Horizontally across the page are the categories.  Vertically along the left side are the states the categories apply to.

State = the State the crimes took place in.  Population = the population of the state as estimated by the US Census Bureau.  The crime and inmate rates are both per 100,000 people for the year.  Index = the total number of reported crimes per 100,000 people for the year.  Violent Crime = the total number for each of the violent crime categories per 100,000 people for the year.  Property Crime = the total number of the property crime categories per 100,000 people for the year.  The same applies for each of the crime categories: Murder  -  Rape -   Robbery  -  Assault  -  Burglary  -  Larceny  -  Auto.   

For the Years 1978 to present there are three more categories.  The Inmate category = the number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, on December 31.  New Index * = Developed by the Disaster Center to examine how punishment is being applied to crimes.  The old index measured all crime equally. One violent crime was equal to one property crime.   There are about ten times more property crimes than violent crimes.  Half of people are imprisoned for violent crime and half for non-violent crime.  To make things relatively equal, we divided property crimes by ten and added that total to the number of reported violent crimes to create the new index. .  Index/ Inmates = We divide the new crime index by the number of prisoners reported for each year to compare crime to punishment each year between the states and over the years.    

These pages compare reported crimes and imprisonment rates for every 100,000 people for each year in the 50 United States and rank each State's crime/imprisonment rates.   The pages also rank the states by their crime and imprisonment rates.  

In order to compare crime to punishment we created a new crime index* and divided that index by the ratio of inmates to crimes of each state, as reported to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.  We then ranked each State for every category of crime reported in the Uniform Crime Reports, as well as for inmates, the new crime index, and for the ratio of inmates in the state with the new crime index.  In an important new way, this table links crime to punishment within and between the States.

The traditional crime index is made up of the total crimes committed in each State.   The problem with the old index is that it provides equal weight to every crime committed and far more property crimes are committed every year than violent crimes.  Since violent criminals make up about half the prison population and about ten times more property crimes are committed than violent crimes, for the new index we divided the number of property crimes by ten and added to that the number of violent crimes to make up the new index.