Incident Based Reporting: The Impact on Law Enforcement

Tyler Podcast Episode 33, Transcript

Our Tyler Technologies podcast explores a wide range of complex, timely, and important issues facing communities and the public sector. Expect approachable tech talk mixed with insights from subject matter experts and a bit of fun. Host and Content Marketing Director Jeff Harrell – and other guest hosts – highlights the people, places, and technology making a difference. Give us listen today and subscribe.

Episode Summary

At every level of government, there are mandates surrounding law enforcements move from Uniform Crime Reporting to Incident-Based Crime Reporting. Moving from one form of reporting to another is stressful in any situation, but in a career where mission-criticality is of the utmost importance, utilizing technology solutions can make this easier and better for all involved.

The Effect on Officers

At every level of government, there are mandates surrounding law enforcements move from Uniform Crime Reporting to Incident-Based Crime Reporting. Moving from one form of reporting to another is stressful in any situation, but in a career where mission-criticality is of the utmost importance, utilizing technology solutions can make this easier and better for all involved.

Skip Bland: IT managers, law enforcement managers really need to start researching companies that are going to provide them with solutions that are NIBRS compliant, that are configurable, and that they truly meet the needs of their modern day law enforcement officer. I think if they can start doing that, start doing the research and really take a good look at those solutions that are out there, they'll be helping out not only their staff, but they'll be helping out the people that they protect on a daily basis.

Jeff Harrell: From Tyler Technologies, it's the Tyler Tech podcast, where we talk about issues facing communities today and highlight the people, places, and technology, making a difference. I'm Jeff Harrell, I'm your host. I'm also the director of content marketing for Tyler Technologies. And I'm glad that you've joined me. Well today, we are diving in and looking very closely at public safety. It's interesting that at every level of government there are now mandates surrounding law enforcement to move from what they call uniform crime reporting to incident-based reporting. What does that mean? We're going to dive into that a little bit. But moving from one form of reporting to another is stressful in any situation, but in a career where mission criticality is of the utmost importance, utilizing technology solutions can make this transition easier and better for all involved. In this episode, we're going to hear from several different industry experts on how to best tackle these reporting mandates. And this is new ground for the Tyler Technology. We actually have three guests on this week, three experts, Clark Nethers, Adam Bobola, and Skip Bland, all from Tyler Technologies, experts in this space, all former law enforcement officers. You're going to hear from them. They're going to introduce themselves. This is a really interesting topic. I learned a lot listening to this. So without further ado, let's dive in.

Jeff Harrell: Well, fellas, I'm excited. We are breaking new ground today. I've never had three guests on at the same time. This is very exciting. So what I wanted to do is start out, don't usually do this, but have you guys introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your background. And Skip, if you don't mind, I'm going to start with you.

Skip Bland: Sure. Thank you, guys. This is Skip Bland. I'm one of the subject matter experts at Tyler Federal. Spent 15 years with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations doing a mirror of investigations. Counter-narcotics, counter smuggling, counter intelligence. So kind of a mixed bag of things.

Jeff Harrell: What about you, Adam?

Adam Bobola: Thank you. I'm Adam Bobola. I'm with New World Public Safety. I've been with New World for the past 10 years. For the past nine I worked in a part-time capacity at a local law enforcement agency in Michigan. Prior to that, I was full-time for about four. So total, about 13 years in law enforcement. Excited, happy to be here.

Jeff Harrell: Awesome. And what about you, Clark?

Clark Nethers: I'm an implementation consultant, the senior implementation consultant for INCO Public Safety. My market is small to medium size departments. And I have got 22 years of law enforcement experience. And when I retired from law enforcement, I got recruited to come to Tyler and implement projects for agencies of similar size of the small market entities.

Jeff Harrell: I feel very safe with you three. I don't know why, but I feel very safe. It's a safe place. Well, I wanted to start out, because we like doing in this podcast, to start with, what problem are we looking at? What problem are we trying to solve? And Clark, I'll turn to you. what is the issue here? And maybe define some of the terms we'll be talking about.

Clark Nethers: In law enforcement in the US today, we're transcending with reporting requirements that the FBI has. Traditionally since early seventies, agencies have been doing summary reporting under the Uniform Crime Reporting, also known as UCR reporting standard. The FBI is migrating all law enforcement entities across the country to a new standard called Incident-Based Reporting or NIBRS, National Incident-Based Reporting. And with that requirement and the FBI has set deadlines for this, to get all entities to use this new standard, which is a little bit more specific, but it allows, statistically, to have better across the board statistics, matching offenses between states and agencies across the country and make it easier to pull out statistics.

