The recent spate of attacks in the UK and elsewhere in Europe have made me think of this issue: how often do countries include (known) terrorist attacks in their yearly crime statistics?

For comparison's sake, I looked at the FBI UCR or similar reports for 2001 and 1995. In the case of 9/11, they segregate the murders from the attacks in an addendum and do not include them in the data at all. (Interestingly, they also call all the attackers "white", but whatev.) . For the Oklahoma City bombing, however, they seem to include the victims of the attack into the numbers themselves, but put a note that indicates the large increase is due to the Murrah Building bombing.

These seem like two different takes on accounting for terrorist attacks in the statistics.

But what about when it's not a bomb or an airplane? What about the Pulse Nightclub attack or San Bernardino? Or Ft. Hood?

And how is this dealt with elsewhere? England's homicide rate is clearly going to skyrocket from its norm, and most certainly France's after the recent attacks.

Insights?

It's important to understand that while the statistical information collected and disseminated by the FBI is intended as a tool for law enforcement, the Department of Justice is headed by a POLITICAL APPOINTEE and as such the ATTORNEY GENERAL can and does fiddle with the data. You mentioned some of the ways this has been done in the past. Another example was how the Obama administration redefined "mass shootings" as to include driveby incidents wherein gang members fired upon each other as has frequently occurred in Chicago and other metropolitan areas.

Gang related incidents that take place on or even NEAR school grounds have been characterized in a manner as to suggest these are the same as when an adult suspect enters the location in an attempt to randomly target children. When one 17 year old gang shoots at another or several known members of an opposing gang near the school they all attend, should it be classified as another "Columbine" type incident?

The use of so-called "assault weapons" in criminal acts can also be politicized since the definition of what constitutes such a firearm varies from state to state and even within cities and counties. The UCR traditionally breaks down firearms descriptions as being either a rifle, shotgun, or handgun. Attempting to determine what kind of a firearm (real, simulated, or realistic looking replica) can be extremely problematic when crimes such as robberies or assaults occur, and the described weapon isn't even recovered. For these reasons and many others, the UCR needs to be viewed somewhat skeptically as a tool for gauging crime trends in a very general manner.

Obsession about what “race” someone is strikes me as ridiculous except as it might help find a fugitive, but just as a point of information, law enforcement has traditionally used only limited designations: When I was still on active duty, Army CID had white, black, yellow, and red. Unless it’s been changed recently, Colorado records, for example, don’t list “Hispanic” as a race, and certainly not “Arab” or anything like “Persian” or “Terrorist.” If your primary heritage wasn’t Asian, aboriginal American, or sub-Saharan African, you were white. That includes people from all of Europe—north, south, east, and west—the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Americas unless you were American Indian. As I recall, even natives of the subcontinent of India were called “white” regardless of the actual color of their skin which can be extremely dark.

(Because it’s been so long since I was involved in any of that my memory is a little vague about the Arctic natives, Oceania, and Australian Aborigines, but you get the idea.)