National Incident-Based Reporting System

Addendum to the NIBRS Volumes:

Volume 1: Data Collection Guidelines

Volume 2: Data Submission Specifications

Volume 4: Error Message Manual

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program=s State Program Bulletin 99-2 dated 

June 23, 1999, announced that the FBI adopted five recommendations concerning the National 

Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) that were submitted and accepted through the 

Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Advisory Process. Recommendation 5 allowed 

agencies to treat several Group AA@ offenses as if they were Group AB@ offenses, reporting an 

incident number and the data elements that describe the arrestee and the circumstances of the 

arrest. However, this caused agencies to lose information that was critical to their efforts to 

conduct effective community policing. Additionally, implementing the recommendation created 

system incompatibilities between the local agencies’ and the state Program’s. Therefore, at its 

December 2001 meeting, the CJIS Advisory Policy Board voted to remove Recommendation 

5 of the standards for easing NIBRS implementation as stated in State Program Bulletin 02-1 

(March 2002). The following information is the revised Addendum to the National IncidentBased Reporting System (NIBRS) Volumes.

Recommendation 1: Allow agencies to report as few as two victim-to-offender relationships 

per victim.

Approach for Recommendation 1: NIBRS edits have been adjusted to permit recording 

relationships for only two offenders for each victim of a Crime Against Person or a robbery. 

That is, reports showing three or more offenders in the Offender Segment will be rejected only if 

fewer than two relationships are reported for any victim. The requirement for information for all 

offenders, however, will be retained for the Offender Segment.

Should this method of reporting be adopted, reporting agencies should relate the two 

primary offenders for each victim. The choice of primary offenders should be based on their 

degree of involvement in the offense against the designated victim. Accomplices should be 

reported last even though they may be close relatives of the victims. The primary offenders may 

be different for each victim.

U.S. Department of Justice

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Criminal Justice Information Services Division

Revised April 2002
Modified Victim Segment Edit

38. A VICTIM MUST BE CONNECTED TO AT LEAST TWO OFFENDERS

When a victim is connected to a Crime Against Person or Robbery UCR Offense Code 

and there are multiple offenders submitted, at least two of the Offender Sequence Numbers 

(Data Element 36) must be entered in Data Element 34 (Offender Numbers to be Related). If 

all offenders are being connected to the victim and there are more than 10 offenders, use the 

10 closest in relationship to the victim. In other words, if there were 15 offenders and 14 were 

neighbors and 1 was the brother, ensure that the brother was 1 of the 10 offenders entered. If all 

offenders are not being connected to the victim, reporting agencies should relate at a minimum 

the two primary offenders for each victim. The choice of primary offenders should be based on 

their degree of involvement in the offense against the designated victim. Accomplices should be 

reported last even though they may be close relatives of the victim. The primary offenders may 

be different for each victim.

(085)

Modified Error Number and Message

085 WHEN CONNECTED, EACH VICTIM MUST BE CONNECTED TO AT LEAST 

TWO OFFENDERS 

When a victim is connected to a Crime Against Person or Robbery UCR Offense Code 

and multiple offenders are submitted, at least two Offender Sequence Numbers (Data Element 

36) must be entered in Data Element 34 (Offender Numbers to be Related). In this case the 

victim segment does not show a relationship of at least two offenders when two or more 

offenders were submitted.

Recommendation 2: Allow agencies to impute the value of Location Type (Data Element 9) 

to individual offenses.

Recommendation 3: Allow agencies to impute the value of Bias Motivation (Data Element 

8a) to individual offenses.

Recommendation 4: Allow agencies to impute the value of Offenders Suspected of Using 

(Data Element 8) to individual offenses.

Approach for Recommendations 2, 3, & 4: This is a policy clarification; therefore, no 

system changes to NIBRS are necessary. These recommendations address situations in which 

local records systems capture only one location or bias motivation per incident or those that 

capture offender alcohol/drug/computer usage only at the incident or offender level. In such 

situations, assigning the known value to each offense comprising an incident is permissible. 

Because illogical combinations can sometimes result from these types of imputations, agencies 

should be alert for invalid report values.