Clark Nethers: So that is the issue that law enforcement entities across the country are having to deal with is this transition because the differences between what summary reporting under the UCR standard was and what the NIBRS, National Incident-Based Reporting is, is significantly different. And like any other statistical reporting, depending on how you look at the numbers, it could inflate or it could deflate what your statistics are like. So what agencies are struggling with, of all kinds in law enforcement is, how do we implement this solution? At Tyler, and I'm speaking for the small market and medium market entities that we have a solution that is very intuitive, that allows an entity to be able to fulfill the requirements for NIBR reporting and do it intuitively that a field police officer does not have to be a subject matter expert in NIBR reporting. They can just do what it is that they do in their normal course of business and behind the scenes, the software does all the management of that reporting and allows the department's subject matter expert in NIBR reporting communicate that data onto the state. So we are trying and do provide a very concise, intuitive interface for those entities.

The Effect on Officers

Jeff Harrell: Adam, I'd love to ask you with your experience in law enforcement, this change and mandate, is this a good thing for officers?

Adam Bobola: It is. It's a good thing because you're getting more detailed information that you're submitting, I guess, depending on who you ask. Now, you say, is it a good thing for officers? I think it is because I think it allows more information on what crimes are happening, but I think more so, the higher up the chiefs. The conversations that I've taken part in, the chiefs really want to see what's happening. whether it's a city, a township, a county, a state. They want to see what's happening in certain locations and where crimes are happening and it allows them to see more information on what's happening in those cities.

Clark Nethers: I wanted to add between the local agency and the county, state level agencies, because it is a standard, you could compare a local agency and say a small agency in Texas to a major agency in another state. And they're comparing apples to apples. Local offenses, state offenses, federal offenses. The NIBR standard equalizes that so you can actually compare, per capita, statistics across the board. So it helps those administrators make informed decisions when they're needing to fight crime, make budgetary decisions.

The Effect on Citizens

Jeff Harrell: And Adam, how does that impact citizens? So someone like myself, who's worried about just safe neighborhoods and safety. I've got children out driving around as well. What does that mean for the citizen?

Adam Bobola: Yeah. So the switch to incident-based reporting really allows more detailed information to be submitted so that residents and anybody living in those local areas can see what crimes and what statistics are actually happening. So it is definitely a good thing. And like Clark said, I've had conversations not really relevant to work, but just people looking to see where they want to move. And looking at crime stats is one of those big things that people look at. So the fact that they can compare on a national standard level to see. They're all submitting the same type of stats, just to see what areas are safer and what is happening out there. So it's definitely a good thing.

Jeff Harrell: So, Adam, I'm curious. When someone changes from summary reporting to IBR, is there anything that should be aware of? Is there anything that maybe gets out of whack?

Adam Bobola: Yes, that's a great question. One of the biggest things that we see during this transition process is because they're going from a summary-based reporting system to an incident-based reporting system, the crimes that are being submitted and reported, there's this spike that we'll call it a crime spike, that because all of a sudden they're reporting everything versus UCR, which is only some of those crimes that are being reported, there's this spike. So conversations that I've had with some of the administrative staff or the chiefs, or even the city councils, is all of a sudden, they think there's this huge crime spike. And police departments aren't doing their job or they're not protecting the community. And actuality, it's just the fact that they switched to an incident-based reporting system. And now all the crimes are being submitted, which in the long run is a good thing because we're seeing all the crimes that are being submitted. But residents or mayors, or people that really want their crime stats low, all of a sudden, there's this huge spike and it freaks them out a little bit. So we do try to help our agencies get ahead of that and have that conversation like, "Hey, when we switch, you're going to see a crime spike. It's not that all of a sudden it's summer and people are running around the streets rampant. That's not what's happening."

Adam Bobola: And the FBI actually does have a document that they put out on their website. And I think it's titled something along the lines of Effects of Reporting NIBRS. And it does go into the details of why they're going to see those spikes and what's actually happening. So I generally give that out to our agencies and the chiefs and have them read that so they understand what is going to happen.

Jeff Harrell: How do citizens get that information? Do they go to a website to understand it? How does it actually funnel down to them?

