National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Transition

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.

Currently 78 of the 138 law enforcement agencies in Utah report incident-based crime data to the state UCR Program, housed at the Utah Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI). BCI is in the process of updating their state repository to include all required NIBRS elements; currently, they cannot report a subset of offenses to the FBI system due to infrastructure deficiencies in the state program. Funding from the current award will be used to: 1) support the RMS upgrades for both NCS-X sample agencies (Mt. Pleasant PD and Sevier County SheriffÂ’s Office); 2) purchase software for IBR error analysis; and 3) provide staff support to both efforts and to oversee the grant process.
(CA/NCF)