What's The BEST UCR Best Practice?

Unregistered Carriers on 12/15/2009 - 1382
Unregistered Carriers on 12/16/2009 - 1382

Illinois - 93.56%
Maine - 93.27%

I've been thinking about the question, "If I could only implement one best practice, what would it be?" (This assumes, of course, that one is motivated to implement any best practices at all.)

For me, the answer is simple: find out who is on your Unregistered List.

Knowing who's unregistered can stimulate you to think about ways that you can reach those particular people and get them registered. NOT knowing who's unregistered can't stimulate you to do a darned thing. In fact, I think it promotes a false complacency that you are "doing what you can".

I know that some people will say, "we can't afford to buy UCR-Link" or "we don't have access to that data" or something else to that effect.

My approach is this: if a state wants their information, I'll find a way to get it to them. To date, I've had very few requests, which signals to me that States 1) don't recognize the value, or they 2) don't care to do more, or they 3) don't get it.

All of these trouble me in one way or another .... but that's a discussion for another day.