Comparing the National Incidence-Based Reporting System and National Crime Victimization Survey

Violence

The National Incidence-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system for crimes known to the police. For each incidence of crime reported, different data is collected. These data include the nature and types of specific incidences in the crime. Characteristics of the victim and the offender are collected, types and value of items stolen and recovered and characteristics of persons arrested for the crime. The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) is a city, county, state and federal law enforcement program. The UCR has been collecting data since the 1930s and the NIBRS is a part of this program, only newer. NIBRS has only been collecting data since 1973.

similar to the NCVS in that both collect data on crimes, the biggest difference is that the NCVS is more concerned with the crime from the victim's point-of-view. The advantages in collecting this data is that it helps estimates the type of crime that is escalating and can be used to identify similarities and possibly identify serial crimes and criminals. At this time the NIBRS is a reliable method for estimating the incidence of crime throughout the U.S., if the people utilizing this data have the resources to comb through it. There are tons of data to comb through and if the organizations that want the information are smaller and don't have access to larger computer databases, it can be a problem.

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) which was previously called the National Crime Survey (NCS), has been collecting data on personal and household victimization since 1973. It is the primary source of information on the characteristics of criminal victimization and on the number and types of crimes not reported to law enforcement authorities. It provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders. It is different from the NIBRS in that it is from the victims point-of-view rather than just cut and dried crime statistics.