Clark Nethers: There are different methods. A, there's nothing preventing a law enforcement agency from putting it on their local website. But at minimum, those statistics are available through the FBI. So you can go to the FBI's website and pull up statistics for any state, any region and do your own analytics for whatever it is that you're concerned about. That's all publicly available. And that's part of what this project is that the FBI is doing is to get a standard that everybody follows, that compares apples to apples across all entities, across all of the nation, and make it publicly available.

Jeff Harrell: And I'd love, Skip, to turn to you, because you bring more of a federal perspective, a little bit higher level perspective to this conversation. What are some of the things you're thinking about from a federal perspective?

Skip Bland: Well, I really look at this as the availability for more detail intelligence and information across the board. As Clark had stated, the UCR was really about summarizing information and incidents, whereas the NIBRS really gives you more detailed information. And I think it helps in investigations across the whole landscape, as Adam has stated. It allows managers to be able to understand how to deploy resources, strategic policing. And I think at least on the federal side, it allows most of these agencies to really get a hold of what's actually affecting some of the federal facilities, the different foundations that are run under the federal mandate. And so what I'm finding, at least on the federal side, is a lot of agencies are welcoming the NIBRS approach. And what I like to do, when I say federal, I'm also including the military as well, because what they had was called DIBRS, which is Defense Incident-Based Reporting. And so many of them have really had to get a hard lesson in how important this information is. When I think about the importance of NIBRS, those are the key things that I look at because it's all about preventing harm to other people in assisting investigations and identifying persons that may not be on the right side of the law.

New Barriers

Jeff Harrell: That's great. And I understand now some of the benefits of this change in mandate, but you three have been in law enforcement, and I imagine that with a change like this, any change, that can be mandates or changing your schedule personally, change is difficult. Change is hard. What are some of the barriers these agencies are facing because of this mandate change? Clark, let's start with you.

Clark Nethers: So that's where we really focus in INCO Public Safety and in the local small market to bring to the table a software that is intuitive, that doesn't require a lot of additional data entry for that officer. They don't necessarily have to have a lot of education in what NIBR incident-based reporting is. They just do their job and the software does all the heavy lifting for them. So the administrators within the department can then push that data on to the state and on to the FBI. So we try to take that data, make it easy to collect without the officers requiring reeducation or anything. Change in the law enforcement community, any community sometimes can be hard, but we try to make the software intuitive enough to where we minimize the impact of change.

Jeff Harrell: And Adam, I'd love to hear from you having been in the field so long and now being at Tyler and using technology. Talk a little bit about what that means to you.

Adam Bobola: Yeah. I would add a little bit to what Clark said. We urge them to take the state led training. So in all these transitions, there's usually a state led training where they go over the basics. And I know the FBI does it as well. They hold some classes where they're explaining what NIBRS is, what data elements are required. And there's a lot. Don't get me wrong. There's a lot. It's overwhelming at times, just the amount of information, the difference between collecting UCR and IBR, the additional amount of data elements that they have to collect. And when I say data elements, it's basically the fields. When you look at a case report, the fields that they have to input data into. So we do urge our agencies to go through that training. And it's usually the records personnel that do that because they're the ones that end up with those case reports. And they're the ones that are going to be clearing the ... You'll hear me refer to edits. So if they had this offense on a case report, they need X, Y, and Z filled out. And if they don't have X filled out, they're going to hit an edit saying, "Go fill X out." So we do our best to help them with that. And when that edit pops up, they can click on it and it'll take them to where that field is, to try to direct them to that. So we do try to help them with that. But with that being said, obviously if they don't fill out all that data, the software's not going to fill it out for them. So we do try to handhold them a little bit through our software, but they do need to understand those data elements and why they need to fill those out.

Technology and Software Aid

Jeff Harrell: I know a lot of our agencies, they've got tightened resources. And I know in law enforcement, time is of the essence. Clark, I'll start with you. How does technology and software help with that?

Clark Nethers: So that's where our software steps in and we're doing all of the requirements are built into the logic of the software. So that officer who may not be educated in what all of the reporting requirements are, and I'll just use an example of say a theft. There are certain data elements which are required for a theft, but the officer doesn't necessarily have to know what those are. They choose, say the offense of theft, and the system is going to say, "Well, because you're going to charge or have an offensive theft, you're now required to have these data elements completed before your report is satisfactory for state reporting. So the officer, of course through time, will learn what those are and it will become easier. But we try to have the software designed in a fashion that you don't have to be an IBR expert, Incident-Based Reporting expert. All you need to know is the offense and so on. So it really guides the user through the process of being able to complete that report.

