Enhancing the National Incident–Based Reporting System

Abstract

The National Incident–Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an important data set serving social scientists, policy makers, the business community, and the press. However, it is hampered by low participation rates among the nation’s police agencies. This article outlines a strategy for enhancing NIBRS by (a) providing police agencies free and supported software to extract and transmit an agency’s Record Management System (RMS) data in NIBRS format (or a data-entry system if an RMS does not exist), (b) including personal identifiers of arrestees, and (c) allowing police agencies to access the national data for routine police work. The article describes how taking these steps would decrease the costs of implementing and maintaining NIBRS, encourage widespread adoption, and increase data quality. These enhancements could foster substantial improvements in policing as well as other aspects of the criminal justice system. These changes would also open up new and exciting areas for academics and analysts, including the ability to study criminal careers over time as well as criminal networks within NIBRS.