Examining the Effectiveness of a NIBIN Investigative Unit: A Time Series Analysis

Gun crime continues to represent a substantial threat to public safety in the United States. Firearms are disproportionately involved in most crimes of violence, particularly murder, and firearm-related offending is more pronounced in the U.S. than any other industrialized nation. In response to these problems, there has been a sustained increase in the number of NIBIN investigative units within police departments across the U.S. through federal funding made available by the Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) program. The purpose of these centers is to facilitate improved information sharing between agencies, increased clearance rates in gun crime cases, identifying sources of crime guns, and overall reductions in the frequency of gun crimes. Despite the proliferation of CGIC sites, there has been little effort to examine their effectiveness. We directly address this gap in the literature through application of interrupted time series analysis to weekly performance metrics from 12/30/19 to 12/31/23 (n = 209) provided by a CGIC site in the Southeastern U.S.