State of Hawaii NIBRS Program

The National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) is an effort to expand the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) into a nationally representative system of incident-based crime statistics. BJS and the FBI are implementing NCS-X with the support of other Department of Justice agencies, including the Office for Victims of Crime. The goal of NCS-X is to enroll a sample of 400 scientifically selected law enforcement agencies to submit data to NIBRS; when these 400 new NIBRS-reporting agencies are combined with the more than 6,300 agencies that reported to NIBRS as of 2013, the nation will have a nationally representative system of incident-based crime statistics drawn from the operational data systems of local police departments. These incident-based data will draw upon the attributes and circumstances of criminal incidents and allow for more detailed and transparent descriptions of crime in communities. The current mechanism by which local law enforcement (LE) agencies report data to the FBI’s NIBRS, in general, is for local LE agencies to submit data to their state UCR reporting program, and then for the state UCR program to report those data to the FBI. While the FBI does accept NIBRS data directly from a small number of law enforcement agencies, the highly preferred route of reporting is through the state UCR program. Funding from 2016 National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) Implementation Assistance Program will help states to expand their current capacity to report incident-based crime data to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The plan to transition local agencies to NIBRS reporting requires enhancing the “state pipeline” in order to ensure that each state’s Uniform Crime Reporting program is capable of receiving and processing local incident-based crime data. For states that currently have no NIBRS program, the primary goal of this funding is to help them design and/or implement a NIBRS-certified incident-based reporting (IBR) program and begin reporting NIBRS data from at least one agency from the NCS-X sample. For states with a NIBRS component but have less than 80% reporting, the primary goal of this funding is to help the state program expand their capacity to receive and process additional IBR data and begin reporting NIBRS data from at least one agency from the NCS-X sample. Funding will also support state programs to conduct readiness assessments with sampled agencies with the state.

Hawaii currently reports only to the Summary Reporting System of the FBI’s UCR Program and has no NIBRS reporting capability. There is one NCS-X certainty stratum agency in the state—Honolulu Police Department—and three other county-based law enforcement agencies in the state that are not in the NCS-X sample. The transition to NIBRS reporting represents a large-scale shift in crime reporting practices in Hawaii. The move to IBR is supported by nearly all of the key stakeholders in the state, including the Hawaii Attorney General and the chiefs of all four police departments, and is bolstered by legislation recently proposed (HB2671) which “requires the Chiefs of Police and state and county agencies that have the power to arrest to report crime incident reports and other crime information to the Attorney General.”

The current award will support the procurement of a state NIBRS repository and training for state and local agency staff in working with the new repository software and processes. By building NIBRS data collection, processing, and reporting capacity within the state UCR Program, this project will ensure continued participation by Honolulu Police Department, the only NCS-X agency in Hawaii, as well as the other three local police agencies, all of whom are upgrading their RMS and interested in moving to incident-based reporting to the state program.

(CA/NCF)