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Audio Transcript

Mollie Halpern: The way in which the country’s crime data is collected will change in five years. The FBI will transition to an all National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, data collection.

NIBRS provides data in a way so detailed that crime trends and patterns can be identified. It can also help prevent crime.

NIBRS allows for informed conversations about officer-involved shootings, attacks on law enforcement, and other violent crimes.

FBI Director James Comey…

Director James Comey: How can we address a rise in violent crime without good information? And without information, every single conversation in this country about policing and reform and justice is uninformed, and that is a very bad place to be.

Halpern: The country’s major law enforcement organizations support retiring the traditional Summary Reporting System in favor of NIBRS.

Amy Blasher, a unit chief at the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, says law enforcement agencies will need assistance in collecting the data and sending it to the FBI.

Amy Blasher: The FBI is going to help move those agencies to NIBRS—whether that’s technical assistance, funding assistance, we’re prepared to do so.

Halpern: I’m Mollie Halpern with FBI, This Week.

Related information:

-Story: 2014 Expanded Crime Statistics Released