Incomplete crime data

When the FBI switched to a new data collection system, which relies on local police departments to report their numbers, about 40% of agencies didn’t switch over. The Marshall Project made an interactive to see who’s reporting data in your state:

Many criminologists fear the missing data means the nation would not get reliable crime data for years to come. If a local police department did not report crime data to the FBI, it would also mean scholars, policy makers and the public cannot compare what’s happening with crime in their community with other places.

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Unreliable FBI crime data

The Marshall Project and Axios report that the FBI changed their reporting system last year, and 40 percent of law enforcement agencies didn’t submit any data:

In 2021, the FBI retired its nearly century-old national crime data collection program, the Summary Reporting System used by the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. The agency switched to a new system, the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which gathers more specific information on each incident. Even though the FBI announced the transition years ago and the federal government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help local police make the switch, about 7,000 of the nation’s 18,000 law enforcement agencies did not successfully send crime data to the voluntary program last year.

I am sure policymakers will definitely be very responsible and cite data appropriately and not cherrypick from incomplete data to push an agenda.

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