OMB NDTS 2011 Responses to OMB Terms of Clearance

Phil, 

Apologies for the delay.  We appreciate all the hard work you have done to improve the 
collection, but we have some concerns.  While they appear to be many, I think most could be 
addressed fairly quickly working with your colleagues at BJS.  Please let me know if you have 
questions.  Thanks, Chad  
‐‐ It is not clear how the respondents (Rs) will be selected or how NDIC verifies that the Rs are 
the appropriate Rs.  The justification in Supporting Statement Part B states that NDIC field 
program specialists will do this work, but the justification does not say how they will verify this. 
 NDIC argues that their staff have ongoing relationships that they can use to verify that the Rs 
are the appropriate ones, but it would be helpful if NDIC explained how the field staff did this.  
For example, is there some type of protocol they use to assess Rs knowledge and capacity to 
answer the questions or the data Rs use to respond to the survey?  It would be helpful if NDIC 
elaborated on this; otherwise, one is left with the impression that the R validation process is 
idiosyncratic at best.   

NDIC Response: The NDTS survey is designed to obtain respondent knowledge, based
on community-specific experience in drug enforcement activities in the of various
aspects of drug trafficking within their jurisdiction – it is not designed or intended to be
a precise measure of drug trafficking activities. NDIC seeks to identify what the person
familiar with the day-to-day anti-drug operations within his or her agency sees as the
greatest threat, level of availability, etc. The guidance points for NDIC Field
Intelligence Officers (FIOs,) provided with NDIC’s latest submission to OMB, are
designed to identify a respondent that meets this criterion, based on the type and size of
the respondent’s agency. Again, the number of contacts accumulated at NDTS sample
agencies and depth of the cumulative working knowledge of the drug enforcement
situation in their areas cannot be overstated for the NDIC FIOs. FIOs routinely meet
with, interview, and interface with drug enforcement officials at meetings and
conferences in their respective areas of responsibility. These activities provide them
with substantive knowledge of the point of contact in each agency that enables them to
identify the best possible NDTS respondent for that agency.
Further, per OMB Terms of Clearance, NDIC will characterize survey results as being
based on respondents’ perceptions with the following footnote that will accompany the
initial mention of NDTS data in any NDIC report/product:
The National Drug Threat Survey (NDTS) is conducted annually by NDIC
and uses a representative sample of state and local law enforcement agencies
to produce national, regional, and state estimates of various aspects of drug
trafficking activities. NDTS data reflect agencies’ perceptions based on their
analysis of criminal activities that occurred within their jurisdictions during
the past year.

‐‐ Related, NDIC should provide some justification of what they know about the reliability of the 
underlying data that Rs use to complete the survey.  They could do this based on the existing 
knowledge of police department information systems, of departments’ methods for assessing 
threat, and of departments determine responses to other items, or they could propose to 
gather data on this, perhaps using their field staff to test reliability of data in a sample of their 
sample.  That would expand their work but it would be worth it in terms of improving 
understanding and reliability of the data.   

NDIC Response: Assessing the reliability of respondent department information
systems and data quality would add significant cost to administration of the NDTS. As
stated above, the NDTS survey is designed to obtain respondent jurisdiction-specific
knowledge of various aspects of drug trafficking within their jurisdiction. NDIC Field
Intelligence Officers are experienced in gathering and assessing drug intelligence
information – they are not trained in assessing law enforcement agency information
systems and data reliability. Further, it is likely that most respondents would not have
this type of information available or easily accessible. Law enforcement officials in the
United States are inundated with surveys and requests for information. Lengthening
the time needed by respondents to complete the NDTS would add to the public burden
and, based on NDIC experience, significantly reduce the survey response rate,
impacting the quality of the data obtained. NDIC has worked for many years to design
a survey instrument that has a minimum impact (public burden) on extremely busy
drug enforcement officials who take time to share their valuable experienced-based
drug trafficking knowledge. Adding additional requirements for respondents will
decrease the NDTS response rate and impact the quality of data obtained.

‐‐ After each section requesting data on a topic, could you add a set of questions asking the Rs to 
name the data source used to generate the data in the response.  These wouldn’t necessarily 
have to be forced‐choice responses, and Rs could have open‐ended responses to describe the 
data system, but such questions would let NDIC know that there is a source behind the 
responses. 

