In January 2021, the FBI started using the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) instead of the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system for police departments to report crime statistics.
And while some major police departments (including Philadelphia’s) have made the change, in 2022, almost a third of law enforcement agencies did not report data to NIBRS. That includes about 90 percent of the departments in Pennsylvania.
But the D.C.-based Council on Criminal Justice claims around 80 percent of Americans will be covered by the new system by the end of the year.
What’s not in dispute is that, for the past three years or so, crime reporting in the U.S. has been less reliable.
Rafael Mangual, a fellow with the Manhattan Institute think tank, said changing to NIBRS is cumbersome for police departments.
“Under the UCR, police departments were told to report the most serious crimes [in a single episode].” said Mangual. “Only the most serious crimes would actually get reported to the FBI. So, the numbers were always a little off.”
However, under NIBRS, up to 10 crimes per episode are reported.
“The benefit of the numbers was that you could record up to 10 offenses for each incident,” Mangual said. “So, the idea was that this is going to be more thorough, more reliable data, right?”
And this would give a “clearer picture of what crime looks like.”
“What I don’t think the government anticipated very well is the compliance burden is pretty significant with any kind of reporting requirements,” said Mangual. “But especially when you’re talking about switching over to a completely new system. A lot of departments around the country just haven’t made the transition.”
As a result, the data the FBI is using for its crime statistics, the statistics often cited in the media to show that crime has risen or been reduced, are based on a smaller data set, said Mangual. “They’ve had to draw pretty broad inferences based on a much smaller set of departments and sort of draw implications about what that means for the rest of the country.”
“It’s just not as accurate a picture as I think we’re going to get in five or 10 years,” said Mangual.
In Radnor, Police Superintendent Chris Flanagan said his department is nearly ready to start using NIBRS. It will be purchasing new software, and officers will be trained in how to use it.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “It is a new challenge for the local police.” It will take officers longer to write their reports, and a designated NIBRS-compliant person will check those reports.
However, Flanagan said departments must eventually comply with NIBRS to receive federal grants.
Abington Police Chief Patrick Malloy said his department is also close to implementing NIBRS.
In the meantime, municipalities continue sending their UCR statistics to the state police. Abington had 1,279 serious (Part One) crimes, along with simple assault and weapons offenses from Aug. 1, 2021, through July 31, 2022; 1,649 from Aug. 1, 2022, through July 1, 2023; and 1,546 from Aug. 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024.
Radnor saw 1,005 serious crimes, simple assaults, and weapons offenses from Aug. 1, 2021, through July 31, 2022; 1,297 from Aug. 1, 2022, through July 31, 2023; and 1,045 from Aug. 1, 2023, through July 31, 2024.
Mangual said there are other nuances in the crime numbers, including that more people are working from home and less likely to be out and about where they could become crime victims. Also, more people are shopping online, he said.
Other issues include police departments struggling to recruit and keep officers.
In the presidential race, former President Donald Trump’s campaign criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ claims that crime is going down, saying the nationwide crime data is incomplete.
“There’s not less crime; there’s just less reporting of crime data,” the Trump campaign said in an email to the press. Indeed, polls show most Americans believe crime in their area is increasing.
Another measure of crime, the National Crime Victimization Survey, shows crime is up over pre-COVID levels. That measure showed a 43 percent increase in violent crimes, a 58 percent increase in rapes, an 89 percent increase in aggravated assaults and a 56 percent increase in robberies between 2020 and 2022, the most recent information.
More Americans were victims of violent crimes in 2022 than any year since 2012, the Trump campaign said.
Mangual said the new NIBRS system will become more accurate as time passes and more departments input their data.
“Then the picture will get clearer,” he said.
“There are steps Congress could take, in terms of incentivizing transition, by conditioning federal funds on compliance,” he added, something Flanagan believes is already in the works. “The difference between what the FBI records and the National Crime Victimization survey shows, there’s always been a gulf there.”
That’s because not all crimes are reported to police.
“If you’re on your way to work and someone snatches your phone out of your hand and they disappear in a crowd, if you’re in a rush, a lot of people will just eat it and go on with their day,” said Mangual.
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