Enhancing National Crime Statistics: An Action Plan for More Timely, Accurate, Usable, and Complete Crime Statistics

• In Event: The Criminal Justice Data Landscape

Abstract

Policy decisions and law enforcement strategies should be based on a firm understanding of crime trends. However, in order to serve that purpose, crime trends data must be timely, accurate, complete, and usable. Unfortunately, that is not currently the case for national crime data. This presentation will discuss shortcomings of current crime trends reporting systems and present a series of recommendations intended to address these problems.

This presentation will draw on the work of the Council on Criminal Justice’s Crime Trends Working Group. For the past year, the Working Group, whose members include academics, analysts, and state and local government leaders, has met monthly to explore shortcomings in current systems. Those identified include the chronic underfunding of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS); an outdated division of responsibilities between BJS and the FBI; and a lack of resources at the state level for crime data infrastructure; and continuing challenges unlocking the value of incident-level crime trends data.

This presentation will also highlight Working Group recommendations intended to address these problems. It will also include a discussion of opportunities to expand the collection of health data that provides insights into public safety issues and better integrate criminal and health data.

Author

• Stephanie C. Kennedy, Council on Criminal Justice