Last Updated on April 6, 2023 by
The San José Police Department will be transitioning to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.
Since at least 1960, the San José Police Department has reported crime statistics to the Federal Department of Justice through the FBI UCR Program. These statistics are reported in the Summary Reporting System (SRS), which collects information on certain offenses, clearances, and arrests. In the SRS, the hierarchy rule is applied when classifying an incident with multiple offenses. As such, the SRS only collects data on the most egregious offense, regardless of the number of offenders and victims of these other additional offenses.
NIBRS is a more comprehensive, consistent system that collects more data, and will allow the Department to collect more accurate, detailed crime statistics while simultaneously providing meaningful data for addressing public safety and victimization issues.
There are three significant differences between SRS and NIBRS that will affect crime statistics:
1. NIBRS will collect data on more offense types.
2. NIBRS will collect data on up to 10 offenses per incident, not just the most serious in the hierarchy.
3. NIBRS will collect data on event, victim, offender, and crime characteristics.
As the Department transitions from SRS to NIBRS, it is to be noted that crime statistics reported by the Department may appear inflated or higher than normal. However, this is a reflection of the Department’s efforts towards leading the way to improving crime measurement. In addition, the Department will be unable to compare historical crime trends until NIBRS data is compared to itself.
View the memorandum to learn more about the implementation of NIBRS by the San José Police Department. For more information on NIBRS, please visit https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/ucr/nibrs-quick-facts.pdf/view.
Content retrieved from: https://www.sjpd.org/Home/Components/News/News/1155/262.
