JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AWARDS RECORD $49 MILLION TO IMPROVE COLLECTION OF CRIME DATA REPORTED TO POLICE

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JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AWARDS RECORD $49 MILLION TO IMPROVE COLLECTION OF CRIME DATA REPORTED TO POLICE

          WASHINGTON— The Bureau of Justice Statistics announced today that it will award more than $49 million to states and local law enforcement agencies to help them transition to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). This is the largest single-year amount ever awarded for this project.

          The funding is provided through the National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) initiative, a partnership between BJS and the FBI to expand law enforcement reporting to NIBRS, which compiles incident-based crime data from participating law enforcement agencies. These data include offender and victim demographics, victim-offender relationships, location of the incident and the presence or absence of a weapon during the commission of the offense. Criminal justice policymakers and practitioners can use this valuable analytical information to inform funding requests, allocate resources and establish policies.  

          Nine states were awarded a total of $20.9 million to establish or enhance their participation in NIBRS, and 38 local law enforcement agencies were awarded a total of $28.3 million to support their transition to NIBRS.

           “NIBRS is an improved crime-reporting system, and BJS is pleased that, through our partnership with the FBI, the NCS-X program is helping to support the transition to that improved system,” said BJS Director Jeffrey H. Anderson. “Through NCS-X, we will soon be able to generate national crime statistics based on NIBRS. These statistics will be more detailed than existing ones, and they will therefore be of greater use to policymakers and practitioners.”

          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 agencies reporting NIBRS data. BJS and the FBI have been working with states and local law enforcement agencies to expand NIBRS coverage to include these 400 selected agencies.  

          The FBI has announced that it will transition to a NIBRS-only collection of crime data by January 2021. Currently, about 6,800 of the more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. report NIBRS data to the FBI.

          This is the fourth year that the NCS-X initiative has provided funding to support the switch to NIBRS reporting. To date, BJS and the FBI have awarded $93.7 million to states and local agencies. BJS is developing a FY 2019 grant solicitation for law enforcement agencies, which is the last planned NCS-X funding opportunity. 

          Additional information about NCS-X, NIBRS and BJS’s statistical publications and programs can be found on the BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov/content/ncsx.cfm.

          The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating reliable statistics on crime and criminal justice systems in the United States.