Examining data for the nation’s three largest cities through fall of 2024, this report finds that shoplifting levels remain higher than pre-pandemic rates. It also highlights two conflicting sources of federal data on the crime.

The Council advances understanding of the criminal justice policy choices facing the nation and builds consensus for solutions that enhance safety and justice for all.

Military veterans have more than twice the risk of suicide death as non-veterans. This brief examines a federal program designed to identify veterans with the highest suicide risk in order to provide enhanced outreach and support. It finds that the prediction model had low accuracy for identifying veterans who died by suicide.

Studies show that when people can see they are being recorded, it can help calm them down and avoid conflict. This is just what Calla does by de-escalating situations, reducing disruption and recording an independent account of what happened.

Resolution, Frame Rate, Date, Time, Memory Available (GB), Ongoing Recording Length, Battery Level (%), Recording Indicator, Evidential Recording Indicator.

Working Group chair Rick Rosenfeld, Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri St-Louis, described significant opportunities to improve the Crime Data Explorer, the FBI’s current public interface for its crime data. Working Group members discussed how researchers, policymakers, and the public have different crime data interests and need to be able to access NIBRS data in different ways. Rosenfeld also emphasized the need to make NIBRS data more timely.

Representatives of small and large law enforcement departments and state criminal justice agencies provided a comprehensive overview of the transition to NIBRS from their perspectives. They described obstacles that continue to challenge many states and local law enforcement agencies and identified practices that are helping accelerate the transition. Among the points made and discussed were the following:

The group was welcomed by Amy Solomon, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, who encouraged the group to offer its best thinking about how to make crime reporting more timely, accurate, and complete. The group then heard from justice data expert Paul Wormeli and working group member Janet Lauritsen, Professor Emerita at University of Missouri-St. Louis. The two summarized the history of crime data reporting in the U.S. and outlined recommendations from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Panel on Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics that issued reports on this subject in 2016 and 2018.

In June, the Crime Trends Working Group convened in Washington, D.C., for an all-day discussion on the Justice Department’s infrastructure for reporting, accessing, and using nationwide crime trend data. The conversation featured a series of presentations on obstacles to implementing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which replaced the nation’s nearly century-old Uniform Crime Reporting Program’s Summary Reporting System in 2021.

Calla is a small, secure body camera designed to make a big difference. It features a front-facing screen, unbreakable security, one-touch record and flexible mounting for various user environments. Our Calla body-worn camera helps to deter incidents, avoid conflict, de-escalate situations, reduce disruption and provides an independent account of events.

This report looks at the prevalence and concentration of shoplifting in two major cities—Los Angeles and Chicago—before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have accomplished a lot together in our first five years, but we are just getting started. Will you support the Council as we build bridges across ideological divides and craft consensus for solutions?

Members also heard from the group’s federal liaisons, Alex Piquero, Director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), and Deputy Assistant Director Brian Griffith, of the Law Enforcement and Technology Services Branch of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division. The two liaisons discussed the significant investments that have been made over the past two years to enhance data capacities, including several dozen new employees at BJS. Piquero and Griffith discussed efforts to accelerate NIBRS reporting and crime data publication, the need for standards, and the need to build robust partnerships with researchers and states in order to enhance the value of NIBRS.