Why NIBRS readiness starts before the submission.
The NIBRS-Ready RMS Series
When NIBRS Submissions Fail: Understanding the RMS Workflow
When a NIBRS submission is rejected, the problem appears to be at the end of the reporting process.
Often, it began much earlier.
Perhaps an offense was mapped incorrectly. A required relationship was not captured. Property information was incomplete. An arrest was entered differently than the reporting rules expected. A state-specific field was missing.
Or the RMS allowed a record to travel too far through the workflow before alerting anyone that something was wrong.
That is why one of the most important principles of NIBRS readiness is this:
The quality of the submission begins with the quality of the original record.
NIBRS Begins With the Incident
NIBRS is designed around detailed information about individual crime incidents and the offenses associated with them.
The FBI describes NIBRS as an incident-based system that captures considerably more context than aggregate summary reporting.
For an agency, this means everyday records activity becomes part of the reporting process.
Consider the path of one incident:
An officer records what happened.
The officer selects offenses.
Victims, known offenders, or other involved people are attached.
Property is entered.
A location is saved.
An arrest may occur.
The report is reviewed.
Corrections may be made.
Only after all of those steps does the information eventually become part of a NIBRS submission.
The submission file is therefore the output of an operational workflow.
If the workflow is difficult, fragmented, or inconsistent, the reporting process inherits those problems.
The Risk of Duplicate NIBRS Data Entry
One of the clearest warning signs is duplicate NIBRS entry.
Imagine this process:
An officer completes an incident report.
Someone opens another NIBRS screen.
Information already recorded in the incident must be entered again.
Records personnel compare both versions.
Missing fields are corrected.
Different values appear in different places.
A second review occurs.
The submission finally moves forward.
Technically, the organization may be reporting NIBRS.
But the agency has created an additional administrative process to make it happen.
That can increase:
Staff workload
Training requirements
Inconsistent data
Correction time
Dependence on NIBRS specialists
Frustration among report writers
Opportunities for errors
The more separate processes an agency creates, the harder it becomes to maintain consistency.
Enter NIBRS data once. Use it throughout the RMS.
A better approach is to make information collected for agency operations useful for reporting as well.
When an officer enters incident information, those data should support the eventual NIBRS record.
When property is entered, that information should flow into the applicable reporting structure.
When an arrest is recorded, the RMS should use the arrest data that already exist.
When a location is saved, available geographic information should remain associated with the record.
This creates a simple operational principle:
Enter the information once. Use it throughout the reporting process.
That does not mean every NIBRS requirement disappears.
It means the RMS should reduce unnecessary duplication wherever possible.
