In accordance with mandatory federal data collection standards, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) is pleased to announce the Agency has successfully achieved certification to implement the FBI’s new National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).
The Charles County Sheriff’s Office is one of 36 law enforcement agencies out of 142 in Maryland to have already achieved this new standard in crime reporting in which all law enforcement agencies across the country must transition to.
As a certified NIBRS participant, the Sheriff’s Office, and the data it reports, are helping shape the future of crime statistics. “I am proud of the effort, work, and attention to detail it took to transition to a new, more detailed way of reporting crime data as mandated by the FBI,” said Sheriff Troy Berry.
During the transition of the way crime data is reported, the CCSO’s data submissions were reviewed and determined to meet the data quality requirements as set forth by the FBI and the Maryland Department of State Police (MSP).
Starting in January 2021, law enforcement agencies, nationwide, began transitioning from the Summary Reporting System (SRS) under the Unified Crime Reporting (UCR) to NIBRS, which offers significant improvements in statistical data collection, offense classification, and crime incident management.
NIBRS delves much deeper into each incident to provide information about the circumstances and context of crimes, such as location, time of day, and whether the incident was cleared. NIBRS also captures more details on victims, known offenders, relationships between victims and offenders, arrestees, property, and drugs involved in crimes. The additional detailed crime data are captured in a standardized format, which provides greater analytic ability and makes NIBRS a more thorough crime-reporting standard.
NIBRS counts 58 categories of offenses compared to the 10 categories of offenses UCR gathers. The more expansive list includes offenses such as extortion and kidnapping, as well as many other common or serious offenses not included in UCR.
The data submitted represents when an incident was reported to the CCSO and does not include municipalities or the Maryland State Police
For additional details about how crime data is collected nationally, click on the FBI link at https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/.
To find crime data relating to Charles County, click on this link: https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/explorer/agency/MD0090000/crime
