City of Portland Transition to NIBRS

The National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) is an effort to expand the FBIÂ’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 FBIÂ’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. The FY2016 Phase III solicitation furthers the goals of the NCS-X initiative by providing funding to the largest agencies in the NCS-X sample in order to assist these agencies to transition to NIBRS reporting or to develop a comprehensive plan for transitioning to NIBRS reporting via the state pipeline. Specifically, funding under this solicitation targeted the NCS-X sample of agencies with 750 or more sworn officers that are not currently reporting crime data to NIBRS.
The Portland, Oregon Police Bureau (PPB) is the primary agency in the Regional Justice Information Network (RegJIN), a multi-agency shared Records Management System. This system provides a common platform for submission of electronic police reports, in an effort to increase data sharing and collaboration between 42 regional law enforcement agencies. Since the launch, PPB and their 34 Oregon partner agencies have attempted to correct reporting errors and submit crime data in the stateÂ’s format of Oregon National Incident-Based Reporting System (ONIBRS) and have been unable to report any data in accordance with the federal requirement. Accordingly, PPB, in coordination with the State of Oregon, proposes transitioning to the FBIÂ’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) standard format.

Under the current award, PPB will hire additional personnel that will help move the regional group toward compliance with the federal NIBRS standard and requirements. Specifically, funds will be used to: 1) hire two full-time limited-term personnel onto the RegJIN project to assist with converting the 2015 and 2016 RegJIN data to the NIBRS format, and 2) support subject matter experts to assist RegJIN partner agencies in the conversion process. Additionally, the grant funds will be utilized for converting data from ONIBRS to NIBRS and reworking a number of the forms to be compliant with the federal NIBRS standard.

By the end of the 24-month grant period, PPB anticipates completing all conversions on past data and reporting data to the Oregon state UCR Program in the NIBRS format.

(CA/NCF)