Transition to National Incident Based Reporting System

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.

The Indianola Police Department has 27 sworn officers and 10 civilian employees. The agency uses a records management system (RMS) as part of a consortium with seven (7) other law enforcement agencies. The agencies in the consortium serve a population of approximately 30,000 in Indianola and in Sunflower County, Mississippi.

Proposed project activities include the purchase of the NIBRS upgrade to their current RMS and the technical installation, training, and implementation of the upgrade. NCS-X funds are requested for the RMS upgrade, for training from the RMS service provider, and for a new server and user license for each of the consortium agencies.

(CA/NCF)