NDIC Response: To minimize the burden on the public, NDIC has carefully crafted
questions in the NDTS to provide data that can be used to target the analysis of
anecdotal intelligence information that substantiates the drug trafficking situation in a
given market area, state, region, or the country. While these data exist, providing this
information in the NDTS would require research on the part of respondents which
would again increase the time burden on already busy officers an, based on NDIC
experience, lead to decreased participation in the survey.

‐‐ There is one question on the instrument that asks about the number of violations that 
occurred in the jurisdiction (drugged driving‐ #12).  Can you add similar questions about the 
number of arrests for possession and for distribution or even questions about the frequency of 
drug seizures over or under a certain amount?  These types of questions can also be a reflection 
of the police department activities and priorities and would help provide a sense of the degree 
of the problem.  Knowing the level of drug availability, where drugs are coming from and 

whether gangs are involved in distribution doesn’t tell you anything definitive about the 
quantity of illegal substances moving through the jurisdiction.  

NDIC Response: The drugged driving questions were added at the request of ONDCP
(through OMB) and field testing of the question indicated that respondents may not
likely have this information available for their jurisdiction. While arrest and seizure
data may exist, such information will not be readily available to respondents. Again,
requiring a respondent to “look up” this information would be time consuming and
would necessitate developing a method for rating the reliability of a respondent’s
information. NDTS respondents, working day-today narcotics enforcement issues, are
not likely to be the person in their agency to be able to easily access this information, if
it is available. Such a request would be more feasible if the NDTS was targeted at law
enforcement planners or administrators. Many NDTS respondents would likely leave
these questions unanswered, thereby making verification inconsistent due to missing
data.
Some specific issues/ suggestions pertaining to particular items: 
 Supporting statement: Why use the 2000 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement 
Agencies for the frame instead of the 2004 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement 
Agencies?  This one is publicly available.  There also is one for 2008, but I haven’t 
checked on whether it is yet available publicly.   (Note: The Census Bureau conducted 
the 2000 Census of Law Enforcement Agencies for BJS, but it did not conduct the 2004 
or 2008 Census.  As police department’s size wax and wane, the number with 10 or 
more full‐time officers changes from time to time, and in any event, the 2000 is dated 
and should be updated.) 

 NDIC Response: NDIC intends to update the sample frame with the 2008 BJS Census
of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) for the NDTS 2012 survey
scheduled for dissemination in December 2011. The expense and time associated with
updating the sample frame make it prohibitive for NDIC to update the sample at this
late point, given a December 1, 2010 scheduled dissemination date for the NDTS 2011
survey. In August 2010, NDIC contacted Brian Reaves of Bureau of Justice Statistics
regarding the availability of the 2008 CSLLEA data and the US Census Bureau
regarding the availability of Census staff to draw a new sample from the 2008
CSLLEA. The CSLLEA data were still in the process of final clean-up by BJS and the
Census staff was heavily tasked with the 2010 decennial census. The lead time for
NDIC to draw up a contract and “clean” the CSLLEA data to include Census
identification numbers made it feasible to plan to update the NDTS sample with the
2008 CSLLEA data immediately after the NDTS 2011 survey cycle is completed in
March/April of 2011. The data cleaning and contractual issues would apply to using
the 2004 CSLLEA data to update the sample frame and would delay administration of
the NDTS 2011 to a point where data would not be available for NDIC HIDTA Drug
Market Analysis and OCDETF Regional reports scheduled for 2011. 



The precision of the sample (3% cv on sworn officers) should be reassessed using an 
updated frame. 

NDIC Response: this statistical issue will be addressed with the Census Bureau
staff when the new sample is drawn (see discussion above).


Question 1: ‘Greatest threat’ should be better defined…greatest threat of addiction, 
greatest threat to an individual’s health, greatest threat in terms of drugged 
driving…’greatest threat’ could refer to any number of things. 

NDIC Response: As stated above, the NDTS survey is designed to obtain
respondent knowledge of various aspects of drug trafficking within their
jurisdiction. NDIC seeks to identify what the person most familiar with the dayto-day anti-drug operations within his or her agency sees as the greatest threat
in the jurisdiction. Previous attempts at precise definitions of criteria to assess
the greatest threat lead to complex and confusing question structures such as
matrices. Even if greatest threat was defined, respondents from agencies that
differ in size, location (urban, suburban, rural), and agency type (municipal
police department versus county sheriff) would likely determine subjectively
weigh the criteria to identify the drug that they see causing the greatest threat to
their jurisdiction on a daily basis.


