Data Source

This data comes from the National Incident-Based Reporting System. NIBRS data is collected voluntarily from law enforcement agencies and reported to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, which then transmits the data to the North Carolina Criminal Justice Analysis Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

NIBRS data is reported at the incident level. The FBI defines an incident as “one or more offenses committed by the same offender, or group of offenders acting in concert, at the same time and place” (2025.0 NIBRS User Manual, p. 5).

NIBRS classifies crimes into 81 offenses. Incident-level data is collected for the 71 Group A offenses in NIBRS, which are more serious crimes. Only arrest data is collected for Group B offenses. The North Carolina Justice Data Portal’s NIBRS dashboards include only information on Group A offenses.

Within an incident, there may be one or more offenses. However, a given offense will only be recorded once per incident.

Update Schedule

Dashboards using NIBRS data are refreshed every quarter in January, April, July and October. Annual data is added in July of the following year.

Other Things to Consider

• The offense definitions used by NIBRS may not correspond directly with state criminal statutes. Care should be taken when comparing NIBRS offenses to criminal charges.
• Multiple offenses may occur within the same incident. Multiple victims and offenders may be associated with the same incident. When comparing numbers on the Justice Data Portal to local crime data, consider whether counts or rates are based on numbers of incidents, offenses, victims or offenders.
• Other factors, such as the overall demographics of an area; population size and density; economic conditions; and other location-based circumstances should be considered when viewing crime data.
• Not all law enforcement agencies in North Carolina report NIBRS data. See the Reporting Agencies page of the Justice Data Portal for the most up-to-date information on which agencies reported each year. 
• To allow for calculation of crime rates by county, Rocky Mount is treated as belonging to Edgecombe County and all Rocky Mount crimes are assigned to Edgecombe County.

Terms and Definitions

Offense Categories

• Person – an offense against an individual, such as a homicide, assault or sex offense
  • Homicide Offenses
  • Sex Offenses
  • Assault Offenses
  • Kidnapping/Abduction
  • Human Trafficking Offenses
• Property – an offense to obtain money or some other goods, such as burglary, larceny or fraud
  • Robbery
  • Arson
  • Extortion/Blackmail
  • Burglary/Breaking & Entering
  • Larceny/Theft Offenses
  • Motor Vehicle Theft
  • Counterfeiting/Forgery
  • Fraud Offenses
  • Embezzlement
  • Stolen Property Offenses
  • Destruction/Damage/Vandalism of Property
  • Bribery   
• Society – an offense that breaks a societal prohibition, such as drug offenses, prostitution or weapon law violations
  • Pornography/Obscene Material
  • Gambling Offenses
  • Prostitution Offenses
  • Weapon Law Violations
  • Animal Cruelty
  • Drug Offenses
• Other Offenses Against Person – includes Kidnapping/Abduction and Human Trafficking Offenses
• Public Order Offenses – includes crimes against society other than drug offenses

Race Categories

• Other/Unknown includes:
  • Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
  • Unknown Race

About the Crimes-Reported-Statewide Dashboard

Level of Aggregation

• For the purposes of this dashboard, a single crime is counted for each offense in an incident.
• The School/Educational Property location combines the NIBRS locations of School - Elementary/Secondary, School - College/University and School/College.

About the Crimes-Reported-by-County Dashboard

Level of Aggregation

• For the purposes of this dashboard, a single crime is counted for each offense in an incident.
• Crime rates are calculated based on reporting jurisdictions, with the total number of reported offenses in a jurisdiction divided by the total population of the jurisdiction. 
• If an agency reports for fewer than six months in a year, it may be classified as non-reporting. 
• Offenses from non-reporting agencies will not contribute to the crime rate.

About the Reported Offender Demographics Dashboard

Offender characteristics are collected by local law enforcement when a crime is reported. Each year in North Carolina approximately 70% of crime incidents have at least one characteristic of the offender(s) – race, ethnicity, gender, or age – reported to law enforcement for identification purposes.

Please note:

• There may be multiple offenders reported within a single incident of crime. 
• This does not include instances where no information is known about a possible offender or offenders.
• This includes reported offenders for all crime types. 
• This dashboard reflects only the characteristics of the person(s) reported to have been the offender(s) or potential offender(s) to law enforcement. This is not related to whether an arrest was made for a crime or the characteristics of any arrested persons.

Level of Aggregation

For the purposes of this dashboard, each reported offender is counted once per incident reported. When there are multiple offenses in the same incident, offenders are counted in the first applicable group as follows: 

• Homicide Offenses
• Sex Offenses
• Assault Offenses
• Other Offenses Against Person
• Property Offenses
• Public Order Offenses
• Drug Offenses

The average age is suppressed when filters result in fewer than five offenders.

About the Victim Demographics Dashboard

Victim demographic information is collected by law enforcement at the time a crime is reported. This dashboard only describes victims who made a report to law enforcement and is not reflective of all victimizations. Additionally, only victims who are classified as Individuals are included in the dashboard. Businesses and other organizations are not included. The dashboard also does not include data on law enforcement officers killed and assaulted in the course of duty.

Level of Aggregation

For the purposes of this dashboard, each individual victim is counted once per incident reported. In circumstances where a person is reported to be a victim of multiple offenses in the same incident, that victim is counted in the first applicable group as follows:

• Homicide Offenses
• Sex Offenses
•  Assault Offenses
• Other Offenses Against Person
• Property Offenses

The average age is suppressed when filters result in fewer than five victims.

