Support Statement.wpd

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

1110-0004

NUMBER OF FULL-TIME LAW ENFORCEMENT EMPLOYEES AS OF OCTOBER 31

A. Justification.

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under Title 28, United States Code, Section 534, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is designated by the Attorney General to acquire, collect, classify, and preserve national FBI data on criminal offenses as part of the Uniform Crime Reports.

Police Employee data collected by the FBI utilizing forms 1-711, 1-711a, and 1-711b are received from local, county, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies throughout the country. In return the FBI publishes law enforcement officer and civilian employee statistics for the Nation, region, and individual contributors in its annual publication Crime in the United States (CIUS).

The following serve in an advisory capacity to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program: Criminal Justice Information Systems Committee, International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP); Criminal Justice Information Services Committee, National Sheriffs' Association; and the Criminal Justice Information Services Advisory Policy Board.

A revision of this currently approved collection is requested in addition to a 3-year extension.

Form 1-711, Pink, designated for Most In Population (MIP) agencies

Form 1-711a, Green, designated for city, colleges and universities, state, and all other agencies including tribals

Form 1-711b, Blue, designated for county agencies

The information provided/collected on the three forms is exactly the same; they are only different in color to distinguish whether the reporting agency is a city, county, university, or other agency.

1. Adjust the Rev. date to 09-22-08; Delete, Form approved, replace with OMB No. 1110-0004; Under the OMB No., insert Expires 09-22-11

2. The first sentence should read as:

This report is authorized by law Title 28, Section 534, U.S. Code.

3. Second sentence , Delete “Even though you are not required to respond” and begin the sentence with "Your cooperation"

4. Third sentence, abbreviate Federal Bureau of Investigation to FBI.

5. Next to the last sentence, replace “the form” with “this form”.

6. After the telephone number, delete the comma and insert a semi colon.

7. Under the Full-time law enforcement officers, first sentence, change "work your normal full-time workweek." to "worked a normal full-time workweek."

8. Under the Full-time civilian employees, first sentence, change "worked your normal full-time workweek." to "worked a normal full-time workweek."

9. At the bottom of the page, after "Prepared by / Telephone number" insert " / Email address", delete Title and move Date to the right.

10. The signature line at the bottom of the page should read as:

Chief, Sheriff, Superintendent, Commanding Officer

11. In the DO NOT WRITE HERE box, delete Corres. and replace with Corresponded.

This form is sent to law enforcement agencies throughout the Nation on an annual basis. The requested revision will not change the burden hour upon the respondent.

2. Needs and Uses

The primary purpose of this form is to gather information relating to the number of full-time law enforcement employees, both officers and civilians. The national Program is able to generate reliable information annually for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management nationwide. The information released in CIUS and also in the annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) publication represents national averages and is viewed as a guide or an indicator of police strengths, to establish manpower needs, both number and makeup, to provide effective enforcement and protection. Examples of other agencies' uses are:

a. Federal, state, local, and tribal agencies, domestic and foreign, have used the data for selected city population groupings to determine standard police strengths.

b. Criminal justice coordinators have used the data in the form of percentage of cities employing female officers.

c. City and county police agencies have used the data to request assistance from other departments.

d. The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJS), utilizes the Uniform Crime Reporting Program data in awarding local law enforcement formula grants.

e. The Community Orienting Policing Servicing “COPS” Program received Uniform Crime Reporting data for the purpose of awarding grant money to law enforcement agencies.

f. City councils, legislators, citizens, organizations, and social scientists have requested police employee data.

The data are collected on a yearly basis on the form Number of Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31 (1-711, 1-711a, and 1-711b) and are forwarded to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program. The data are compiled and included in the annual publication CIUS.

