies

by the type of government: 3.8% of

county ORIs, 11.5% of municipal ORIs,

and 17% of township ORIs are coded

as covered by another reporting

agency.

Manual matches

Nonmatched records were manually

looked up in the Governments

Integrated Directory file for the GOVID

and FIPS codes. Because almost all

police agencies have a geographic

reference in their name, this identifier

of political geography and not the

mailing address was used to find the

FIPS place code. For example, a

county sheriff's office may have a

mailing address of a city within the

county. Typically, a county encompasses a city, and the true geographic

area the agency covers is the larger

county. 

Complicating the manual lookup was

confusion of place names; many

counties have localities that share their

names with localities in other counties

in the same State. Even within some

counties the same name may refer to

three localities: a city, a township, and

a village. If an agency was definitely

linked to a geographic area, that area's

FIPS codes were assigned to that

agency. Similarly, if the agency could

be definitely linked to a government,

that government's GOVID was added

to the file for that agency record.

Special situations

State police. The crosswalk file

contains both State police headquarters and branch locations, each with its

own ORI and separate record. The

GOVID for all State police agencies is

that of their State government. The

FIPS codes listed for branches of the

State police are based on the area that

the branch covers. For example, the

Michigan State Police  Washtenaw

County (ORI MI81081) is assigned the

State of Michigan's GOVID and the

FIPS place code of Washtenaw

County. In other instances a State

police branch may be assigned to a

city, and the city FIPS place code is

used. Headquarters are given a

separate FIPS place code (98000) to

indicate that they are not a branch

office. Analysts may, of course, recode

these values to meet their own needs.

Colleges and universities. Many

colleges and universities, both public

and private, have their own police

departments. Often the location of the

university can be determined from its

mailing address. For example, the

University of Michigan Department of

Public Safety covers the campus in

Ann Arbor. The place code for the city

of Ann Arbor was assigned to this

agency, although the agency covers an

area that is smaller than the one the

FIPS place code represents. 

With multibranch campuses it is not

always possible to determine the

location from the address. A FIPS

place code was assigned only when it

was certain that the agency’s jurisdiction was confined to the campus within

the place. 

The GOVID’s listed for college and

university police agencies are the

GOVID’s of the government that

created them. This is most often the

State GOVID for public colleges and

universities, or less frequently it is a

county, city, or special district GOVID.

Colleges and universities are either

coded with a specific government type

when it was apparent from the name or

coded with 9 for university/college in

the government type code.

Independent school districts. These

districts matched electronically only if

they were in the UCR file and their ORI

numbers were in the DLEA file.

Several States have independent

school districts that the Census Bureau

considers to be local governments, as

distinguished from school districts that

are dependent agencies of county

governments. Some independent

school districts have police agencies.

These agencies were given the GOVID

of their parent government whenever

possible. Some colleges are also

considered to be independent school

districts. They were given their parent

government's GOVID. In many

instances the parent government could

not be identified, but the government

type was apparent and was coded

accordingly. 

 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets 5
Special districts. Special districts

include hospital districts, port authorities, airport authorities, transportation

authorities, and rail and tunnel authorities. The prevalence of these special

districts varies greatly by State. Like

independent school districts, special

districts matched electronically only if

they were in the UCR file and their ORI

numbers were available from the DLEA

file, which included active special

district police agencies. 

However, there were many instances

when a special police agency was

listed in the UCR files without a match

to the DLEA. In the crosswalk file there

are approximately 250 special district

agencies that could not be electronically matched by ORI number or

manually matched to a parent government based on names and addresses.

The FIPS place code listed with these

agencies is based on the main

geographic area that it serves. For

example, many railroad police

contained a county name in the agency

name on the UCR file, and the FIPS

code for that county was used.

Census designated places (CDP's). 

CDP's are densely settled populations

that have a name but are not legally

incorporated. The Census Bureau does

not consider them to be governments.

Their boundaries, which usually

coincide with visible features or the

boundary of an adjacent incorporated

place, have no legal status.2 

No elected officials serve traditional

municipal functions for these areas.

Given the above definition, CDP's were

not listed in the Census Bureau's directory file, but some were listed on the

UCR file. FIPS place codes for them

were obtained from the Census Bureau

and included in the file.

Indian tribes. The Census Bureau

has assigned GOVID's to all tribal

police agencies that have law enforcement functions as defined for the

DLEA; those agencies were included in

the crosswalk. Many of the Nation's

567 federally-recognized tribes do not

have a tribal police agency. The

Bureau of Indian Affairs, State police,

or a local sheriff perform law enforcement functions for them. Consequently,

these tribes do not have a law enforcement agency specific to them in the

crosswalk. 

