Supplemental UCR Data Submitted by the States

Before calculating the initial allocation amounts, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) undertook an extensive analysis of the data used in the formula. That analysis revealed that some jurisdictions believed that they had reported their data to their state-level Uniform Crime Reporting program, but for some reason the data were not included in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) files provided to the public. The extent of missing data varied considerably by state, with the FBI files containing 90% or more of most states' estimated totals published in Crime in the U.S. Files for some states, however, were as much as 80% incomplete, due to National Incident-Based Crime Reporting System (NIBRS) conversion, late reporting, and other factors. (NIBRS is being implemented as a successor to the UCR. The crime counting rules differ between the two programs and some implementing jurisdictions are unable to use the old rules that would allow submission of data comparable to those in the current UCR summary program.)

In 1997, the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services/Uniform Crime Reporting (CJIS/UCR) staff met with Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and BJS staff to discuss issues related to the use of UCR data in grant formula programs, including the issue of missing data. It was agreed that BJS should make an effort to correct missing data problems that occurred before UCR-reporting agencies were aware of the potential use of UCR data in grant formula computations. This covered UCR data through 1995.

BJS identified 28 state UCR programs with less than 100% coverage on the data files. As a result, the FBI invited state UCR programs in those 28 States to review the 1993-95 UCR data and to supplement those data. Responses were received from 12 states, 3 of which stated that the state had examined the data and was satisfied that the data were complete. The remaining 9 states provided supplemental data. The table below lists the state UCR programs that submitted additional crime data.

SUMMARY OF STATES THAT INITIALLY PROVIDED SUPPLEMENTAL DATA
FOR JABG FORMULA COMPUTATIONS

States Submitting Data

* The number of ORIs on the FBI files was used as the denominator. That number may include defunct reporting agencies.

States Responding But No Changes Necessary

California (but revised 1995 data for Oakland telephoned in by state and entered into formula files)

Iowa (bur revised data were provided later for Cedar Rapids and entered into formula files)

North Carolina

Since several of the issues that delay agencies and states from providing crime data to the FBI persist from year to year, JRSA has made an effort to supplement the crime data with state data where necessary. This has resulted in the use of state data for states whose coverage in the national data falls below 85%. The tables below show the states for which state data are used in each year of JABG funding.