A Crosswalk Study of Law Enforcement Agency Records of Nonfatal Shootings with Aggravated Assaults captured in NIBRS

Abstract Despite being more prevalent, national efforts to provide a valid and reliable source of data on nonfatal shooting injuries lag behind those focused on fatal shooting injuries. Even more, national data systems that do collect data on nonfatal shooting injuries have severe shortcomings that place limits on their usefulness to inform firearm violence research, including intervention and prevention efforts. Our study focuses on one common source of firearm violence data that is supported by law enforcement agencies (LEAs): The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Recognizing the limitations of NIBRS and to inform internal practices, some LEAs keep records on nonfatal shooting injuries. These records prevent a natural opportunity to compare known incidents of nonfatal shootings to aggravated assaults involving a firearm and injury to the victim, a NIBRS proxy measure for nonfatal shootings. To this end, the purpose of our study is to assess the ability of NIBRS to identify nonfatal shooting incidents through a comparison of known nonfatal shooting incidents identified by the Detroit Police Department from 2017 through 2020. Our findings demonstrate the value of expanding NIBIRS to improve the measurement of nonfatal shooting injuries and the importance of LEAs in driving this change and supporting firearm violence research.