The Philadelphia Police Department is committed to implementation of the IBR/NIBRS and collaborates with the state UCR Program Pennsylvania State Police and the NCS-X Implementation Team

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. 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 Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) reports in SRS format to the State UCR program. PPD proposes a comprehensive plan to remedy the key barrier to NIBRS implementation by upgrading from the four outdated legacy enterprise systems still in use by the department for crime reporting and crime data management. The existing system PPD uses is a 1970s Cobol-based mainframe and the RMS is no longer supported by the company. Thus, the agency cannot upgrade their current data infrastructure to achieve NIBRS reporting. Under the current award, PPD will upgrade to a modern system capable of IBR reporting. The proposed RMS is NIBRS compliant and includes mobile field reporting capability.

This new package will require that the PPD change its workflow and business processes, requiring the services of a business analyst. The project will proceed in stages that include the following critical milestones:
• Institute mobile field reporting (critical for program success);
• Conduct a 60-day "proof of concept" mobile field reporting test during the grant period;
• Create a new data system for capturing arrests that will coordinate and sync with the NIBRS arrest segment.

The majority of PPD’s funding request is allocated to purchase the new system. Mobile field reporting and validation of IBR data is also included. Funds will also cover costs for several staff, including a project manager, business analyst, and software tester, as well as costs associated with training PPD’s approximately 1,400 sworn officers to learn the new reporting system.

(CA/NCF)