I think you’re on to something. It might be more instructive to study who doesn’t report their data. Let’s say Chicago chooses to skip reporting, while a downstate Illinois area containing roughly 2M people all do report. I contend the statistics are skewed with respect to violent crime, or the lack of it.
My opinion has, and always will be, that if you take one thin dime of Federal money, the department MUST report data. If the local government jurisdiction forgoes reporting, it forfeits its funding. Their choice…
I have an interactive graph of underreporting by comparing FBI numbers (optionally reported by police) to CDC homicide victims (legally required from coroners).
Underreporting seems to be driven by statewide patterns, so for example, Illinois is actually the 2nd-worst state in terms of fully and honestly reporting their numbers, but almost every county underreports, not just Chicago.
Some states have state laws requiring reporting, so that's why you'll see that California and Maine law enforcement actually MORE homicides than their coroners do. The worst states are generally in the lower midwest and along the Mississippi river, the Mountain West and coastal states seem to be pretty reporting more fully.
Mississippi, Alabama and Illinois are drastically underreporting homicides by over 1/3. It probably is somewhat about embarrassment of bad numbers, but even the non-violent counties in those states underreport, which leads me to conclude it's more about statewide expectations and lack of political pressure and leadership.
I used Illinois only as an example of the logic I’m employing, but your graphs would seemingly back up the point. Underreporting is significant, and apparently increasing in the past couple of years. This allows false claims to be made saying violent crime is deceasing while the opposite may be the case.
I cannot agree that States not following their own laws should result in the loss of Federal funds, Jimmy, unless those State laws are somehow tied to Federal law compliance. The Federal government should never require an unfunded mandate…
I agree that underreporting is significant, important and increasing. I only question that the main motive is embarrassment of high numbers and that that skews results. That maybe is a component, but it seems secondary compared to other factors.
On the same page I also have radio buttons to show demographics and clearance rates. Smaller metros and rural areas actually underreport the most despite having lower crime and higher clearance rates. I'd guess that has more to do with resourcing and training and economies of scale, since small departments can get really small as we have 17,000 law enforcement agencies. It's hard to fix b/c agencies are so small, but states with mandates show it can be done.
In terms of the patterns of skewed data the upshot doesn't really neatly fit into a red / blue pattern. The most underreporting happens in high crime, rural areas, like the Black Belt of the South or Native American Reservations. Crime is much worse in those areas than reported. The least underreporting happens in big cities in coastal blue states. Other sorts of areas are kind of in the middle, underreporting murder, for example, by 10-15% or so.
Also the fact they have stopped arresting or prosecuting criminals there is nothing to report. Your comment "If the local government jurisdiction forgoes reporting, it forfeits its funding" might not go far enough. If they refuse to enforce their state laws they should loose any federal funds.
For most crimes they are supposed to report whether there was an arrest made or not.
It's crazy that it's optional, though, especially for big cities. But part of the reason is we have 17,000 law enforcement agencies, and some of them only have a handful of people.
I don't think the number of agencies that are supposed to report has much to do with the problem. It seems the "requirement" to report has no threat of penalty if they don't. How many of the 17,000 agencies don't receive any federal funds? The requirement should be written with penalties applied if there is no compliance, maybe loss of federal funds.
The thing about the 17,000 is just that many are really, really small and not well-staffed or equipped to handle reporting to a computer database. According to police agencies, one of the reasons 2021 was such a clusterf*&k was that they needed time and funding to learn how to use the new system.
But, on the other hand state mandates seem to work really well. There are some states where most agencies report pretty well, so it certainly can be done. I don't know if Nevada and Maine use more carrot or more stick, but I would use states like that as models and encourage other states to follow.
From the beginning of the NIBRS (many years ago), it was acknowledges that it would increase the number of crimes reported:
Rape: No effect.
Robbery: Increased 0.5 percent.
Aggravated Assault: Increased 0.6 percent.
Burglary: Increased 0.8 percent.
Larceny: Increased 3.1 percent.
Motor Vehicle Theft: Increased 2.8 percent.
Unlike the UCR, NIBRS data contains detailed information on every crime reported to the police. The UCR uses a Hierarchy Rule for reporting. This means that only the most serious crime in an incident is reported.