Jeff Harrell: And Skip, is that true also at the federal level as well?

Skip Bland: Oh, absolutely. And I love the way that Clark had alluded to that, is that our systems are configurable and they automate the workflow so that each data element that's compared to whatever NIBRS fields have to be filled out is already set up as a business rule. So it makes it so easy for the operator to go in, put the information in, and it guides them to what the next steps are. That way they can get their reporting completed, go back out and keep the community safe.

Jeff Harrell: Awesome. Well, it sounds like the technology and the software makes it easier, guides the officers. But at the end of the day, someone like myself, a citizen of a community, we're really worried about how does this make it a community safer? So, Clark, I'll start with you. At the end of the day, how does it do that?

Clark Nethers: It gives the department of the local law enforcement the ability to see, statistically, what is going on and comeback crime in their locale, that local agency. But from a broader standpoint, a small agency may want to also look at a neighboring agency to see how crime over there compares to them and how they can have focused enforcement and compare those offenses with what's going on at the neighboring city, the neighboring county, or even the region in which they're working. So it allows administrators to guide their departments to have better enforcement and focused enforcement towards certain types of crime that they're trying to combat in their locale.

Jeff Harrell: Does that resonate with your area as well?

Adam Bobola: Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. I think the fact that they're getting real detailed with their submissions, I've talked to a lot of agencies that they call them hotspots. So they'll pull up crime maps and look at hotspots for certain crimes and they can be real strategic with how they're going to enforce and try to combat some of those crimes to try to either be proactive or just getting officers in that area to try to prevent crime before it even happens. So the fact that they can get real granular with what they're seeing. Like I said, they can get real strategic on how they're going to enforce crime in those areas.

Jeff Harrell: And what about for you, Skip?

Skip Bland: Yeah. And I agree with both of my colleagues. I think that that information helps managers really deploy resources in the right places. Well, the federal side of the house, most of the law enforcement features deal with force protection. Being able to guard facilities, making facilities safe for the federal employees coming in. So I think having that information makes the employees feel safe, because they know that the law enforcement officials are on top of things. They have the right number of staff members at various places, their vehicles that they leave behind every day when they're going to work are safe. And so again, it's really all about providing that protective ring around the assets, a community for state and local, and facilities in areas on the federal side of the house.

Clark Nethers: So in addition to what Skip just said, analytics today drives every business. It drives sports industry, it drives economics, it drives everything. And law enforcement to keep up with the changes in society and in their communities have to leverage these analytics, these statistics, to be able to keep up with the changes and as fast as they're changing in their area. And so being able to leverage this reporting method that has been come up with by the FBI, and leverage those analytics to compare agency, to agency, location, and offense, and so forth. That is how the different law enforcement entities are able to focus and provide a safer community or environment for citizens, employees, or any other consumer that needs to be safer in how to make that better.

Jeff Harrell: And if I'm an agency, now I'm listening to this, I know the mandate's in place. I need to do something with that. I like what I'm hearing. Is there something that an agency can do now to prepare or meet the mandate that they have in their area?

Skip Bland: Well, on the federal side of the house, I think that IT managers, law enforcement managers really need to start researching companies that are going to provide them with solutions that are NIBRS compliant, that are configurable and that they truly meet the needs of the modern day law enforcement officer. I think if they can start doing that, start doing the research, and really take a good look at those solutions that are out there, they'll be helping out not only their staff, but they'd be helping out the people that they protect on a daily basis.

Jeff Harrell: So to add what Skip was saying, the INCO Public Safety is not new to NIBR reporting. NIBR reporting has been around for quite some time and our product has had the capability to do NIBRS or UCR since the mid twenties. So we have had clients that have been using incident-based reporting for quite some time. So this isn't new to us, but it is new to the market of law enforcement. And that's what all of our products bring to the table is experience in NIBRS and being able to assist our clients with producing accurate reporting to the state, which is required. And this isn't new to us. This is something that all of our products have been doing for quite some time. But it's new to them and it's different. And having that fear of change, we're able to bring a product across the board, regardless of the size, that is intuitive to use, eases that transition through to the new incident-based reporting method.

