The FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division established and maintains the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), a part of the FBIs Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Currently, about 6,600 of the nearly 18,000 law enforcement (LE) agencies in the United States report their crime and arrest data to the UCR in the NIBRS format. Additional agencies continue to transition to NIBRS; however, at present, data submitted by the NIBRS-reporting agencies cannot be used to generate national-level estimates of crime known to LE. To generate national estimates based on the NIBRS data, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and FBI CJIS are co-sponsoring the National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) Initiative. NCS-X seeks to transition a scientifically selected sample of 400 LE agencies from across the country to NIBRS, including all of the largest agencies. Once these 400 agencies have transitioned to NIBRS reporting, NIBRS data will be sufficient to produce timely, accurate, and detailed national measures of crime and arrest needed and expected by todays LE professionals, policymakers, and the public.
BJS seeks applications from organizations or project teams to serve as the NCS-X Implementation Team and provide implementation and technical assistance support services to NCS-X grantees, sample agencies, state UCR Programs, and other NCS-X stakeholders. This team will work closely with BJS and FBI CJIS to transition the NCS-X sample agencies to NIBRS-compliant reporting. In collaboration with BJS and FBI CJIS staff, the NCS-X Implementation Team will provide services across six primary program components:
- NCS-X project management”effectively manage and coordinate all aspects of implementation and technical assistance for NCS-X across all program components
- NCS-X program recruitment”conduct aggressive outreach to state UCR Programs and local LE agencies to garner support for and participation in the NCS-X Initiative
- Technical and implementation assistance to NCS-X agencies”work directly with state UCR Programs and local LE agencies to discuss the specific needs of the agencies when transitioning to NIBRS-compliant reporting, including current agency capabilities, barriers to reporting, and business practices surrounding crime data reporting
- NCS-X program development”assess current program materials and update as needed, including Concept of Operations planning documents, playbooks for NIBRS implementation at the state and local agency levels, and readiness assessment (RA) and cost estimation documents; and develop new materials to support state UCR Programs and local LE agencies, as required
- Marketing and outreach”revamp and refresh current program description materials; work with BJS to expand information available on BJSs NCS-X website; develop new infographics and other appropriate marketing materials to describe various aspects of the NCS-X Initiative; conduct webinars about the transition to NIBRS reporting among state and local agencies; and design and implement other marketing and outreach activities, as required
- Analytic support and reporting”conduct methodological and statistical analysis of NIBRS and other data to
- provide use-cases for NIBRS;
- provide analytic models for data analysis to state UCR Programs and local LE agencies;
- track progress toward full implementation of NCS-X;
- provide feedback to state UCR Programs and local agencies regarding data quality and completeness; and
- assist BJS and FBI CJIS in the development of reports and other statistical products using NIBRS/UCR data to further NCS-X program objectives.
The NCS-X Implementation Team funded by this program must provide effective implementation and technical assistance support services to the NCS-X Initiative, including project management and coordination; program development, recruitment, and implementation; marketing and outreach; and technical and analytic support.
The proposed NCS-X Implementation Team must have (1) substantial expertise with the relevant substantive and statistical issues addressed in the solicitation; (2) the personnel and technology infrastructure necessary to complete the large-scale, multifaceted program recruitment activities; effectively manage and execute implementation and technical assistance support services; and provide effective marketing, outreach, and analytic support to NCS-X grantees and the broad diverse community of NIBRS/UCR stakeholders; and (3) sufficient administrative capabilities necessary to successfully undertake a project of this scope and complexity.