This post was originally published on this site
The Long Beach Police Department (LBPD) is changing the way it collects and reports crime data to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Last year, LBPD began transitioning from a Summary-Based Reporting System (SRS) to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), in addition to meeting requirements set forth by the California Department of Justice (CA-DOJ) for the California Incident Based Reporting System (CIBRS).
As the new national standard for data collection, NIBRS captures a higher level of detail on individual crime incidents than through the current SRS. This includes information regarding victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, property, and drugs involved in crimes for up to ten offenses within an incident— representing a substantial shift in the way LBPD reports crime. At the state level, CIBRS data elements will be reported for crime analysis. When applicable, some of those items will be converted to a broader category to be submitted to the FBI (for example, race categories have been expanded at the state level to include Cambodian, Filipino, Japanese, etc., but will be converted to “Asian” at the federal level).
LBPD is changing how information on victimization and offending is collected and reported in order to meet federal data standards, improve operations, and better inform the public about the nature of crime in Long Beach. By transitioning to NIBRS data, LBPD will have the ability to identify specific public safety problems and provide the community with in-depth information.
NIBRS collects information on a multitude of law enforcement issues regarding crime, such as offenses involving weapons, drugs, gangs, domestic violence, child and elder abuse, hate crimes, white collar crime, and terrorism. The additional detailed crime incident data elements are captured in a standardized format, which provides greater analytic capability and makes NIBRS a superior crime reporting standard.
With this migration to NIBRS, certain crime statistics will appear to increase due to a change in the way individual crimes are counted for statistical purposes. Under SRS only the most serious offense is reported whereas in NIBRS, up to ten offenses can be reported per incident. For example, in an incident that involved an assault and a vandalism, only the assault would have been reported. Under NIBRS, both the assault and the vandalism would be reported.
With our transition to NIBRS, we anticipate our crime incident mapping application will be back online in the near future. We will make a social media announcement once the page is operational.
To view the new NIBRS report, please visit LBPD Crime Statistics.
For more information:
