The National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a law enforcement crime incident reporting system used to show detailed crime trends across the US. The specific information collected includes the nature and type of the crimes, characteristics of the victim(s) and offender(s), and the type and value of property involved. The downside of this system is only about one-third of law enforcement agencies in the country use this method to report information about crimes in their jurisdictions. Read more about the benefits of participating in the NIBRS.
In 2016, new crimes were added to the system. Animal cruelty was included since it is considered a crime against society and oftentimes linked to domestic violence or other violent crimes. Hacking and identity theft were also added to the category crimes of fraud.
Some additional highlights from NIBRS, 2016:
- Based on aggregate data, NIBRS agencies reported 5,237,106 incidents involving 6,101,034 offenses with 6,437,018 victims.
- There were 4,963,644 offenses with known offenders (in which at least one characteristic of the offender was known.) Of those offenders whose age was known, 43.5 percent were between the ages of 16 and 30. Sixty-three percent of known offenders were men, and 25.6 percent were women. In other cases, sex of the offender was unknown.
- Of the reported offenses, 62.5 percent were crimes against property, 22.7 were crimes against persons, and 14.8 percent were crimes against society (such as gambling or animal cruelty).
- More than half of the victims (52.4 percent) knew their offenders (or at least one of the offenders if the incident included more than one offender). Additionally, 24.3 percent of the victims were related to their offender (or at least one offender if more than one was present.)
- The NIBRS report contains data on 3,261,521 arrestees. Of those who were arrested, 34.1 percent were 21 to 30 years old. More than 71 percent of arrestees were men, and 28.3 percent were women.
More specific NIBRS data can be found in the NIBRS interactive map or in the Crime Data Explorer tool.