The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which began in 1929, collects information about crimes reported to the police. In 1982, BJS and the FBI sponsored a study of the UCR Program with the objective of revising it to meet law enforcement needs into the 21st century. A 5-year redesign effort to provide more comprehensive and detailed crime statistics resulted in the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) which collects data on each reported crime incident. The UCR Program is currently being expanded to NIBRS.
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Traditionally, crime reports consist of monthly counts of offenses and arrests for certain offense categories. State and local agencies report these summary data to the FBIs Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. These reports provide little information about the characteristics of crimes, victims, offenders or arrests. Use of these data in research and policy analysis is severely limited.
Collecting data about each incident overcomes many of these deficiencies. Along with the Summary UCR, the FBI has been collecting incident-based data on homicide through the Supplementary Homicide Reports for many years. Several States and localities implemented incident-based systems for collecting crime statistics in the 1970's.
The FBI recognized the need for additional information about crime that was comparable across jurisdictions and included more types of crime. After much study, the FBI launched the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Compared to Summary UCR, NIBRS collects more details on more categories of crime, including concurrent offenses, weapons, injury, location, property loss and characteristics of the victims, offenders and arrestees. Because State and local agencies also collect details outside the scope of NIBRS, such as incident addresses, NIBRS is usually a subset of State and local incident-based data.
NIBRS increases what we know about crime due to:
The UCR Program is being rapidly expanded with NIBRS. In 1991 South Carolina and North Dakota, the first certified states, began submitting data following FBI standards and definitions. As of 2001, more than 3,725 agencies across 21 States submit NIBRS data. In seven of these states 90 to 100 percent of the population is covered by NIBRS reporting. (See the current level of UCR and NIBRS participation by State as of December, 2003.)
While national-level data are not currently available, analysts and researchers will find a wealth of information about crime in the NIBRS data that is available. The data, along with descriptive information on its structure and use, can be freely obtained online from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data, a BJS sponsored program (See Resources for analyzing NIBRS data below). Further examples of the type of information that can be developed from incident-based systems are presented under publications.
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Data Tables
Press Releases
Violent Crime against the Elderly Reported by Law Enforcement in Michigan, 2005-2009 Presents statistics about violent victimization of persons age 65 or older reported by law enforcement agencies into the FBI's National Incident Based Reporting System from 2005 to 2009. | |
Press Release | PDF (1.3M) | ASCII file (38K) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 46K) |
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Hate Crimes Reported in NIBRS, 1997-99 Utilizes data from the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting Program (NIBRS) to describe hate crimes reported to law enforcement in NIBRS-participating jurisdictions, between 1997 and 1999. | |
Press Release | PDF (108K) | ASCII file (32K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 77K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order print version Part of the Hate Crime Series |
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Effects of NIBRS on Crime Statistics Compares data from Federal Bureau of Investigation Summary Uniform Crime Reports and National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for 1,131 agencies. | |
PDF (197K) | ASCII file (45K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 26K) | Codebooks and Datasets | Slide presentation of the results of this study presented at the NIBRS regional focus group meetings (PDF 51K) | To order paper version |
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Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics Presents findings from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) regarding sexual assault, especially of young children. | |
PDF (129K) | ASCII file (41K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 30K) | Codebooks and Datasets | To order paper version |
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State Use of Incident-Based Crime Statistics Describes the States' publication and dissemination of incident-based data, focusing on the presentation of criminal statistics in tabular form. | |
PDF (711K) | ASCII file (33K) | Codebooks and Datasets |
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Implementing the National Incident-Based Reporting System: A Project Status Report Presents the recommendations developed during a project directed jointly by BJS and the FBI to identify significant impediments to participation in NIBRS by large local law enforcement agencies nationwide and promising cost-effective approaches to encourage wide adoption of NIBRS. | |
PDF (124K) | ASCII file (63K) | Codebooks and Datasets |
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Using NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System) Data to Analyze Violent Crime After reviewing the development and characteristics of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), this article presents results of analyses that used the 1991 NIBRS rape and robbery data. | |
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