National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

Abstract

The United States relies on the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) as the primary source of crime occurrence. In 2021, crime reporting in the United States transitioned from the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Program to NIBRS. In similar fashion, NIBRS data consist of crime known to law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies then report these data to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Key to this reporting, and a relevant concern, is that, law enforcement agencies voluntarily report their crime data to the FBI. The transition from UCR to NIBRS data reporting has created monetary and technical hurdles for agencies to overcome to be certified in reporting their NIBRS data. NIBRS is a significant improvement from UCR reporting, benefiting not only law enforcement agencies but the public at large since these data are openly available. NIBRS provides much greater detail about crimes that are committed, the characteristics of offenders and victims, and the general circumstances of the crime. This level of detail is accomplished within NIBRS using 13 different segments that can be adjoined to each other using common incident identifiers. Given the rich data within NIBRS, practitioners and researchers have numerous opportunities to use these data to their advantage. Additionally, based on the structure of NIBRS, the data could be merged with other existing datasets, furthering the depth and understanding of crime occurrence.