One of the reasons that police agencies were reluctant to engage in the NIBRS was the fear that the additional crimes counted would increase their crime statistics (far more than the estimates I described above) and if reported crimes contained a number of events (i.e., a robbery using a stolen vehicle) you would have two crimes instead of one under the old system.
Regardless of what I first offered as to a limited impact on crime statistics, NIBRS adoption was feared. That plus the law enforcement data dumps at the end of the year being inaccurate indicate that the FBI is still having issues with NIBRS "and" UCR compliance.
Social media is filled with references that agencies remain reluctant to record crimes. It's not a matter of NIBRS participation, it "may" be more of an issue of crime counting.
Then you get back to the issue of crime reporting. The National Crime Victimization Survey offers approximately 250,000 hate crimes a year where the FBI offers 11,000. That's just one example. The vast majority of reported crime is a severe undercount.
There are so many examples of problems with FBI data that it boggles the mind. It's not the FBI's fault. They just collect what's offered.
It's my understanding (and I have no direct knowledge of the issue) that many local law enforcement agencies are simply not complying with NIBRS dictates for a variety of reasons. I had conversations with people within the FBI who tell me that they don't want to disparage local police agencies but they are concerned about the data they are offering.
You state that "The FBI data is matched by other data sources which all tell the same story." I don't think that's correct or even near correct. There are 25 examples I listed today in an article on increasing crime from 2020-2024. The National Crime Victimization Survey in their latest reports on overall and juvenile crime record very big increases along with an array of other data showing increases, see https://www.crimeinamerica.net/25-examples-of-increasing-crime-is-record-fear-of-crime-justified/.
Even the FBI's preliminary statistics for 2023 break statistics down to metro and nonmetro areas and the reductions for metropolitan areas are slight except for homicides and rapes (tiny numbers when compared to overall violent crimes).
I would like to believe that the NIBRS is being faithfully followed because it would be a considerable improvement over the UCR system. But the more I use 2022 NIBRS data for articles, and contrast them with other data, the more concerned I become.
The albatross seems to be the failure to report. Major crime centers getting tired of being the goat have stopped/slowed reporting.
I think you’re on to something. It might be more instructive to study who doesn’t report their data. Let’s say Chicago chooses to skip reporting, while a downstate Illinois area containing roughly 2M people all do report. I contend the statistics are skewed with respect to violent crime, or the lack of it.
My opinion has, and always will be, that if you take one thin dime of Federal money, the department MUST report data. If the local government jurisdiction forgoes reporting, it forfeits its funding. Their choice…
I have an interactive graph of underreporting by comparing FBI numbers (optionally reported by police) to CDC homicide victims (legally required from coroners).
https://theusaindata.pythonanywhere.com/underreported_murders
Underreporting seems to be driven by statewide patterns, so for example, Illinois is actually the 2nd-worst state in terms of fully and honestly reporting their numbers, but almost every county underreports, not just Chicago.
Some states have state laws requiring reporting, so that's why you'll see that California and Maine law enforcement actually MORE homicides than their coroners do. The worst states are generally in the lower midwest and along the Mississippi river, the Mountain West and coastal states seem to be pretty reporting more fully.
Mississippi, Alabama and Illinois are drastically underreporting homicides by over 1/3. It probably is somewhat about embarrassment of bad numbers, but even the non-violent counties in those states underreport, which leads me to conclude it's more about statewide expectations and lack of political pressure and leadership.
I used Illinois only as an example of the logic I’m employing, but your graphs would seemingly back up the point. Underreporting is significant, and apparently increasing in the past couple of years. This allows false claims to be made saying violent crime is deceasing while the opposite may be the case.
I cannot agree that States not following their own laws should result in the loss of Federal funds, Jimmy, unless those State laws are somehow tied to Federal law compliance. The Federal government should never require an unfunded mandate…
I agree that underreporting is significant, important and increasing. I only question that the main motive is embarrassment of high numbers and that that skews results. That maybe is a component, but it seems secondary compared to other factors.
On the same page I also have radio buttons to show demographics and clearance rates. Smaller metros and rural areas actually underreport the most despite having lower crime and higher clearance rates. I'd guess that has more to do with resourcing and training and economies of scale, since small departments can get really small as we have 17,000 law enforcement agencies. It's hard to fix b/c agencies are so small, but states with mandates show it can be done.
