Department of the Attorney General launches Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard

The Hawai‘i Department of the Attorney General is announcing its launch of the Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard, now available at https://crimestats.hawaii.gov. 

The dashboard displays police-level crime statistics produced through Hawaiʻi’s participation in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, using data based on National Incident-Based Reporting System standards. The Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard compiles volumes of complex NIBRS data and allows users to tailor queries to suit their specific interests. This online platform replaces the department’s traditional Crime in Hawai’i print publications.

“Launching the dashboard is the final major milestone in Hawaiʻi’s decade-long transition to NIBRS,” said Paul Perrone, the department’s research chief and the state UCR program director. “We believe this new tool will be a helpful resource for all sorts of people and purposes.”

The Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard features detailed NIBRS data on reported crimes, arrests, clearances, victim/offender demographics, victim injuries, crime locations and times, stolen property types and values, weapon use, gang involvement and police employee statistics. Special topic sections cover law enforcement officers killed or assaulted, hate crimes, intimate partner crimes and sex crimes, with additional topic areas to come. Site users can review over 30 sections of statistical displays and query the data by agency, offense type and reporting year.

The data currently cover calendar years 2021 through 2024, representing the time period for which complete annual NIBRS data are available from Hawaiʻi’s four county police departments.

Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said, “Intelligence-led policing has been a key focus of the Maui Police Department for the past four years. While increases in violent and property crime are important indicators of overall trends, they represent just one measure of year-over-year performance. We also track clearance rate data; however, it’s essential to note that a clearance rate does not necessarily indicate whether prosecutors file charges or whether a case results in a conviction. As a result, clearance rates can be an imperfect metric on their own and do not capture the full picture of prosecutorial decisions, response times or final case outcomes.”

“The Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard is a major milestone for law enforcement in our state. It puts up-to-date crime data directly in the hands of our residents, provides clear insight into crime trends and keeps our communities informed so they can stay safe,” said Kauaʻi County Police Chief Kalani Ke.

“Having additional clear and timely information that the community can access is always appreciated,” said Hawaii Police Department Interim Chief Reed Mahuna. “We thank the Hawaiʻi Department of the Attorney General for all their hard work in getting the Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard operational. We are excited to see it in action.”

Compared to the previous version of the nationwide UCR Program, which was based on aggregate monthly tallies of reported crimes and arrests — and only reported the single most serious offense in multiple-offense incidents, NIBRS utilizes case-level records and conceptualizes crime events in terms of complete incidents, which may involve multiple offenses, victims, known and unknown offenders and arrestees. Over 50 data elements can be reported for each crime incident, and nearly 60 offense types are tracked, whereas the old system primarily focused on a set of 10 serious offenses known as Index Crimes. NIBRS data require a complex IT infrastructure and other substantial resource commitments from police departments and their respective state UCR programs.

Hawaiʻi’s state UCR program was established in 1975 and is directed by the Department of the Attorney General’s team of criminologists and data scientists. Hawai‘i’s four county police departments, all NIBRS-certified, have reported UCR crime data for even longer and contributed data for the Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard. The state  Department of Law Enforcement is currently seeking NIBRS certification and will be added to the dashboard once it completes the certification process and reports a complete annual data set.

The Hawaiʻi Crime Dashboard will continue to expand and improved as more data and statistical analysis become available.

More information on the state UCR program and the other work conducted by the Department of the Attorney General’s crime research team is available at https://ag.hawaii.gov/cpja/rs/.