This page provides information on the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) National Estimates datasets that are available on an Application Program Interface (API) called Socrata Open Data API (SODA API). The API follows the REpresentational State Transfer (REST) design pattern to format requests and provide researchers and developers with endpoints in multiple formats, along with related codebooks, methodology, and metadata. More information about the SODA API can be found here.
NIBRS Estimation Program
NIBRS collects detailed information on crime incidents recorded by law enforcement agencies that are reported to the FBI. NIBRS captures multiple characteristics of each crime incident—including demographic characteristics of crime victims, offenders, and persons arrested; details of the incident type and location; the types of weapons used; and relationships between victims and offenders.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and FBI NIBRS Estimation Program uses imputation and weighting procedures to develop national and subnational estimates of crime (i.e., NIBRS estimates) that account for nonresponse and missing data. More information about the NIBRS estimation methodology can be found here. NIBRS estimates can be analyzed at the incident, offense, victim, or arrestee level for multiple geographic areas (e.g., national, state, and city size).
NIBRS National Estimates are a subset of the NIBRS Estimates that are available for analysis through an API. The NIBRS National Estimates include nationally representative estimates at the incident, offense, and victim level for crime reported by law enforcement in the year indicated in the files. Codebooks for these datasets are also accessible via the API. Complete versions of the NIBRS Estimates for 2021 and 2022 can be found on the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer under NIBRS Estimation Tables.
NIBRS National Estimates—Incident-Level
NIBRS National Estimates—Violent Incidents contains counts, percentages, and rates of violent crime incidents summarized at the national level. The estimates can be examined by characteristics such as clearance, weapon involvement, number of victims, number of offenders, and victim-offender relationship.
NIBRS National Estimates—Property Incidents contains counts, percentages, and rates of property crime incidents summarized at the national level. The estimates can be examined by characteristics such as clearance, weapon involvement, number of victims, number of offenders, and victim-offender relationship.
NIBRS National Estimates—Offense-Level
NIBRS National Estimates—Violent Offenses contains counts, percentages, and rates of violent crime offenses summarized at the national level. The estimates can be examined by characteristics such as clearance, weapon involvement, number of victims, number of offenders, and victim-offender relationship.
NIBRS National Estimates—Property Offenses contains counts, percentages, and rates of property crime offenses summarized at the national level. The estimates can be examined by characteristics such as clearance, weapon involvement, number of victims, number of offenders, and victim-offender relationship.
NIBRS National Estimates—Victim-Level
NIBRS National Estimates—Victimization Counts and Percentages contains counts and percentages of violent and property crime victimizations summarized at the national level. The estimates can be examined by age, sex, and race demographics, and by characteristics such as clearance, weapon involvement, and victim-offender relationship.
NIBRS National Estimates—Victimization Rates contains rates of violent and property crime victimizations summarized at the national level. The estimates can be examined by age, sex, and race demographics and by characteristics such as clearance, weapon involvement, and victim-offender relationship.
NIBRS Estimates Codebook and Supplementary Documentation provides a description of the datasets and the offenses that make up combined offense categories.
All calls to the NIBRS National Estimates API are formed by adding the resource path (resource identifier) to the following base URL: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/.
Note!
By default, the NIBRS National Estimates API returns a maximum of 1,000 records. All NIBRS National Estimates datasets include more than 1,000 records. To receive a complete set of records from a NIBRS National Estimates API query, add a "Limit" parameter to the API call to increase the maximum number of records the query is allowed to return. See Record counts under NIBRS National Estimates API Endpoints and see Example Queries below.
The NIBRS National Estimates API can return data to users in multiple formats, including JSON, XML, and CSV formats. To specify a desired format, append a format string (.json, for example) to the end of the URL; JSON is the default format—
- https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/{dataset identifier}.json
- https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/{dataset identifier}.csv
Users may view each dataset to learn more about its Socrata built-in documentation on metadata, fields, API endpoint metadata, data download, and OData endpoint.
NIBRS National Estimates API Endpoints
- NIBRS National Estimates—Violent Incidents
Endpoint: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/r32q-bdaw
Dataset page: NIBRS National Estimates—Violent Incidents dataset page
Record counts: Number of NIBRS National Violent Incident estimates - NIBRS National Estimates—National Property Incidents
Endpoint: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/iv7i-eah6
Dataset page: NIBRS National Estimates—Property Incidents dataset page
Record counts: Number of NIBRS National Property Incident estimates - NIBRS National Estimates—National Violent Offenses
Endpoint: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/x3sz-eb6y
Dataset page: NIBRS National Estimates—Violent Offenses dataset page
Record counts: Number of NIBRS National Violent Offense estimates - NIBRS National Estimates—Property Offenses
Endpoint: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/kj7p-vx4s
Dataset page: NIBRS National Estimates—Property Offenses dataset page
Record counts: Number of NIBRS National Property Offense estimates - NIBRS National Estimates—Victimization Counts and Percentages
Endpoint: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/ms42-n765
Dataset page: NIBRS National Estimates—Victimization Counts and Percentages dataset page
Record counts: Number of NIBRS National Victimization Counts and Percentages estimates - NIBRS National Estimates—Victimization Rates
Endpoint: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/uy37-xgmh
Dataset page: NIBRS National Estimates—Victimization Rates dataset page
Record counts: Number of NIBRS National Victimization Rates estimates
Example Queries
Users may request national incident, offense, or victimization data.
Users can query and filter datasets using field names as parameters and the content they want to filter for as their values. Multiple filters may be combined using the AND boolean.
- To query the total number of burglary incidents in the US in csv format: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/iv7i-eah6.csv?$where=indicator_name='Burglary/B%26E' and estimate_type = 'count' and estimate_domain_1 = 'Incident count'&$limit=50000&$offset=0
- To query the percent of homicide offenses involving a firearm in the US in json format: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/x3sz-eb6y.json?$where=indicator_name='Murder and Non-negligent Manslaughter' and estimate_type = 'percentage' and estimate_domain_1 = 'Weapon involved' and estimate_domain_2 = 'Firearms' &$limit=50000&$offset=0
- To query the rate of robbery victimization by race in the US in csv format: https://data.ojp.usdoj.gov/resource/uy37-xgmh.csv?$where=indicator_name='Robbery' and estimate_geographic_location = 'National' and estimate_type = 'rate' and estimate_domain_1 = 'Race-specific victimization rate' &$limit=50000&$offset=0
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) - The BJS homepage for NIBRS includes information about what data are captured in NIBRS, benefits of NIBRS, and NIBRS population and agency coverage.
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS): How We Can Help You - The FBI homepage for NIBRS includes information about the transition to and benefits of NIBRS. The webpage also includes links for NIBRS resources.
NIBRS Estimation Project - The BJS NIBRS Estimation Project webpage includes information about how the NIBRS estimates are produced from NIBRS reported data and includes links to NIBRS estimates methodology reports.
Law Enforcement Agency Reported Crime Analysis Tool (LEARCAT) - BJS’s LEARCAT is a data tool where users can examine reported NIBRS data for full reporting states and large agencies. Data can be examined at the incident and victimization level, as well as through the analytics on demand and rates on demand features.