The New National Standard for Reported Crime Data: Estimating Crime Based on NIBRS

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

On January 1, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officially transitioned law enforcement crime reporting to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). While NIBRS crime incident data are much more detailed, the transition represented a sea-change in how crime statistics are generated, disseminated, and consumed. Further, even after the transition deadline, not all agencies report to the system, and the unweighted data cannot be used for national estimation.

This panel will discuss the partnership between the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI to modernize crime statistics through the transition to NIBRS. Presenters will discuss the key components of federal agency efforts to provide resources on NIBRS, the representativeness and quality of the current reported data, and the methods incorporated into the robust and adaptive estimation system established to produce national estimates of reported crime and arrest.

Sub Unit

• Area XI. Methodology / 78. Advances in Quantitative Methods

Individual Presentations

• The importance of NIBRS to the modernization of crime statistics - Erica L Smith, Bureau of Justice Statistics; Kimberly Martin, Bureau of Justice Statistics

• The NIBRS transition: coverage, quality, and fitness for use as statistical data - Cynthia Barnett-Ryan, Federal Bureau of Investigation

• : The National NIBRS Estimation Project and new methods for generating estimates and rates of reported crime - Marcus Berzofsky, RTI International

• Statistical estimation processes to produce crime statistics with NIBRS data - Dan Liao, RTI International

Chair

• Erica L Smith, Bureau of Justice Statistics