NCJ Number
179538
Date Published
1999
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This analysis is designed to show that the data compiled by the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) can be used effectively for analyzing many aspects of family violence.
Abstract
The NIBRS data collection contains information on each incident and arrest within 22 crime categories. For each offense known to police within these categories, incident, victim, property, offender, and arrestee information is reported. During 1995, 9 States submitted 836,846 Group A incident reports to the FBI. These contained information on 889,573 victims, 925,812 offenses, and 936,828 offenders. However, the information cannot be generalized to criminality across the Nation due to the limited reporting of the NIBRS data to date. Of the 214,464 victims of violent offenses, 57,985 (approximately 27 percent) were reported to have been a relative of one or more of their offenders. Incidents involving this type of victimization comprised the universe of incidents for this analysis. The majority of these offenses were assaultive in nature, involving offenses such as intimidation, simple assault, or aggravated assault. In the jurisdictions studied, whites, adults, and females were found to be the predominant victims of family violence, but within particular offenses some variance was found. This was particularly so with sex offenses, for which children under 12 years old comprised the larger percentage of victims. The analysis for weapon use, substance abuse, and injury is informative and may be useful for understanding the problems of family violence. 33 tables and appended offense definitions