FY 2018 NCS-X Implementation Assistance 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 6,600 agencies that currently report to NIBRS, 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. The FY2018 solicitation furthers the goals of the NCS-X initiative by providing funding to the remaining states and local agencies in the NCS-X sample in order to assist them transition to NIBRS reporting.

Tehama County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) has 89 sworn officers and 35 civilians, serving a population of 63,000. The agency processes approximately 7,000 incident reports per year. TCSO currently has an electronic record management system (RMS), and the RMS currently incorporates most of the required NIBRS data elements. However, the agency’s submissions to the state UCR program are not automated; they submit their UCR crime data via paper reports.

TCSO will need several updates to its current RMS to be fully NIBRS compliant. Funding under this award will help the agency perform a gap analysis between the current system specifications and the NIBRS requirements and implement the necessary software modifications to be come IBR compliant.

(CA/NCF)