Adam Bobola: Right. And to add, if I may. Obviously the goal for, I think all of our software, is the goal of the software is to make the jobs easier for the officers, right? I mean, we've had conversations, just the amount of time that officers and record staff are spending on reports. The ultimate goal of the software is to limit the time spent in the office or at the department filling out reports so that the officers can be in the field protecting the citizens and providing a safer community. So that's the ultimate goal at the end of the day is to limit that time spent on the computer, filling out reports, doing all this stuff. So I just wanted to add that as well.

Jeff Harrell: So Clark, any specific examples of where maybe an agency that was using more of a manual process, went to automation and saved time or money.

Clark Nethers: So we did have a client a couple years ago that needed to be able to report their NIBR reporting, and they were completely on paper even in the post 2010 time. And this agency had more than 500 officers that needed to be able to do that. And we were able to bring them a solution that with that size of department, we're able to put our product out. The officers were able to do the exact same reporting, but instead of doing it on paper, they were able to put it directly in the system, in the field, in the unit without doing it on paper. And without that having to go to their local supervisor, without that having to go to their commander, then to go to their precinct commander, then to go to records, to then be available for an investigator to investigate, which at this particular agency was on average, about seven days. To then, after they went live and got through their learning curve period, their learning period, were able to get reports done in some cases, depending on narrative sides and so forth. It could go through the entire approval process and be potentially available to a citizen to get a copy in 30 minutes to an hour. So having the expedience of that data to get in the system, not asking the officer to collect any more information than they already were in the first place, but it was not paper based. It was digitally entered and it expedited the data getting through the system, they were able and still are able to accurately provide NIBR statistics, and make the data available to all the officers virtually instantly because they're doing field reporting with that.

Clark Nethers: And a residual effect that had happened with this particular client because they went to a less paper system, they were instantly, I say instantly, the first year, they were able to recognize a quarter of a million dollar savings in paper consumables, copiers, ink and all of that, just because they went to a more digital process. There was always going to be paper, but instead of it being a hundred percent paper based, all of these successes took place for this client. And they had more accurate statistics on top of that.

Jeff Harrell: Skip, any success stories in the federal space?

Skip Bland: Well, yeah. Actually, one of the military branches we've supported, one of their implementations to be, I think they're one of the only NIBRS reporting units with roughly 30,000 officers around the world are now successfully reporting DIBRS information to the FBI and is thanks to a collective effort with Tyler Federal. And it's been a great opportunity supporting them. And I'm looking forward to helping the other DOD branches as well.

Jeff Harrell: And Adam, I'll turn to you. I know you're working across the country. Any statistics you can share with us?

Adam Bobola: Yeah. We've been transitioning agencies for the past several years, and I think Clark talked about it earlier. IBR is not new. It's not new to us. We've had an IBR solution in a lot of states for many years. And some states even were collecting both UCR and IBR for several years before the mandate. So agencies had that choice on what they wanted to submit. And I believe at this point we have 46 states that we have an IBR solution in. So we've been transitioning agencies for several years and we've been very successful at it and we'll continue to transition the last remaining states. The FBI's mandate is passed, but we're still working to transition those agencies and we'll continue to do that until we have everybody on IBR.

Jeff Harrell: Fellas, this has been great. Lots of information, helped me understand what this mandate means. If someone had more questions or wanted to get in touch with each of you, I'll start with you, Clark, what's the best way for them to do that.

Clark Nethers: The absolute best way to get ahold of me is by way of email. My email address is clark.nethers@tylertech.com.

Jeff Harrell: Awesome. And Adam, what about you?

Adam Bobola: I won't spell everything out, but I'll spell my name out. So it'd be adambobola@tylertech.com.

Jeff Harrell: Awesome. And Skip, what about you?

Skip Bland: They could reach me at skip.bland@tylertech.com.

Jeff Harrell: So this is the first time we've had three people on the same time. I think we figured it out. So really appreciate all of your expertise and for sharing this information. Really appreciate you being on.

Clark Nethers: Thank you for having us.

Skip Bland: Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having us.

Jeff Harrell: Well, I think we figured it out. Three guests at one time, such great information. I learned a ton. Hope you did as well. The Tyler Tech podcast, we launch a new episode every other Monday. So we would love for you to subscribe, give us a review, give us some feedback. We want to make sure that we are talking about the topics in the public sector and school space that are relevant and interesting to you. So let us know what those things are. My name is Jeff Harrell. I'm the director of content marketing for Tyler Technologies. I really appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon.