02.11.22
In letters to the FBI and BJS, Durbin reiterates that better data collection will inform prevention and enforcement strategies to protect victims of carjackings.
SPRINGFIELD — U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today wrote letters to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) calling for swift action to launch nationwide data collection on carjacking. In his letters, Durbin emphasized that data collection plays a critical role in crime prevention and informs investigative and enforcement strategies that could help save lives.
“Accurate tracking of criminal offenses such as carjacking is critical to crime prevention. Law enforcement investigators and researchers are better equipped to analyze trends and patterns in criminal activity when they have access to more granular data, making it easier to find solutions tailored to the circumstances that arise. most often apply to a particular offence. The collection of data on robberies, assaults, and auto thefts does not fully capture the magnitude of the challenge our country faces with carjacking, and the specific collection of data on carjacking offenses should become a higher priority at the local, state and federal levels,” Durbin wrote in the letters.
Durbin then instructed the FBI and BJS to implement data collection on carjacking offenses through the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program and the National Crime Victim Survey. crime (NCVS) of the BJS. Durbin reiterated his commitment to combat the increase in carjackings by advancing federal legislation to remove barriers to federal prosecution of this offense and working with automakers and law enforcement to improve uniform standards. theft prevention.
“Therefore, I urge you to initiate the [Criminal Justice Information Services] CJIS consultative process to consider adding carjacking to the list of offenses that the FBI’s UCR program tracks nationwide. Asking law enforcement across the country to submit carjacking data would be an important step toward developing effective responses to prevent carjacking,” Durbin wrote in his letter to the FBI.
“Collecting data on carjacking offenses through the BJS National Crime Victim Survey would enhance efforts to develop policy and law enforcement responses to this crime. . National data on carjackings would bolster these and other efforts by governments, law enforcement and industry to make our communities safer from this scourge,” Durbin wrote in his letter to the BJS.
Although there is currently no comprehensive nationwide data collection on carjacking, several major cities that track this offense report an increase in incidents in recent years, including Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Washington, DC.
Last month, Durbin wrote to the Department of Transportation and the Automotive Innovation Alliance urging the development of uniform standards for prompt law enforcement access to vehicle location data during incidents. carjacking.
During a December Judiciary Committee field audience in Chicago, Durbin asked U.S. Attorney John Lausch what specific steps his office was taking in conjunction with local law enforcement to combat carjackings. Durbin went on to echo Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s calls for automakers to provide additional tools to investigate these crimes.
The full text of the letter to the FBI is available here.
The full text of the letter to BJS is available here.
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