U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

2015 Louisiana NCS-X Implementation Program

Award Information

Award #
2015-VF-GX-K155
Funding Category
Competitive Discretionary
Location
Congressional District
Status
Closed
Funding First Awarded
2015
Total funding (to date)
$8,055,637

Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2015, $838,455)

The National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) is an effort to expand the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) into a nationally representative system of incident-based crime statistics. BJS and the FBI are implementing NCS-X with the support of other Department of Justice agencies, including the Office for Victims of Crime. The goal of NCS-X is to enroll a sample of 400 scientifically selected law enforcement agencies to submit data to NIBRS; when these 400 new NIBRS-reporting agencies are combined with the more than 6,300 agencies that reported to NIBRS as of 2013, the nation will have a nationally representative system of incident-based crime statistics drawn from the operational data systems of local police departments. These incident-based data will draw upon the attributes and circumstances of criminal incidents and allow for more detailed and transparent descriptions of crime in communities.

The current mechanism by which local law enforcement (LE) agencies report data to the FBI’s NIBRS, in general, is for local LE agencies to submit data to their state UCR reporting program, and then for the state UCR program to report those data to the FBI. While the FBI does accept NIBRS data directly from a small number of law enforcement agencies, the highly preferred route of reporting is through the state UCR program.

Funding from 2015 National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) Implementation Assistance Program will help states to expand their current capacity to report incident-based crime data to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The plan to transition local agencies to NIBRS reporting requires enhancing the “state pipeline” in order to ensure that each state’s Uniform Crime Reporting program is capable of receiving and processing local incident-based crime data.

Currently, Louisiana has a hybrid crime reporting system, with around 12% of the state’s 265 reporting LEAs providing data in a NIBRS compatible format (LIBRS) while the remaining are summary reporters. Although LA currently has the fundamental infrastructure required for NIBRS reporting at the state level, many local agencies (especially smaller agencies) do not have IBR capacity nor the funding to secure that capacity. However, LA offers a state-sponsored system (LEMIS) to local agencies for use as their RMS; that system would need to be modified to be fully NIBRS compliant. LA will use awarded funds to modify and enhance the three existing systems currently in use by the state – the state's RMS (LEMIS), the summary repository, and the state's IBR system (LIBRS) – ensuring that the systems are NIBRS-code driven rather than requiring a conversion program.

Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law. (CA/NCF)

Date Created: September 22, 2015