Tribal police records differ from other

records in the crosswalk file in two

ways:

• ORI. Not all tribal police agencies

had ORI codes in the UCR or DLEA

files. When an actual ORI for a tribal

agency did not exist or when there

were multiple ambiguous ORI's, an

ORI was assigned to the tribal agency

in the crosswalk file using the following

hierarchy: UCR files, DLEA files, the

local law enforcement and juvenile

accountability block grant formula files,

and missing data. In some instances

for tribes without an actual ORI, an ORI

was constructed for a tribal agency for

block grant formula purposes by using

the two-digit UCR State code followed

by "TRIB" and "1," "2," and so on.

 • FIPS codes. Tribal police agencies

have been arbitrarily assigned a FIPS

place code of 97000.

Future routine crosswalk

maintenance

Routine periodic maintenance is

needed because the crosswalk quickly

becomes outdated. The next overall

update is scheduled to follow the

completion of the 2000 Directory of

Law Enforcement Agencies census in

2001. Thereafter, the DLEA is

expected to be repeated every 4 years.

Some types of change that will affect

the crosswalk include:

• Change in DLEA definition of local

law enforcement agency. The 1996

DLEA included all publicly funded

police and sheriffs' departments that

employed at least one full-time or parttime sworn officer with general arrest

powers. The 2000 DLEA will include

only those agencies that are publicly

funded and employ the equivalent of 

at least one full-time sworn officer. An

agency will be included if it employs

two or more half-time officers, but not 

if it employs only one part-time officer

and no full-time officers. This change is

designed to reduce the number of law

enforcement agencies with very

restricted responsibilities. In Texas, for

example, a constable may be an office

with a single person who performs

limited law enforcement duties only a

few days a month. The 1996 DLEA has

540 agencies with less than 1 full-time

equivalent sworn officer (counting parttime as .5), and these appear to not

have matches in the UCR. 

• Moving to a nine-digit ORI. States

and localities are implementing the

National Incident Based Reporting

System (NIBRS), creating a record for

each crime. Currently, UCR summary

data are extracted from the NIBRS

records. NIBRS includes a nine-digit

ORI code. To ensure that each ORI

code is unique, the FBI will move to

using nine-digit ORI codes. For

consistency the crosswalk will also

need to include the nine-digit ORI

code.

• Creation of new agencies. In 1997

the FBI added 182 new ORI's across

22 States. These new ORI codes are

not included in the crosswalk because

it has a 1996 reference date. Why

these were added seems to depend on

the State, and it is doubtful that they all

represent local law enforcement

agencies meeting the BJS DLEA definition. For example, Tennessee added

62 colleges/universities, 25 drug task

forces, and 26 ORI's for the Tennessee

Technical Centers in 26 locations. Most

6 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets

2

1990 Census of Population and Housing,

Summary Tape File 3, Technical Documentation, December 1991.
of these are not reporting any violent

crime, but there were several that

appear to be new agencies. These

agencies are being surveyed for the

2000 DLEA to see if they meet the

DLEA definition of a local law enforcement agency.

• Out-of-service ORI's. The crosswalk file contains records of two law

enforcement agencies known to have

been decommissioned since the 1996

DLEA. Agencies may be defunct, for

example, when a municipal government decides to contract with the

county for police services rather than to

maintain its own police force. Police

departments cease to exist, or an ORI

was assigned to a regional task force

that has completed its work, and so on.

It would be helpful for a variety of

purposes to code these agencies 

as no longer operational.

• Abolished or created governments. The Massachusetts legislature

recently abolished seven county

governments and assigned their police

protection functions to the State

government. Conversely, States

periodically establish new cities and

towns. The Census Bureau continually

monitors State legislatures for such

changes and updates the directory files

as changes occur. These will be

reflected in the crosswalk.

Keeping the crosswalk current will be

fairly straightforward. But, for describing trends, it may be necessary to

devise a scheme to cover situations

like those described above. 

Future special efforts

Aside from routine maintenance, future

efforts include these areas where

additional work is needed:

• Railroad police. Based on agency

names, the file contains some 225

records for railroad police, usually 1 

for each county in which a railroad

operates. These all come from the

UCR files, and none matches to the

DLEA files. Most probably no longer

exist. A special research project may

be needed to address these situations.

