Potential NIBRS Quest

Attachment 3 – Universe of potential NIBRS study participant questions

NIBRS Modernization Study

Potential Participant Interview Questions

Background: The purpose of this modernization study is to gain an understanding of the capabilities and barriers that exist in an agency with regards to collecting and reporting crime incident data and meeting the 2021 transition from the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Summary Reporting System (SRS) to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

The transition to NIBRS is our nation’s pathway to a greater collection of crime data and to improve the nation’s crime statistics for reliability, accuracy, accessibility, and timeliness of the data. The Crime Data Modernization (CDM) Team is conducting an assessment of crime information collection and reporting operations and support systems used by law enforcement agencies in the United States to improve and modernize NIBRS.

Objective: The objective of this modernization study is to assess national crime reporting operations and determine how to modernize NIBRS and NIBRS reporting processes to support local, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies.

Approach: The NIBRS modernization study team will conduct interviews with law enforcement agencies and other stakeholder groups to gain an understanding of the capabilities and barriers that exist in state, local, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies’ (LEAs) abilities to report crime data.

The set of questions described below is intended to be a framework forassist the interviewer in guiding discussion with various LEAs and will not be directly provided to participants. The interviewer will reference these questions to maintain the scope and direction of each interview while ensuring the conversations focus on the specific themes of the study. Based on interviewee’s responses, the interviewer may ask additional follow-on questions to further explore the respondent’s perspective and obtain a deeper understanding of the LEA’s current capabilities and challenges. The interviewer will strive to ensure the follow-on questions and discussions remain within the scope of the study without restricting the respondent’s ability to express ideas and opinions in answering the interview questions. that conform to the universe of question and the study’s themes may be asked to obtain a deeper understanding of the LEA’s current capabilities and challenges.

Part 1

Collection of Crime Information & Reporting Activities

1. How does the agency report crime data?

   • To the state’s UCR Program

   • Direct contributor to the FBI

   • The agency does not report crime data

   • Other (Regional, Shared Record Management System (RMS), etc.)

2. How does the agency record crime information?

   • An agency owned and/or operated records management system

   • The agency participates in a regional records management system

   • Manually

   • Other

3. What are the most serious roadblocks to collecting crime information?

• Complexity in collecting crime information for reporting

• Insufficient support staff:

  • Agency administrative staff

  • Agency technical information technology (IT) staff

  • Other

• Technical:

  • Limited or no existing records management application

  • Limited access to information technology resources (operation and management of technical systems)

  • Limited or no access to network communication, internet, etc.

• Resources:

  • Funding

  • Training

• Other

4. Does the agency analyze criminal activity and produce crime reports?

• Yes (go to question 5)

• No (go to question 7)

5. How often does the agency generate crime activity reports?

   • Monthly

   • Quarterly

   • Semi-Annual

   • Not required

   • Other

6. Who receives the agency’s crime reports?

   • Local government

   • State government

   • Other

7. How does the agency categorize crime data?

   • By incident

     • Multiple-offense

     • Single-offense

   • By crime data element

   • Does it utilize FBI categorizations?

     • UCR and NIBRS

       • Do the UCR codes match the state codes

   • State statutes

   • Both State and FBI categories

   • Other

8. Does the agency receive information requests for analysis from contributors or leadership that they are not now able to satisfy?

9. Does the agency have an automated or manual process for generating reports?

10. How many agency personnel are required to generate the agency’s crime reports?

11. How long does the agency require to generate required crime reports?

    • 0-1 months

    • 2-3 months

    • 3+ months

12. Does the agency perform crime data analytics?

    • RMS is used to perform data analytics and generate reports

    • Crime analytics is performed by extracting crime information from the RMS and reports are created externally

    • Other
      
      

13. What type of crime information reports are provided for the public?

    • Criminal activity maps/reports

    • Error reports

    • Year-to-date stats

    • Year over year stats

    • Other

Part 2

Agency Record Management Systems and Local Recordkeeping

Agency Operations

1. Command staff

• How satisfied is the command staff member with the record management system (RMS)?

• Is the command staff member aware of the FBI’s move to only NIBRS Reporting?

  • Are there any concerns with the FBI’s move to only NIBRS reporting? If yes, describe.

2. Patrol officers

• What is the ease or difficulty of entering data into the system?

• Does the system provide data validation or error detection?

3. Crime analysts

• Does the analyst have the ability to pull data from the RMS?

• Does the system contain the data needed for analysis?

• Does the system generate SRS or NIBRS reports?

• Has the analyst had crime reporting system training?

