Table 71: Full-time law enforcement officers, by region and geographic division by population group, number and rate per 1,000 inhabitants, 2009.

The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.

General comments

* This table provides the number and rate of sworn law enforcement officers broken down by region, geographic division, and population group.

* The totals for full-time law enforcement officers in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan county agencies are combined in this table.

* Suburban areas include law enforcement agencies in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants and county law enforcement agencies that are within a Metropolitan Statistical Area.

* Suburban areas exclude all metropolitan agencies associated with a principal city. The agencies associated with suburban areas also appear in other groups within this table.

Methodology

* The information in this table is derived from law enforcement officer counts (as of October 31, 2009) submitted by participating agencies.

* The UCR Program defines law enforcement officers as individuals who ordinarily carry a firearm and a badge, have full arrest powers, and are paid from governmental funds set aside specifically to pay sworn law enforcement.

Regions and geographic divisions

The U.S. Census Bureau has established the four regions of the United States along with their nine geographic divisions, which are used by the UCR Program to compile the Nation's crime data. The following table lists the 50 states and the District of Columbia arranged according to the regions and geographic divisions of the United States.

NORTHEASTERN STATES

New England

Connecticut

Maine

Massachusetts

New Hampshire

Rhode Island

Vermont

Middle Atlantic

New Jersey

New York

Pennsylvania

MIDWESTERN STATES

East North Central

Illinois

Indiana

Michigan

Ohio

Wisconsin

West North Central

Iowa

Kansas

Minnesota

Missouri

Nebraska

North Dakota

South Dakota

SOUTHERN STATES

South Atlantic

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Maryland

North Carolina

South Carolina

Virginia

West Virginia

East South Central

Alabama

Kentucky

Mississippi

Tennessee

West South Central

Arkansas

Louisiana

Oklahoma

Texas

WESTERN STATES

Mountain

Arizona

Colorado

Idaho

Montana

Nevada

New Mexico

Utah

Wyoming

Pacific

Alaska

California

Hawaii

Oregon

Washington

Population estimation

For the 2009 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2000 decennial population counts and 2001 through 2008 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency's rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2008 Census population estimate to derive the agency's 2009 population estimate.