• Colleges and universities. The

current crosswalk has 70 colleges and

universities that could not be linked to a

parent government based on name;

many of these are private schools. The

U.S. Department of Education (DEd)

directory of all colleges and universities

indicates whether a school is private or

public, and, if public, which government

operates it. Using the DEd directory,

the Census Bureau has created a file

containing GOVID for public colleges

and universities that will be electronically matched to the crosswalk in the

future. The remaining private colleges

and universities will be coded manually

using the DEd directory. 

Appendix 1. ORI codes and 

county identifiers

For most jurisdictions, the first three

digits after the two-letter State identifier

of the ORI code represent the numeric

county code. However, this is not

always the case (appendix table 1).

Of the 3,011 State police agencies on

the crosswalk file from the UCR:

 68% match on the UCR county code

and the 3rd-5th digits of the ORI code

 172 (about 6%) use alpha characters

such as SP (State Police) or HP

(Highway Patrol) in the county field 

of the ORI 

 110 have no UCR county code on

the UCR files

 670 (22%) have a county code that

does not match for any apparent

reason.

For general purpose local governments, 83% of the appropriate county

digits in the ORI numbers matched the

UCR county code on the UCR files, but

 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets 7

*Only nonmatches are the following cities using alpha characters in the ORI code: 

Denver, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Chicago, New Orleans, Kansas City (MO), St. Louis, 

Newark, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus (OH), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Memphis, 

Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Seattle.

West Virginia 99.2

Wyoming Washington* 99.6

Vermont Texas* 99.6

Utah Tennessee* 98.2

Rhode Island South Carolina 99.6

Oklahoma Pennsylvania* 99.8

North Dakota Oregon 99.5

New Hampshire Ohio* 99.0

Nevada North Carolina 99.6

Montana New Jersey* 99.8 Wisconsin 49.4

Mississippi Nebraska 99.6 Virginia 18.5

Minnesota Missouri* 89.6 South Dakota 0.0

Massachusetts Louisiana* 99.0 New York 4.1

Maine Kansas 99.7 New Mexico 43.1

Kentucky Illinois* 93.1 Michigan 0.0

Iowa Indiana* 99.6 Maryland 11.0

Idaho Georgia* 99.0 Hawaii 28.6

Florida Delaware 93.3 Connecticut 9.1

California Colorado* 99.2 Alaska 5.9

Arkansas Arizona 99.0% Alabama 23.5%

Percent

matching

Rarely/never

matching

Percent

matching

Matching with a 

100% match few exceptions

Appendix table 1. States, by whether the third through fifth digits 

of the ORI code match the UCR county code on UCR data files 

(general purpose local governments only)
these varied greatly by State, with

some States always matching and

others never matching:

 19 States have 100% match between

the UCR county code and the 3rd-5th

digits of the ORI code

 11 States never or rarely match

 12 States match except for a few

large cities that incorporate alpha

characters in their ORI code. For

example, Indianapolis’s ORI is

INIPD00, and Newark’s is NJNDP00.

Perhaps codes were assigned to these

early participants in the UCR program

before the standardized ORI coding

scheme was developed. 

 8 additional States seem to follow 

the coding convention but have 

exceptions. In some cases a few

nonmatches appear to be due to

coding errors in the county code; in

other instances it appears that the

county code is correct, but the ORI

county portion of the ORI code uses a

different county number than the one 

in the county code variable.

For special police agencies and universities that are not a part of State

government, the ORI code matches the

UCR county code about 70% of the

time.

Appendix 2. Comparing FBI 

population groups to Census 

type of government

The FBI identifies each agency 

according to population groups that 

are used to present data and calculate

estimates in Crime in the United States

(Appendix 2, table 1). These groupings

primarily identify if the agency serves 

a city or county and the population 

of the area it serves. It also stratifies

counties according to whether they 

are in Metropolitan Statistical Areas,

which the Census Bureau generally

designates as urban areas with a

center city of at least 50,000

population. 

The Census Bureau’s Governments

Division codes were compared to the

FBI Population Groups for counties

and cities (Appendix 2, tables 2 and 3).

Of those agencies classified as county

agencies by the UCR —

 56% are also classified as counties

by the Census Bureau 

 39% are classified as State agencies 

 5% are classified as other types of

government.

Of those agencies classified as city

agencies by the UCR —

 79% are classified as municipal

agencies by the Census Bureau

 14% are classified as townships

 5% are classified as State agencies.

