Implementing the National Incident-Based Reporting System

Presents the recommendations developed during a project directed jointly by BJS and the FBI to identify 1) significant impediments to participation in the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) by large local law enforcement agencies nationwide and 2) promising and cost-effective approaches to encourage wider adoption of NIBRS. These recommendations were developed after the project: surveyed each State agency that collects and reports Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data to the FBI, produced detailed profiles of the NIBRS implementation status of all 50 States and the District of Columbia, surveyed vendors to collect data about the capabilities of their IBR-compatible software systems to produce NIBRS vendor profiles, surveyed key technical staff in the 64 largest police and sheriffs’ departments, serving jurisdictions of more than 300,000 population, to assess their technical capacity to meet national NIBRS standards, convened five regional focus groups in October 1996 at which key policy representatives of the 64 large agencies (from 28 States and D.C.) discussed experiences and exchanged views contracted with a cost analyst to create a defensible protocol to estimate the cost of implementing NIBRS in local agencies and States. The recommendations were reviewed by the project steering committee and the UCR subcommittee of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Advisory Policy Board (CJIS APB) and then were endorsed unanimously in December 1996 by the full CJIS APB.