NCJ Number
178764
Journal
Journal of Quantitative Criminology Volume: 15 Issue: 2 Dated: June 1999 Pages: 119-141
Date Published
1999
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This article explains the basic structure of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and compares it to the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).
Abstract
The NIBRS offers a new source of data for measuring crime. Though far from national in coverage, NIBRS data can address research and policy questions outside the scope of the UCR and the NCVS. The article compares the three data sources, with particular emphasis on what can be learned from incident-based police data that cannot be learned from other sources. Like all data on crime, the NIBRS is subject to various problems with validity and measurement error. The article discusses two general categories of such problems: those evident in the design of the NIBRS and those linked to more general issues in the organizational production of data. It also lists eight principal advantages of the NIBRS over current summary-based UCR and survey-based data as well as nine real and potential problems with NIBRS data that have impeded its widespread adoption. Tables, notes, references