8 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets

0 U.S. possessions

C. MSA counties 10,000 - 24,999

B. MSA counties 25,000 - 99,999

A. MSA counties 100,000+

IX. MSA counties

E. State Police

D. Non-MSA counties under 10,000

C. Non-MSA counties 10,000 - 24,999

B. Non-MSA counties 25,000 - 99,999

A. Non-MSA counties 100,000+

VIII. Non-MSA counties

VII. Cities under 2,500

VI. Cities 2,500 - 9,999

V. Cities 10,000 - 24,999

IV. Cities 25,000 - 49,999

III. Cities 50,000 - 99,999

II. Cities 100,000 - 249,999

C. Cities 250,000 - 499,999

B. Cities 500,000 - 999,999

A. Cities 1,000,000 +

I. Cities 250,000 +

Appendix 2, table 1. FBI 

population groups

*Assigned by BJS for the crosswalk and not used by the Census Bureau.

Railroad police* 218 3.8

Tribal 2 0.0

Federal agency 4 0.1

Independent school district 6 0.1

Special district 23 0.4

Township 2 0.0

Municipal 32 0.6

County 3,213 56.0

State 2,235 39.0

Total 5,735 100.0%

Census/BJS government type Number Percent

Appendix 2, table 2. Census/BJS government type for agencies 

classified as counties by UCR

*Assigned by BJS for the crosswalk and not used by the Census Bureau.

College/university* 70 0.6

Railroad police* 7 0.1

Tribal 23 0.2

Federal agency 4 0.0

Independent school district 88 0.7

Special district 61 0.5

Township 1,766 13.9

Municipal 9,960 78.6

County 59 0.5

State 629 5.0

Total 12,667 100.0%

Census/BJS government type Number Percent

Appendix 2, table 3. Census/BJS government type 

for agencies classified as cities by UCR
 Linking Uniform Crime Reporting Data to Other Datasets 9

The Bureau of Justice Statistics 

is the statistical agency of the U.S.

Department of Justice. Lawrence

A. Greenfeld is acting director.

Sue A. Lindgren and Marianne W.

Zawitz, BJS, wrote this Technical

Report. Tom Zelenock, BJS Team

Leader, under the supervision of

Chris Dunn, Director, NACJD of

ICPSR at the University of Michigan, conducted the electronic

merging of files and the many

manual lookups. He also prepared

much of the documentation and

codebook. Stephen D. Owens,

Governments Division, U.S. Census

Bureau, provided the Governments

Integrated Directory file, supplied

technical assistance in its use, and

reviewed this report. Brian A.

Reaves, BJS Statistician, oversaw

the development of the Directory of

Law Enforcement Agencies and

answered many questions about it.

Kenneth Candell of the Criminal

Justice Information Services

Division of the FBI under the direction of William C. Temple, Chief,

Programs Support Section,

reviewed this report. 

May 2001, NCJ 185233

How to obtain the Law 

Enforcement Agency Identifiers

Crosswalk, 1996

On the Internet 

• Go to the website of the National

Archive of Criminal Justice: 

<www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD>

• Click on “Download Data”

• Enter study number 2876 in the

box on left

• Click on “Enter”

• Answer questions (first time only)

and email address

• List of files is presented

• Click on “Uncompressed” to

browse

• Use "shift-click" to download.

Abbreviations related to the crosswalk

CDP Census Designated Place

CMSA Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area

DEd U.S. Department of Education

DLEA Directory of Law Enforcement Agencies

FAADS Federal Assistance Awards Data System 

FIPS Federal Information Processing Standards

FTE Full-time Equivalent

GID Governments Integrated Directory

GOVID Government Identification

JAIBG Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant

LLEBG Local Law Enforcement Block Grant

MSA Metropolitan Statistical Area

NACJD National Archive of Criminal Justice Data

NCIC National Crime Information Center

NIBRS National Incident-Based Reporting System

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology

NVSS National Vital Statistics System

ORI Originating Agency Identifier (FBI-UCR)

SIPP Survey of Income and Program Participation

UCORI A locality’s crime is reported to Uniform Crime Reporting program by another agency 

UCR Uniform Crime Reporting program

USPS United State Postal Service

Sources of data

BJS and UCR files are available at

NACJD <www.icpsr.umich.edu/

NACJD>. Census Bureau files are

available at <www.census.gov>.

The Census Bureau website

describes other datasets that may

interest researchers and analysts

looking for data to be analyzed with

UCR data. Selected census files

and data from other government

agencies are available at NACJD's

parent organization, the Interuniversity Consortium for Political

and Social Research at

<www.icpsr.umich.edu>. The

National Vital Statistics System data

are available from the National

Center for Health Statistics 

<www.cdc.gov/nchs>.

This report and other reports, data,

and resources to obtain information 

about crime, the criminal justice

system, victimization, and offenders

are available from the BJS website

at <www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs>.