A newer version of this project is available. See below for other available versions.

Jacob Kaplan's Concatenated Files: National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Data, 1991-2021

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Jacob Kaplan, Princeton University

Version:  View help for Version V8

Name File Type Size Last Modified
nibrs_1991_2021_administrative_segment_dta.zip application/zip 1.3 GB 04/02/2023 10:44:AM
nibrs_1991_2021_administrative_segment_rds.zip application/zip 1.1 GB 04/02/2023 10:43:AM
nibrs_1991_2021_arrestee_segment_dta.zip application/zip 866.2 MB 04/02/2023 12:09:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_arrestee_segment_rds.zip application/zip 611.7 MB 04/02/2023 12:24:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_batch_header_dta.zip application/zip 21.1 MB 04/02/2023 12:24:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_batch_header_rds.zip application/zip 13.9 MB 04/02/2023 12:29:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_group_b_arrest_report_segment_dta.zip application/zip 517.7 MB 04/02/2023 12:28:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_group_b_arrest_report_segment_rds.zip application/zip 303.7 MB 04/02/2023 12:28:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_offender_segment_dta.zip application/zip 1.3 GB 04/02/2023 02:36:PM
nibrs_1991_2021_offender_segment_rds.zip application/zip 1.2 GB 04/02/2023 12:18:PM

Project Citation: 

Kaplan, Jacob. Jacob Kaplan’s Concatenated Files: National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Data, 1991-2021. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-04-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E118281V8

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
Version 8 release notes:
  • Fixes issue where 2021 Property Segment data was excluded. Thank you to Uriel Lomeli for telling me about this issue.
Version 7 release notes:
  • Adds 2021 data.
Version 6 release notes:
  • Adds batch header segments for all years.
Version 5 release notes:
  • Adds 2020 data
Version 4 release notes:
  • Fix bug where most years had arrestee and property were incorrectly window arrestee and window property segments.
  • Changes R files from .rda to .rds.
Version 3 release notes:
  • Adds 2019 data
Version 2 release notes:
  • Changes release notes description, does not change data.
These data are the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data for years 1991-2018. NIBRS data are incident-level data that have highly detailed information for each crime that is reported to the police agency. This data has 10 segments. Each segment has different data about the crime.

  • Administrative
    • Basic information about the crime incident - this is basically metadata about the other segments for this crime. This includes the date of the crime, the number of offense segments, the number of victim segments, the number of offender segments, the number of arrestee segments, if the crime was cleared exceptionally and (if it was) what date it was cleared.
  • Arrestee
    • Arrestee-level information for those who are arrested. This includes demographics (age, sex, race, ethnicity), the date of the arrest (can be different than the date of the crime), what weapon (if any) was used, and the outcome of the case if the arrestee was a juvenile.
  • Group B Arrest Reports
    • Arrestee-level information for those who are arrested for Group B crimes. This includes the same variables as the arrestee segment.
  • Offender
    • Offender-level information for each offender. Includes offender demographics (age, sex, race, ethnicity).
  • Offense
    • Detailed information about each crime. Includes the weapon used (if any), the location of the crime, if the offender was intoxicated (including drugs and alcohol), and what their bias motivation (if any) was (if there is one, this would be considered a hate crime).
  • Property
    • Information about property involved in the crime (i.e. drugs or stolen property). This includes the value of the property, what type of the property it was, when it was recovered. For drugs, this includes the drug and its quantity.
  • Victim
    • Victim-level information for each victim of a crime. Includes victim demographics (age, sex, race, ethnicity), injury, and relationship to the offender(s).
  • Window Arrestee
    • Windows segments have the same columns as their non-window counterparts and are incidents that occurred prior to the year of data or prior to when the agency started reporting to NIBRS.
  • Window Exceptional Clearance
    • Windows segments have the same columns as their non-window counterparts and are incidents that occurred prior to the year of data or prior to when the agency started reporting to NIBRS.
  • Window Property
    • Windows segments have the same columns as their non-window counterparts and are incidents that occurred prior to the year of data or prior to when the agency started reporting to NIBRS.

Due to the large file size, each year is its own file.  All segment headers are available except for the batch headers. What I did here was read the data into R and save it as R and Stata files. No other changes to the data were made. 

The data was downloaded as NIBRS Master Files for each year from the FBI's Crime Data Explorer website - https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/downloads-and-docs.



Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms NIBRS; UCR; crime; hate crimes; arrest; national incident-based reporting system; FBI; violent crime; property crimes; national crime statistics (USA); computer related crimes; Uniform Crime Reports; crime patterns; white collar crime; drug related crimes
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 1/1/1991 – 12/31/2021
Universe:  View help for Universe Crimes in the United States
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) administrative records data

Methodology

Data Source:  View help for Data Source United States Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation crime incident, victim, offender, arrestee
Geographic Unit:  View help for Geographic Unit Police agency

Related Publications

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Published Versions

V11 [2025-08-21]

V10 [2024-04-10]

V9 [2023-10-28]

V8 [2023-04-12]

V7 [2023-04-03]

V6 [2022-08-15]

V5 [2022-05-09]

V4 [2021-07-10]

V3 [2021-04-15]

V2 [2021-01-16]

V1 [2020-03-18]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

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