Meaningful policing reform starts with the closing of law enforcement data deficits.
Police departments need a new national vehicle for crime reporting that better captures data on reported incidents, creates a national standard for quantifying crime, and lends itself to more informed policing. Fortunately, this system exists — it has existed for years. And the deadline for police departments to get on board is less than a year away.
Unfortunately, much of New York is still behind the curve.
Since 1991, thousands of local law enforcement agencies have been transitioning slowly, and quietly, from the 1930s-era Summary Reporting System to the National Incident-Based Reporting System. This transition represents a fundamental shift in the methods of collecting and reporting crime data. Rather than report monthly aggregate summaries of crime and arrest statistics, as done with SRS, NIBRS collates critical data points at the incident level. These critical data points include demographics, relationships between victims and offenders, whether a computer was used in the commission of crime, or if the incident is associated with gang activity.
NIBRS allows authorities to answer questions such as “How many kidnappings happen at day care facilities?” and “How many victims of sexual assault knew their attacker prior to an assault?” in minutes, rather than days or weeks. In urban environments, this data is instrumental in identifying how vulnerable communities are exposed to crime.
By enhancing data visualization, police can identify crime trends and develop better-informed policing strategies. While the SRS was helpful in the professionalization of law enforcement, it is obsolete by today’s technological capabilities and fails to support the complexities and standards necessary for modern policing.
Certification is given to agencies whose systems meet the following criteria: technological compatibility with the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program; the capability of retaining records and correct errors; submission of data in a consistent and logical manner; and the assurance of statistical reasonableness when reporting aggregate data.
The transition to NIBRS has been complicated in New York — it took nearly four years to achieve, according to a spokesperson from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. Yet to date, only 30 of New York’s more than 500 law enforcement agencies have successfully transitioned to NIBRS.
New York’s sluggish transition can be explained, in part, by police union opposition and a dithering political class. The transition is usually costly and politically unpopular. Still, New York’s 2021 enacted budget does not provide funding for local agencies who don’t complete the transition by the FBI’s Jan. 1, 2021, deadline.
Many New York politicians trumpet the state’s vast criminal justice reforms, such as last year’s bail reform law. But the state has long ignored discrepancies in data sharing and demographic data collection. A recent City Health Department report underscored how poor data-coordination between agencies led to vast underreporting of police-involved deaths.
Without state-level policies, local agencies are left to decide whether and how to collect demographic information from suspects. For example, Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently signed legislation that requires better collection of demographic data in New York’s courts. But apples-to-apples data collection across New York’s entire criminal justice system is still lacking. As the Urban Institute cites, New York is failing to report ethnicity data consistently for Latinos at some stages of the justice system. At present, no one knows exactly how many Latinos are in the criminal justice system at any given time. And if the state does not collect complete data across all agencies, it is impossible to assess how the system affects Latinos.
NYPD’s incident-level arrest data is reported on a quarterly basis. But America’s largest city should be reporting this data on a monthly, if not biweekly, basis. And the abolition of data programs such as CompStat is exactly the opposite of what law enforcement needs to do to restore order and defend its reputation.
Data deficits aid and abet inequality by hamstringing researchers and policymakers. Advocates and authorities know that victimization data is key to understanding how much crime goes underreported. Now is the time for politicians to remedy their inaction with more than just words and unreliable statistics.
Jordan Duecker works at a nonprofit organization in Manhattan. He is a former aide in the Missouri governor’s office, where he led census operations, criminal justice reform, and unmanned aerial systems policy for Govs. Eric Greitens and Mike Parson.
