The Crime Reporting Unit ( CRU) is the contact point between state, local, and campus police departments and the FBI. It is charged with the responsibility of collecting, maintaining, analyzing, and reporting crime data for the Commonwealth.
CRU is a part of the Criminal Information Section of the Massachusetts State Police Division of Investigative Services.
CRU puts out a variety of routine reports throughout the year: preliminary crime statistics, police employment data, homicide reports, hate crime information.
In addition, the Unit has done topical or special reports, on issue like long-time crime trends, and homicide by age, race, and sex in Boston.
The Crime Reporting Unit consists of Daniel Bibel, Sheri Cardoza, and Linda Kast.
Crime data is reported in three broad categories.
1. Most police agencies submit crime data in the form of the summary UCR system, which collects data only on a small number of crime (the "Index" offenses of murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft).
- This summary data is also collected on the number of persons arrested for a variety of crimes.
- Data in this form is available for most agencies for the period 1980 - 1998.
2. Approximately one half of the full-time police agencies in the Commonwealth submit their crime data in the form of the FBI new "National Incident Based Reporting System", or " NIBRS." The NIBRS data set is much more comprehensive than the older UCR system. NIBRS data has been collected since the mid 1990's.
- Massachusetts was one of the first states to adopt NIBRS as a new standard for police crime reporting
- The CRU was certified by the FBI as meeting their quality standards in 1995, the ninth state in the nation to be so honored.
3. Hate crime data is submitted on a separate form by police who do not use the NIBRS system. CRU has been collecting Hate Crime data since 1990.