National Incident-Based Reporting System, 2008: Extract Files

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is a part of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The extract files version of NIBRS was created to simplify working with NIBRS data. Data management issues with NIBRS are significant, especially when two or more segment levels are being merged. These issues require skills separate from data analysis. NIBRS data as formatted by the FBI are stored in a single file. These data are organized by various segment levels (record types). There are six main segment levels: administrative, offense, property, victim, offender, and arrestee. Each segment level has a different length and layout. There are other segment levels that occur with less frequency than the six main levels. Significant computing resources are necessary to work with the data in its single-file format. In addition, the user must be sophisticated in working with data in complex file types. For these reasons and the desire to facilitate the use of NIBRS data, ICPSR created the extract files. The data are not a representative sample of crime in the United States.

国家基于事件报告系统（National Incident-Based Reporting System, NIBRS）是统一犯罪报告计划（Uniform Crime Reporting Program, UCR）的组成部分，由联邦调查局（Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI）负责管理。为简化NIBRS数据的处理流程，相关机构开发了NIBRS提取文件版本。NIBRS原始数据存在较为突出的数据管理难题，尤其是在合并两个及以上数据段层级时，此类问题所需的操作技能与数据分析技能范畴截然不同。联邦调查局格式化后的NIBRS原始数据均存储于单个文件中，此类数据按照多种数据段层级（即记录类型）进行组织。其主要数据段层级共有6类，分别为行政段、犯罪段、财产段、受害者段、作案者段以及被捕者段，每一类数据段层级均拥有独特的长度规范与布局格式。此外还存在若干次要数据段层级，其出现频率远低于上述6类主要层级。以单文件格式处理此类数据，需要占用大量计算资源，同时使用者需具备复杂文件类型数据的专业处理能力与丰富经验。基于上述原因，同时为推动NIBRS数据的普及应用，校际政治与社会研究联盟（Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, ICPSR）开发了该提取文件版本。该提取文件数据集并非美国犯罪情况的代表性样本。