• If the system generates SRS or NIBRS data, does the analyst do any analysis with this output?

  • If yes, what changes/enhancements could be provided to improve upon the analytic capabilities?

Administration/Reporting

4. How does the system(s) receive and collect crime information?

• Directly from patrol kiosks/laptops in the patrol vehicle

• Directly from police officers and investigators in the station

• Indirect input from paper patrol/investigative forms

• Other

5. How does the system(s) transmit and deliver crime information?

• System generated reports

• System generated data files for export:

  • Reporting – internal operational resource allocation

  • Summary reporting – state

  • Summary reporting – regional

  • Summary reporting – federal

  • Internal data analytics

• Direct interface with:

  • Judicial or trial system(s)

  • Forensic system(s)

  • Web portal (public access - crime hot spots)

  • Other

6. Who can access the agency’s RMS?

• Patrol or Investigative staff

• Agency operations or command staff

• Agency administrative staff

• System administrators

• Other

7. Does the agency’s RMS include monitoring or audit logging (who accessed, what information and when it was accessed)?

• Monitors by user id, time, and activity (read, edit, or delete)

• Monitors by user id and time

• Monitors by time

• Does not monitor

• Other

8. Does the agency audit RMS access and activities?

9. How does the agency handle updates to reported incident information (e.g., change in offender)?

10. Can the agency’s RMS perform the following functions?

• Record information for all offenses in the incident

• Provide a detailed offense code assigned to each offense in the incident

• Provide demographic information:

  • For each offender

  • For each victim

• Map the relationship between each victim and offender stored for all offenses in an incident

• Updating and correcting previously recorded and/or submitted information

• Track multiple clearances

• Track whether an incident was exceptionally cleared

• Record and store exceptional clearance date

11. Does the application or system enforce any of the NIBRS data edit and validation checks at the time of data entry?

12. Does the current RMS create an FBI standard SRS or NIBRS report/export file?

• Yes:

  • Format?

  • How does the RMS create the report file?

• No:

  • Does the agency create a crime report for submission to a regional or state agency which does not follow the FBI standard?

    • State reporting mechanism or web site

    • Other

• Alternative reporting methods for submitting SRS or NIBRS data?

13. How does the agency use its collected crime data?

• Sting operations

• Task force operations

• Indictment following investigation

14. Following data collection, does the agency review, analyze, and report information within the organization and/or to external stakeholders, such as council, legislative bodies, media, and academic organizations?

15. Does the agency compare its crime data against information provided by other agencies?

16. Does the agency’s RMS connect to other systems (share information)?

• Direct connections (cable)

  • Local Area Network

  • Wide Area Network (regional, state, etc.)

• Electronic file sharing over the Internet

• Other

17. Does the RMS store data on a local agency-owned system or is the data stored remotely (e.g., cloud or vendor-owned system)?

18. Who is responsible for the daily operation, management, and availability of the agency’s RMS?

19. Who in the agency is responsible for monitoring or management of the operations, maintenance, and upgrading the RMS?

• Agency command staff

• Agency administrative staff

• County or State information technology agency

• Vendor

• Other

20. What is the agency’s RMS system availability requirements?

• 24/7 to support police operations

• Other

21. What is the agency’s communications or network connectivity to RMS?

• Wireless/Radio link from patrol vehicle to station’s information technology network

• Direct connection only from station computers

• Internet portals (assuming a web-based or client-server system)

22. How are the agency’s patrol and investigative resources trained in the use of their RMS?

• Incident reporting is included in the police academy and investigator curriculums

• Vendor provided

• Other

23. Will the existing RMS require information system improvements to meet NIBRS’s crime incident reporting requirements?

• Application improvements (software and database)

• Infrastructure improvements (hardware)

• Network

• Other

Part 3

NIBRS Opportunities for Improvement

1. What are suggestions for ways to encourage participation in or improve the use of NIBRS (data categorization, etc.)?

• Additional data – please specify

• Less data – which ones are less useful/meaningful

• Less restrictive edits/mandatories

• Fast error reporting

• Validation tools

• Error reporting help

• Other

2. How could the NIBRS assist [or improve] the agency crime information analytics?

3. What services could the FBI provide to the agency to help in its ability to collect accurate and reliable crime data?

4. What would the agency recommend be changed in the NIBRS infrastructure or operations?

• Simplify crime information reporting uploading

• Provide direct input portal

• Audits by state or FBI

• Additional or improved training by state or FBI

• Improved file formats

• Automated electronic transmission capability

• Other

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