Using Incident-Based Reporting to Analyze Violent Gun Related Crime in Oklahoma

The State Justice Statistics (SJS) Program is designed to maintain and enhance each state's capacity to address criminal justice issues through collection and analysis of data. The SJS Program provides support to each state to coordinate and conduct statistical activities within the state, conduct research to estimate impacts of legislative and policy changes, and serve as a liaison in assisting BJS to gather data from respondent agencies within their states. This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements – 2CFR 200.210(a)(14).

The Oklahoma Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is located at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI). The Oklahoma’s SAC is co-located with the state’s criminal history repository and the state’s incident-based reporting system. The SAC includes the SAC Director and four statistical research specialists. The SAC Director works with SAC staff and agency leadership to plan and develop the agency’s research agenda. SAC staff also works closely with the agency’s Field Services Unit which is responsible for the statewide collection of crime statistics and exploring the feasibility of providing online access to incident-based datasets in the future. In addition, SAC staff assists the Oklahoma Information Fusion Center with research and crime analysis.

Under this award, the Oklahoma Statistical Analysis Center (SAC), located within the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI), will conduct activities under the following Core Capacity area: Increasing access to statistical data. The Oklahoma SAC is requesting funds to increase access to statistical data through enhancing data sources and improving analytic capabilities.

These funds will be used to carry out research and analyses using incident-based crime data that are compatible with NIBRS. For this project, staff will analyze murder/non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault incidents, that include the use of a firearm, reported in SIBRS for calendar year 2018. There are three objectives for this project. First, staff will examine how law enforcement has reported murder/non-negligent manslaughter and aggravated assault in SIBRS over a twelve-month period (Jan 1, 2018 - Dec 31, 2018). Staff are interested in identifying changes over time in crime patterns, as well as differences in reporting practices among jurisdictions. Second, staff will examine trends and characteristics associated with murders and aggravated assaults in Oklahoma. Staff are interested in identifying the dynamics of gun-related violent crime during a calendar year and whether the Self Defense Act (SDA) licensing has an impact on violent crime rates. Third, staff will evaluate the quality and completeness of SIBRS data and provide a report of observations to the Field Services Unit (FSU) so they can incorporate this information into future training, as needed.

In addition, staff will also coordinate with the OSBI IT division to purchase and install a server in order to create the infrastructure to eventually provide dynamic reporting of SIBRS summary data through the OSBI website. Upon completion of the installation of the server, staff will work with IT staff to develop static database views to provide SIBRS summary data online until a business intelligence software is purchased and installed to facilitate more dynamic reporting tools.

Funding is also being requested for travel to attend the ASUCRP Conference and either the fall or spring JRSA meeting.

(CA/NCF)