Grants fund crime-reporting systems

Office of Justice Programs

The Justice Department has awarded $13 million in grants to replace the 70-year-old systems used to report crime.

The FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced the initial award of more than $12 million in grants to 24 states with an additional $1.4 million to two states coming in weeks.

The funds will be used to implement the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which will improve the states' abilities to measure crime and report crime information at a national level, Justice officials said.

The NIBRS grants will assist states in converting crime statistics from simple summary counts of eight types of crime to a new and more sophisticated system of incident-based data.

The current system classifies crimes into the following categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and the recently added arson offenses.

NIBRS will replace the crime counts in those categories with information on up to 46 offenses, Justice officials said. It will also include information about the victim and offender, details of the offense and the consequences of the crime for the victim.

The current national system, called the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, dates back to the 1930s. It was a joint effort of the FBI and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.