Adopted at the 120th Annual Conference

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

October 23, 2013

Support for NCS-X Feasibility Study

Submitted by Criminal Justice Information Systems Committee

CJIS.t0029.2013

Whereas, in 2012 the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced its National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) initiative to study the feasibility of increasing participation in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) so that NIBRS will have the coverage to generate statistically-sound national estimates of crime known to law enforcement agencies;

Whereas, the NCS-X will be designed to expand participation in the FBI's existing NIBRS so that the resulting data can be used to produce detailed national estimates of crime known to law enforcement;

WHEREAS, the NCS-X is not being designed to replace or interfere with the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) or to establish a new and separate crime data system;

WHEREAS, the NCS-X anticipates increasing law enforcement agency participation in NIBRS through NCX-S by at least 400 agencies;

WHEREAS, because some agencies will elect not to participate in NIBRS, BJS will identify additional local, state, and tribal agencies that may elect to participate, thereby enabling NCS-X to reach the necessary minimum number of agencies required to produce national estimates of crime;

WHEREAS, BJS, along with other components within the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), will explore funding opportunities to support and encourage these selected agencies to begin their NIBRS reporting;

WHEREAS, BJS has committed to working together with the FBI and other organizations and advisory bodies to explore the feasibility of "enter once, use many" strategies, such as extracting NIBRS data from any agency's N-DEx (Law Enforcement National Data Exchange) submissions, a process that would not require agencies to enter data into each system independently;

WHEREAS, it is anticipated that NCS-X will provide more meaningful analytic information to law enforcement, policymakers and criminal justice planners on topics important in the 21st Century and will provide local, state, and tribal law enforcement along with state UCR programs with technology-based tools to analyze and compare data within NIBRS;

WHEREAS, the BJS has agreed to participate and collaborate with the CJIS Advisory Policy Board and law enforcement agencies and organizations in developing any new national picture of crime that is based on local law enforcement agency reports.

WHEREAS, the FBI and BJS have entered into an agreement consistent with the IACP CJIS Committee recommendations to the BJS;

WHEREAS, the BJS has committed to implementing a communications plan to provide a clear and consistent message regarding the feasibility study, the NCS-X, and the process being used;

WHEREAS, subject to budgetary constraints, BJS plans to make a substantial commitment each year from 2014 through 2016 to encourage selected local, state and tribal departments to provide incident level data to state UCR programs, to assist state UCR programs to handle this increased responsibility, and to cover some of the individual agency costs of participating in the national program; Therefore be it

Resolved, that the International Association of Chiefs of Police supports the BJS in conducting a feasibility study to implement the NCS-X.