U.S. law enforcement agencies recently received a total of $11.8 million in fiscal year 2017 grants through the National Crime Statistics Exchange initiative (NCS-X), according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
NCS-X is administered by BJS in partnership with the FBI.
Six states were awarded a total of $6.4 million to establish or enhance their National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) program, a more detailed method of collecting and reporting crime statistics, and 15 law enforcement agencies were awarded a total of $5.4 million to support their switch to NIBRS.
The NCS-X promotes the FBI’s NIBRS program, which compiles detailed, incident-based crime data from participating U.S. law enforcement agencies.
(The transition to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) will improve the accuracy and timeliness of our nation’s crime statistics, help identify crime patterns and trends, and aid in crime prevention. Courtesy of the FBI and YouTube. Posted onJun 27, 2016)
These data include offender and victim demographics, victim-offender relationships, incident location and the presence or absence of a weapon during commission of the offense.
Unlike data reported through Uniform Crime Report (UCR) traditional Summary System – an aggregate monthly tally of crimes – the NIBRS data goes much deeper because of its ability to provide circumstances and context for crimes.
It includes all offenses within a single incident and additional aspects about each event, like location, time of day, and whether the incident was cleared.
Ultimately, NIBRS will improve the detail and overall quality of crime data, which will help law enforcement and communities around the country use resources more strategically and effectively.
Stakeholders can also use this valuable analytical information to inform funding requests, resource allocations and policies.
“The FBI’s and BJS’s support of state and local law enforcement agencies over the past three years underscores our commitment to implementing NCS-X and expanding NIBRS,” said BJS Director Jeffrey H. Anderson.
“This will help facilitate the important work being done by our state and local partners to modernize their crime data.”
BJS determined that national estimates of the volume and characteristics of crimes known to law enforcement can be produced by adding a scientifically selected sample of 400 law enforcement agencies to the current NIBRS reporting agencies.
BJS and the FBI have been working with states to expand NIBRS coverage to include these 400 selected agencies.
The 15 law enforcement agencies that received support to transition to NIBRS are as follows:
- Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (CA), $1,249,311
- Baltimore County Police Department (MD), $970,880
- Buffalo Police Department (NY), $323,024
- Cody Police Department (WY), $60,000
- Dallas Police Department (TX), $131,000
- DeKalb County Police Department (GA), $481,692
- Evanston Police Department (WY), $165,466
- Fort Wayne Police Department (IN), $120,335
- Goshen City Police Department (IN), $284,752
- Marceline Police Department (MO), $46,247
- Pima County Sheriff’s Department (AZ), $688,762
- Rockland Police Department (ME), $259,631
- Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office (ME), $120,673
- Springfield Police Department (MO), $411,772
- Travis County Sheriff’s Office (TX), $59,660
The FBI has committed to transitioning to a NIBRS-only data collection by January 2021.
As more local law enforcement agencies transition to NIBRS reporting, state Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) programs responsible for gathering crime data from local law enforcement agencies will need to be capable of receiving, processing and sending additional local incident-based crime data to the FBI.
NCS-X helps to develop or enhance these state pipelines for national crime-data reporting.
The following six state agencies that received awards to enhance their technical capabilities to receive NIBRS data and to support local law enforcement agencies within the state to transition to NIBRS:
- Alaska Department of Public Safety, $1,198,036
- Arizona Department of Public Safety, $774,000
- Nevada Department of Public Safety, $3,409,064
- New Mexico Department of Public Safety, $330,789
- Wisconsin Department of Justice, $655,476
- Wyoming Bureau of Criminal Investigation, $38,640
This was the third year that the NCS-X initiative provided funding to support the switch to NIBRS reporting.
- In fiscal year 2015, a total of $7.4 million was awarded to 14 state UCR programs.
- In FY 2016, approximately $24.7 million was distributed to 16 local law enforcement agencies and 10 state UCR programs.
BJS is developing a funding opportunity for law enforcement agencies to receive grants in FY 2018 from the NCS-X initiative.
To Learn More about NCS-X, NIBRS and BJS’s statistical publications and programs please visit the BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov/content/ncsx.cfm.
Learn More…
FBI Releases 2016 NIBRS Crime Reporting Data (Learn More, Video)
