Get OH UIR Manual 2005-2024

Crime data, if collected properly, can help law enforcement agencies determine any correlations that affect criminal activity. Additionally, agencies can use collected data to identify areas where, when and what types of crimes are most likely to occur.

The reports are extremely important and used as evidence in court, investigating crimes, and even tracking criminal trends. A poorly written report thus can negatively affect a court case by failing to provide clear information about wrongdoing.

Police reports assist with the identification, apprehension and prosecution of criminals by serving as a source document for filing criminal complaints, by providing a record of all investigations, and providing a basis for additional follow up investigations.

In NIBRS, an “incident” is defined as one or more offenses committed by the same offender, or group of offenders acting in concert, at the same time and place. “Acting in concert” means that these individuals actually commit or assist in the commission of the crime(s).

In addition to the prosecutor, Judges, other attorneys and juries will have to rely on specific information recorded in police reports to make a decision about the honesty, deception, guilt and/or innocence of the parties involved in the reported event.