About the Victim-Offender Relationship Dashboard

Data Notes and Methodology

For the purposes of this dashboard, a single relationship and a single offense type is counted per victim as described below. Additionally, only victims who are classified as Individuals are included in the dashboard. Businesses and other organizations are not included. The dashboard also does not include data on law enforcement officers killed and assaulted in the course of duty.

Closest Relationship per Victim

Data in this report reflects a victim’s closest relationship with offender(s) in reported person and property offenses against an individual.

• Example 1: Within a single incident, a single victim is kidnapped and assaulted by two offenders. One is the victim’s ex-spouse and the other is a friend of the ex-spouse. The “closest relationship” in this instance would be Current or Former Intimate Partner (ex-spouse) and the offense category would be Assault Offense.
• Example 2: Within a single incident, two victims are intimidated by one offender. One of the victims knows the offender to be their neighbor. The second victim does not know the offender at all. In this instance, because there are two victims, each victim-offender relationship is included (Known but Outside Family for victim 1 and Stranger for victim 2).

In offenses where a participant is both a victim and an offender (such as a barroom brawl), the Victim-Offender relationship was excluded. Victim-offender relationship categories are listed in the Terms and Definitions section in descending order of closeness.

Single Offense Type per Victim

When multiple types of offenses are committed against a single victim, only one offense type is included per victim. Each victim is counted for the first applicable offense type as follows:

• Homicide Offenses
• Sex Offenses
• Assault Offenses
• Other Offenses Against Person
• Property Offenses - Only property offenses where the victim type was an individual, rather than a business, are included.

Terms and Definitions

Juvenile and Adult Age Categories

• Juvenile victims are aged 17 or younger.
• Adult victims are aged 18 or older.

Victim-Offender Relationship Categories

• Current or Former Intimate Partner
  • Victim was Spouse
  • Victim was Common-Law Spouse
  • Victim was Boyfriend/Girlfriend
  • Victim was Ex-Spouse
  • Ex-Relationship (Ex-boyfriend/ex-girlfriend)
• Within Family
  • Victim was Parent
  • Victim was Sibling (brother or sister)
  • Victim was Child
  • Victim was Grandparent
  • Victim was Grandchild
  • Victim was In-law
  • Victim was Stepparent
  • Victim was Stepchild
  • Victim was Stepsibling (stepbrother or stepsister)
  • Victim was Other Family Member
• Known but Outside Family
  • Victim was Acquaintance
  • Victim was Friend
  • Victim was Neighbor
  • Victim was Baby/Child in care of a Babysitter
  • Victim was Child of Boyfriend or Girlfriend
  • Victim was Employee
  • Victim was Employer
  • Victim was Otherwise Known
• Stranger
  • Victim was Stranger
• Unknown
  • Relationship Unknown

Other data considerations

This dashboard only describes victims who made a report to law enforcement and is not reflective of all victimizations.

About the Reporting Agencies Dashboard

Law enforcement agencies, such as county sheriffs’ offices and police departments for towns, cities and universities across the state, submit NIBRS crime reports to the SBI, which then provides the data to the Criminal Justice Analysis Center and the FBI's NIBRS. Not all agencies report data. Some agencies, like parks, have no jurisdictional population. The crime activity for a county is more accurate the higher the percentage of the population covered.

Note: Jurisdictional population data for each year is available starting October of the following year. In the case that jurisdictional population data is not available for the most recent year, jurisdictional population data for the previous year will be used.
 

Data Source

Data on traffic stops is collected by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation in accordance with NCGS §143B-903, which specifies the agencies that are required to report. The SBI transmits data on traffic stops to the Criminal Justice Analysis Center for use in the North Carolina Justice Data Portal. Click on the Agencies Reporting link on the dashboard for a list of agencies that are reporting by year.

Data updates 

This dashboard is updated quarterly in January, April, July and October. Data is released with a six-month lag.

Terms and definitions

Reason for Stop    

• Speed Limit Violation
• Stop Light/Stop Sign Violation
• Suspected DWI
• Unsafe Movement
• Vehicle Equipment/Regulatory Violation
• Seat Belt Violation
• Other Violation
  • Investigation (recorded when an investigation is opened into a traffic stop that would not normally be submitted)
  • Checkpoint (recorded only when an enforcement action is taken at a checkpoint)
  • Other Motor Vehicle Violation

Result of Stop

• Arrest
• Citation
• Warning/No Action (includes both verbal and written warnings)

Search Conducted 

A single search is counted when one or more of the following is searched during a traffic stop: driver, passenger, vehicle, property.

Search Types

• Probable Cause – a search conducted without the consent of the individual whose person or property is being searched. A probable cause search requires that the facts and circumstances known to the officer at the time of the search would lead them to believe that a crime is being or has been committed.
• Consent Search – a search conducted by a law enforcement officer based on the voluntary consent of the individual whose person or property is being searched.
• Other
  • Search Warrant
  • Search Incident to Arrest
  • Protective Frisk

Race and Ethnicity

Race and ethnicity are collected as separate categories and are combined for analytical and display purposes using the ethnicity category as the primary determinant. For example, if a driver’s race category is listed as Black and ethnicity category as Hispanic, that driver’s combined Race/Ethnicity category is Hispanic.