Abstract
More than two decades ago, the U.S. Department of Justice released its recommendations for a new data collection method for the Uniform Crime Reporting Program that would become the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The full potential of NIBRS data has not been realized based on assumptions that these data are inherently biased due to a lack of national coverage and overrepresentation by law enforcement agencies serving smaller populations. To date, no research has assessed the amount of nonresponse or the degree to which NIBRS data are biased for generating crime estimates. Although this study confirms an overall low response rate for NIBRS reporting, higher rates are found for particular subnational population groups. An examination of violent crime rates and change estimates suggests that the amount of bias in NIBRS is not so small as to be ignorable but is not so considerable as to warrant abandoning these data altogether.
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