Opening the Black Box of NIBIN:A Process and Outcome Evaluation of the use of NIBIN and its Effects on Criminal Investigations.

The grantee will conduct an evaluation that examines the implementation of the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) in criminal justice agencies, identifies best practices for improving the effectiveness of NIBIN, and documents the ways criminal investigators utilize information produced by NIBIN to solve firearms cases. The research design includes three phases and data will be gathered from 1) the NIBIN system, 2) from a mailed survey of lab and agency employees who manage NIBIN at partner sites and investigators, and 3) from semi-structured interviews with employees at participating sites and investigators who have received NIBIN intelligence. Phase I will use NIBIN data to describe the nature of NIBIN usage by law enforcement and to provide context for other data to be collected. Phase II will include two surveys. The first survey will go to employees who oversee and utilize NIBIN at the 228 NIBIN participant sites. The grantee will also take a sample 500 recent NIBIN hits and survey the detectives who worked the cases associated with those hits. Phase III will entail site visits to 10 high-use NIBIN sites, with quantitative and qualitative data collection planned. ca/ncf