In terms of the patterns of skewed data the upshot doesn't really neatly fit into a red / blue pattern. The most underreporting happens in high crime, rural areas, like the Black Belt of the South or Native American Reservations. Crime is much worse in those areas than reported. The least underreporting happens in big cities in coastal blue states. Other sorts of areas are kind of in the middle, underreporting murder, for example, by 10-15% or so.
Also the fact they have stopped arresting or prosecuting criminals there is nothing to report. Your comment "If the local government jurisdiction forgoes reporting, it forfeits its funding" might not go far enough. If they refuse to enforce their state laws they should loose any federal funds.
For most crimes they are supposed to report whether there was an arrest made or not.
It's crazy that it's optional, though, especially for big cities. But part of the reason is we have 17,000 law enforcement agencies, and some of them only have a handful of people.
I don't think the number of agencies that are supposed to report has much to do with the problem. It seems the "requirement" to report has no threat of penalty if they don't. How many of the 17,000 agencies don't receive any federal funds? The requirement should be written with penalties applied if there is no compliance, maybe loss of federal funds.
Even the smallest police departments use electronic systems to fill out reports. Not many LEOs are sitting in a diner pushing paper…
The thing about the 17,000 is just that many are really, really small and not well-staffed or equipped to handle reporting to a computer database. According to police agencies, one of the reasons 2021 was such a clusterf*&k was that they needed time and funding to learn how to use the new system.
But, on the other hand state mandates seem to work really well. There are some states where most agencies report pretty well, so it certainly can be done. I don't know if Nevada and Maine use more carrot or more stick, but I would use states like that as models and encourage other states to follow.
I see your point.
Hi Jeff:
From the beginning of the NIBRS (many years ago), it was acknowledges that it would increase the number of crimes reported:
Rape: No effect.
Robbery: Increased 0.5 percent.
Aggravated Assault: Increased 0.6 percent.
Burglary: Increased 0.8 percent.
Larceny: Increased 3.1 percent.
Motor Vehicle Theft: Increased 2.8 percent.
Unlike the UCR, NIBRS data contains detailed information on every crime reported to the police. The UCR uses a Hierarchy Rule for reporting. This means that only the most serious crime in an incident is reported.
One of the reasons that police agencies were reluctant to engage in the NIBRS was the fear that the additional crimes counted would increase their crime statistics (far more than the estimates I described above) and if reported crimes contained a number of events (i.e., a robbery using a stolen vehicle) you would have two crimes instead of one under the old system.
Regardless of what I first offered as to a limited impact on crime statistics, NIBRS adoption was feared. That plus the law enforcement data dumps at the end of the year being inaccurate indicate that the FBI is still having issues with NIBRS "and" UCR compliance.
Social media is filled with references that agencies remain reluctant to record crimes. It's not a matter of NIBRS participation, it "may" be more of an issue of crime counting.
Then you get back to the issue of crime reporting. The National Crime Victimization Survey offers approximately 250,000 hate crimes a year where the FBI offers 11,000. That's just one example. The vast majority of reported crime is a severe undercount.
There are so many examples of problems with FBI data that it boggles the mind. It's not the FBI's fault. They just collect what's offered.
It's my understanding (and I have no direct knowledge of the issue) that many local law enforcement agencies are simply not complying with NIBRS dictates for a variety of reasons. I had conversations with people within the FBI who tell me that they don't want to disparage local police agencies but they are concerned about the data they are offering.
You state that "The FBI data is matched by other data sources which all tell the same story." I don't think that's correct or even near correct. There are 25 examples I listed today in an article on increasing crime from 2020-2024. The National Crime Victimization Survey in their latest reports on overall and juvenile crime record very big increases along with an array of other data showing increases, see https://www.crimeinamerica.net/25-examples-of-increasing-crime-is-record-fear-of-crime-justified/.
Even the FBI's preliminary statistics for 2023 break statistics down to metro and nonmetro areas and the reductions for metropolitan areas are slight except for homicides and rapes (tiny numbers when compared to overall violent crimes).
I would like to believe that the NIBRS is being faithfully followed because it would be a considerable improvement over the UCR system. But the more I use 2022 NIBRS data for articles, and contrast them with other data, the more concerned I become.
Best, Len.