Sheriff Dennis Quakenbush and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office are proud to announce their recent certification with the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS).
“Keeping Hamilton County Safe is our top priority,” Quakenbush said. “Collecting more, reliable and accurate data is foundational to this effort.”
NIBRS reporting is a system of reporting more detailed information within an incident. This reporting system has allowed the Sheriff’s Office to move away from the traditional Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system that did not collect as many pieces of data within an individual crime. NIBRS primary objective is to generate reliable information for use within law enforcement administration, operation, and management.
Originally, the UCR Program was designed as a summary system to collect only the most serious offense within an incident. However, the program began using incident-based reporting (i.e., NIBRS) in 1989 to capture all offenses within an incident – up to 10 crime occurrences. Through NIBRS, law enforcement agencies report data on each offense and arrest within 28 offense categories made up of 71 specific crimes called Group A offenses. For each of the Group A offenses coming to their attention, agencies collect administrative, offense, property, victim, offender and arrestee information. Agencies report only arrest data for an additional 13 Group B offense categories. (U.S Department of Justice, CJIS, 2019)
Leading this transition from UCR crime reporting to NIBRS crime reporting is Deputy Clerk Melissa Nickel. Nickel has worked for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office for over 15 years and has taken the initiative, with the help of other Sheriff’s Office employees, to ensure this agency becomes fully compliant with NIBRS high standards. This transition has not come easy, with NIBRS expecting near perfect error rates in all reports being filed. Nickel and her team worked diligently to allow the error rate to be at a perfect 0 percent for three consecutive months. This not only allowed the Sheriff’s Office to become certified with the Indiana State Police, but also helps provide excellent data and statistics to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
“NIBRS could potentially help Hamilton County to target specific crimes in certain areas to help continue to reduce crime across the county,” Nickel said.
By design, law enforcement agencies generate NIBRS data as a by-product of their respective records management systems. Therefore, an agency builds its system to suit its own individual needs. This includes all the information required for administration and operation, then forwards only the data required by NIBRS to the national UCR Program.
As more agencies report via NIBRS, the data collected will provide a clearer assessment of the nation’s crime experience. It will provide accurate data to criminologists, sociologists, legislators, municipal planners, the media and other various research and planning groups.