Annual crime reports delayed

A change in reporting methods has resulted in the annual “Crime in South Dakota” report going unpublished since 2007, but state officials hope to have updated information available soon.

Since 1990, the annual summary of crime reported by South Dakota sheriffs and police departments has been made available online at the DCI website. The last report that is currently available, though, is 2007.

Sara Rabern, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said that the gap is due to a change in data systems from Uniform Crime Reports, or UCR, to the National Incident Based Reporting System, or NIBRS.

Rabern said the decision to switch to NIBRS was made by DCI Director Bryan Gortmaker. Part of the reason for the switch, Rabern said, was a push for NIBRS data rather than UCR data by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“NIBRS captures more information on each incident and captures more than one offense if there is one, whereas UCR used the hierarchy rule,” Rabern said.

According to the UCR Handbook, the hierarchy rule states that “when more than one Part I offense is classified, the law enforcement agency must locate the offense that is highest on the hierarchy list and score that offense involved and not the other offense(s) in the multiple-offense situation.”

Some South Dakota agencies have been reporting NIBRS for years, she said, but the 2008 decision required all agencies to use the NIBRS method.

Rabern said she expects the DCI’s website to have 2008 and 2009 crime reports available both physically and online early this summer.

The reports for 2007 and earlier contain statistics on murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, assaults, burglary, larceny, motor-vehicle theft, arson and other aspects of crime.

In former attorney general Larry Long’s written message at the beginning of the 2007 report, he said that “effective law enforcement requires accurate crime statistics in order to identify trends in criminal activity.”

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