Recommendation 1
Improve the nation’s capacity to collect and analyze crime data
Recommendation 1
Improve the nation’s capacity to collect and analyze crime data
Implementation Steps
1.
The Attorney General should request a plan from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to increase the number of law enforcement agencies reporting to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to cover 90% of the U.S. population by the end of 2025, 95% by the end of 2026, and 98% by the end of 2027 to match the level of Summary Reporting System coverage in 2020. The Attorney General should also request that the plan include action steps to bring the 58 noncompliant federal entities (the only law enforcement agencies subject to a federal mandate to transition to NIBRS) into compliance with statutory requirements.67
2.
The U.S. Department of Justice should create a direct working relationship between the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to produce timely, accurate, complete, and usable crime trends reports. The FBI should continue to collect NIBRS data; beginning in 2025, BJS should be the lead agency in releasing the official U.S. crime trends statistics.
3.
The Office of Justice Programs should issue a request for proposals to review funding and staffing levels for state Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Programs and, in coordination with state and local justice stakeholders, identify standards for funding and staffing. The request for proposals should require the estimation of the ongoing costs to states and state, local, and tribal agencies for maintaining and expanding NIBRS.
4.
Congress should provide BJS with the resources to support state efforts to develop low- or no-cost records management systems for smaller law enforcement agencies.
5.
Congress should provide permanent funding to the Office of Justice Programs’ Crime and Corrections Analyst in Residence Program,68 which helps small and mid-sized law enforcement agencies with training and resources to analyze crime data in a way that informs operations and provides greater transparency to residents.
6.
Congress should provide the BJS with funds to establish and support a National Justice Data Analysis Center. The Center should work with key stakeholders to establish national best practices for law enforcement agencies to visualize and share data that adhere to FAIR principles (ensuring data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-Usable),69 provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement agencies to help them deploy local and national data to enhance crime analysis and prevention, and enhance crime trends data science by identifying avenues to link data across the criminal justice and public health systems.
7.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance should incentivize law enforcement agencies to become NIBRS-compliant by changing Byrne-JAG funding rules to require that state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies applying directly for grants, but not currently reporting to NIBRS, commit to reporting to NIBRS within a year of receiving the grant. Agencies that receive grants and fail to meet the deadline should be required to describe their obstacles to reporting and how they intend to overcome them. Failure to comply should result in a 5% funding reduction until the non-reporting agency begins the NIBRS transition process.
8.
States not already reporting monthly should enact or strengthen statutes to require local law enforcement agencies to report NIBRS-compliant crime data to state UCR programs on a monthly basis.
9.
The FBI should provide its Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) division with resources to hire experienced data analysts and scientists to perform quality control and provide additional technical assistance on quality control to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies and state UCR programs.
10.
The CJIS division should clearly communicate anticipated updates and additions to NIBRS, as well as the timing of those updates and additions, to UCR programs and other key stakeholders.
11.
The White House Office of Science and Technology should request that the Office of Management and Budget convene the U.S. Chief Information Officers Council70 to create an Executive Branch governance structure to coordinate the collection and distribution of crime and justice statistics across the federal government. During this process, the Chief Information Officers Council should work with the Advisory Committee on Data and Evidence Building,71 which was established under HR 4174—the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018.72
