Virginia FY24 SJSP

The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, the Virginia Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) proposes a core-capacity building project that seeks to develop a better understanding of how historical NIBRS data change over time, due to updates and corrections. For over 20 years, the SAC has received monthly NIBRS data from the Virginia State Police (VSP). When the final update for a given calendar year’s data is judged complete, the SAC “freezes” that year’s data, making no additional changes. This has allowed the SAC to maintain consistency with its reports of crime and arrest rates over time, but it has also meant the SAC is not processing any updates or corrections it might receive months or even years after freezing the data. In 2022, the VSP developed a web application, Crime Insight, that allows users to query its NIBRS data. That web application is updated daily. The proposed project would have the SAC compare fifteen years of frozen calendar year data to the VSP’s Crime Insight application. This will help the SAC determine the degree to which it sacrifices accuracy for stability in the data and will also shed light on how much IBR data may change over time due to updates and corrections. The SAC will produce publishable-quality reports on its findings and make them available to officials in Virginia, other states, and the federal government.