The National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) Team is pleased to announce the arrival of the NIBRS Pre-Certification Tool.  The tool will allow law enforcement agencies to conduct a “trial run” of its NIBRS data to locate errors and inconsistencies prior to officially submitting its data to a State UCR program and/or to FBI CJIS.  Agencies simply drag-and-drop their data to the site in a single NIBRS text file or a zip file containing single NIBRS text file to generate an easy-to-understand list of errors with descriptions.

Instructions on how to use the tool are available on the website:  http://bit.ly/NIBRS-PCTool

Please note:

• The tool complies with all the rules and edit checks of the national FBI NIBRS standard (version 3.1).  It is not specific to any particular state, so will not include data elements or response categories that may have been added by the state.
• The tool is not a substitute for FBI NIBRS Certification, nor is it a substitute for State UCR Certification.  It will simply help agencies to identify where to concentrate its efforts in automating changes to its RMS and/or rules validations.
• Additional formats of the tool (e.g., xml file submission) and other user-friendly updates to improve ease of understanding of error reports are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2018.

On the website, you may share your thoughts about its functionality and suggestions on how to improve it.

The NCS-X Team is comprised of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, RTI International, SEARCH, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, IJIS Institute, Police Executive Research Forum, and the Association of State UCR Programs.