The National Incident Based Reporting System

The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is the most comprehensive crime statistic compiling system, and helps to give the most amount of information that is pertinent to any victim program. NIBRS allows for the tracking of forty-six crimes and more importantly its reports contain specific information on each incident that is reported. This system requires law enforcement agencies to report multiple offenses happening within the same report which allows for even better tracking of incidents that would general y go over looked. The NIBRS system expands law enforcements ability to submit data that is more specific about the incidents in which they handle. This format allows regional law enforcement agencies to share information easily and makes more details about the crimes more obtainable. The NIBRS system also allows law enforcement agencies to put their data from these crimes in the FBI's Unified Crime Reports system. The NIBRS system is a more reliable system of information due to the fact that its reports are based on factual information gather by law enforcement agencies,. This is in direct contrast to national victimization surveys which can contain incorrect information and underreporting of pertinent information. This problem arises because these surveys are handed out nationwide and as the general public to self report incidents. The use of NIBRS allows agencies utilizing the system to gain a much more in depth understanding of not only the crime itself, but the information gathered about both the victim and the offender.

The NIBRS system collects in depth information on twenty two major crime categories, called the Part A Offenses, as well as twenty four sub categories, called Part B Offenses. Each report of any Part A offense contains six major segments containing specific information on the incident. The first Segment is the Administrative segment. It contains information that allows the Unified Crime Reports system to identify each reported incident in the NIBRS system, and gives basic information for each incident such as the date, time, and location that the overall incident occurred. The second segment, the Offense Segment, contains all of the offenses associated with the main crime incident, and is required to be listed on separate incident reports. The Property segment collects property data such as the type, value, and amount of property involved in the crime incident. The Victim segment collects all relative data related directly to the victim of a crime. When multiple victims are involved in a crime each victim has to be entered separately into the system which allows for a better victim analysis for the type of crime. The Offender segment includes data on each offender involved in a reported crime, and more importantly whether an arrest in the crime has been made or not. The objective is for law enforcement to obtain as much information as possible on any offender so that the offender can be identified