3. Use of Information Technology

Currently, 41 percent of participating law enforcement agencies submit police employee data electronically, up from 17 percent 3 years ago. Electronic submissions downloaded from state UCR systems are received via Law Enforcement Online (LEO) e-mail at [email protected], or on diskette, cartridge, zip disk, or compact disk. For those state agencies unable to submit data electronically, data are received on hard copy. The UCR Program made this form available as a pdf printable form on the Internet at www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/cjis.htm.

Many states that participate in the UCR program have a centralized repository serving as a state UCR Program. Several state UCR Program's have established electronic communications with their law enforcement agencies throughout their state. Agencies submit data to their state UCR Program and the state agency subsequently forwards it to the FBI.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This information collection was created in direct response to an act of Congress, Section 534, Title 28, United States Code. The FBI is the only agency collecting specific data on officer and civilian employees. No known agency collects data from law enforcement agencies of all population sizes.

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Businesses

The FBI UCR Program has streamlined this information collection so as to minimize the burden by keeping report items to essential data only and as an annual collection. This information will have no significant impact on small entities. No small business will be affected by this collection.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or less frequent Collection

This collection is obtained annually. To not obtain police employee data annually would limit/prohibit accurate data presentations in the CIUS and LEOKA publications. Presentations would be of less value to the user because data are not current.

7. Special Circumstances

The FBI's UCR Program sends correspondence to each state UCR Program and direct contributor requesting completion of the Number of Full-time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31 form in October with a deadline in December for completion. There are times when special circumstances may cause an agency to request an extension. The FBI's UCR Program has the authority to grant these extensions. Although the responses are voluntary, any individual agency not able to provide a response within the requested time period is not obligated to do so. Tabulations are inclusive of only those agencies' law enforcement counts received.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

The FBI's UCR Program does not provide any payment or gift to respondents.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

1110-0004 does not contain personal identifier information that may reveal the identity of an individual. The data is obtained from public agencies and are, therefore, in the public domain. We do not assure confidentiality.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

The Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31 form does not seek information of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent's Burden

The Number of Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31 form will be sent to 17,738 local, county, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies once a year. The time estimated for each agency to complete the form is 8 minutes. The total respondents burden is 2,365 hours.

We estimated the respondent's burden for this data collection as follows:

Number of respondents 17,738

Frequency of responses 1/year

Total annual responses 17,738

Minutes per response 8 minutes

Annual hour burden 2,365 hours

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

Respondents will not incur any costs other than their time to respond. Respondents are not expected to incur any capital, start-up, or system maintenance costs associated with this information collection.

14. Cost to Federal Government

It is difficult to estimate the annual cost to the federal government under the clearance request. The following are generalized projections based upon prior collection activity as well as activities anticipated over the next 3 years.

Data Collection and Processing Costs

$619,099

The reduction in cost has occurred due to a detailed cost projection provided by CJIS Financial Management Unit

Crime in the United States $116,745

Manuals $13,821

Special studies $168,062

Data requests $17,846

APB services $36,472

Press Releases $710

State program bulletins $5,363

Audit Reports $39,461

Summary/NIBRS data collection $74,234

Summary/NIBRS $60,140

Training materials $14,349

Training $56,016

UCR Program Development $15,880

Total cost to federal government $619,099

15. Reason for Change in Burden

There is no increase in burden on the individual respondents; however, the overall annual burden hours have increased. This is an adjustment; an increase from 2,243 to 2,365 which is an increase of 122 and is attributable to the increase in the number of respondents.

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to the FBI from local, county, state, federal, and tribal law enforcement agencies throughout the country. National, regional, and state data are published in the annual edition of CIUS.

Initial request for police employee data October

Follow-up letter requesting police employee data December, following deadline

Deadline to submit data Late December

Data Processing/Analysis November-February

Publication of data September, of following year/CIUS

17. Display of Expiration Date

The UCR Program will display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

The FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division does not request an exception to the certification of this information collection.

B. STATISTICAL METHODS:

Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods. The Criminal Justice Information Services Division does not employ statistical methods when collecting this information.