I’m currently working with a data scientist on parsing the 2023 NIBRS data and generating reports from that data. Using these reports, I’ll be able to directly compare NIBRS to the NCVS data I have in my book. In some instances, there will be new fields in NIBRS, which I hope sheds light on violent crime phenomena. Hopefully, in the next couple of months, I’ll have these reports available.
It is important to understand the differences between NIBRS and the NCVS, because that help make sense of the data.
- NIBRS is still using estimates for violent crime data for some law enforcement agencies. In other words, some law enforcement agencies are still using the legacy system SRS and the entire country is not on the NIBRS system. In order to query NIBRS data, the UCR takes SRS reports and converts them into NIBRS estimates, which have a lower bound and higher bound estimate. I believe 2023 coverage for law enforcement agencies using NIBRS is above 80 percent, so I feel okay in generating reports from 2023 and beyond as the data becomes available.
- NIBRS requires a law enforcement report. This means only violent crimes reported to law enforcement are included. Here are some possible issues:
- Rape is significantly under reported to law enforcement based on the NCVS data. It will be interesting to see what types of rapes are reported to law enforcement and how they are different than what the NCVS shows.
- In most cases, I believe the victim offender relationship of “stranger” will be more common. For example, you can have an argument with your spouse in your home over a jar of mustard, and law enforcement isn’t going to be called. Have that same argument in a grocery store with a stranger instead of your spouse, someone in the store will likely call the police.
- It is possible individual robbery will show differences. The reason is that many insurance companies will require a police report in order to compensate for belongings that were robbed (assuming the person was insured).
- Because a law enforcement agent is a trusted third party in these reports, some additional information may be included for assault and homicide. For example, if it was gang related, domestic violence related, or if the offender was under the influence.
- I hope to be able to separate individual robbery from business/commercial robbery. I also hope to get an idea of what type of property is stolen in individual robberies.
- NIBRS has some attributes with multiple values, such as all the various injuries a victim experiences. However, I will only be looking at Major Injuries and Minor/No Injuries for the purpose of the report. Similarly, the Offender can have up to 3 weapons. I will prioritize them and only report one. For example, I would not report any other weapon if the offender had a firearm. If the offender had a cutting instrument like a knife but no firearm, I would only report the knife. This reduces the amount of information, but from a self-defense perspective, it allows me to do percentages as long as there is a one-to-one correspondence.