Question 7: This may be a drug term that folks in the field would know immediately, but 
I don’t know what is meant by ‘Level of Diversion’ 

NDIC Response: Level of diversion is a term generally-accepted drug
enforcement to assess the overall situation in any locality where controlled
prescription drugs are redirected from the legitimate supply chain to the illicit
market for distribution to dealers and/or abusers. The legitimate supply chain
includes manufacturers; wholesale, midlevel, and last mile distributors;
hospitals; long-term care facilities; pharmacies; practitioners; and patients.


Question 8: How will this information be used? ‘African American, Caucasian, 
Dominican, Hispanic, Mexican are race/ethnic categories and not examples of criminal 
groups or organizations.  If they want names of criminal groups or organizations they 
should use examples like ‘Mexican Mafia, MS‐13, Cosa Nostra’ but this information may 
be considered intelligence information and not likely to be shared by departments.  If 
they want to know the ethnicity of groups involved in drug trafficking and sales, again, I 
would ask why and what they’re going to do with that information. 

NDIC Response: the information from this question is used as a
“pointer” for NDIC analysts to conduct follow-up inquiries to obtain
detailed intelligence information on specific groups and organizations
that may be trafficking drugs in a given area. These data can be crossreferenced with similar data collected by the Drug Enforcement
Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and

Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection for use in
identifying emerging drug markets and drug trafficking organizations
in the United States. The race/ethnic categories are examples of types
of criminal groups and organizations that provide NDIC analysts, or
NDIC Field Intelligence Officers tasked by analysts, with specific
follow-up inquiries for the agencies providing the information. In
addition to unwillingness by respondents to provide specific
organization names, such information is not solicited in this question
since doing so would increase the classification level of NDTS data to
Law Enforcement Sensitive. Further, part of OMB’s 2007 approval of
NDTS included the following Terms of Clearance to these questions,
previously numbered 13 and 14:
“The information collected in questions 13 and 14 will not be
included in cross tabulations or other statistical analyses. Any
reporting of this information will clearly be attributed to the
survey respondents' perceptions.”
NDIC has adhered to these terms when using the data obtained
through these questions.


Question 9: Should include a country option‐ ‘…primary countries, states and/or cities….’ 

NDIC Response: the word “country” will be added to the question.


Question 10: Again, going back to the main point, it would be hard to interpret the 
findings from this question and make any types of comparisons across jurisdictions 
without some measure of the amount of drugs moving through the jurisdiction. As a 
side note, outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMG) should probably have an N/A option since 
not all jurisdictions will have OMGs. 

NDIC Response: Measuring of the amount of drugs moving “through” any
jurisdiction is beyond the scope of the NDTS and would require extensive
research of state and federal anti-drug agency data and reporting. Question 10
is devised as to identify the level of gang involvement in drug distribution in
general and for specific drugs for the country, a region, or state. In addition,
asking the types of drugs being distributed gives NDIC a “general” view of the
drugs being sold by gangs. For example, in 2005 relatively few jurisdictions
reported gang involvement in distributing other dangerous drugs (ODDs) or
pharmaceutical drugs. By 2010, survey responses showed a growing number of
jurisdictions reporting increasing gang involvement in distributing
pharmaceutical drugs. It is unlikely that respondents would be knowledgeable
of the amount of drugs moving through their jurisdictions as the interstate
movement of drugs is primarily monitored by federal drug enforcement
agencies.
NDIC will add a NA (not applicable) response to all sub-parts of Question 10.




Question 11‐ Total number of street gangs/OMGs: Response options are WAY off. 
National Youth Gang Survey finds that about 80% of large cities have fewer than 30 
gangs.  
Question 11‐ Total number of gang members: Response options are off here too. Should 
also look at NYGS to adjust response options for number of gangs‐ about 40% of large 
cites (with the percent increasing significantly in suburban and rural areas) reported 
fewer than 200 gang members total.  
NDIC Response: The National Youth Gang Survey (NYGS) is targeted at gang

members between 12 and 26 years of age. Law enforcement reporting available
to NDIC clearly indicates that there more gangs members in the United States
that do not fall into that age range and that the number of gangs and gang
members captured through the NDTS provides a more accurate picture of the
gang situation in the United States. A review of the response options used by the
NYGS and the NDTS 2010 results for these questions indicates that the NYGS
categories are more appropriate, even with the higher number of gangs and
gang members anticipated to be reported through the NDTS. NDIC will adjust
the response categories for both the number of street gangs and the number of
street gang members sub-items contained in Question 11.


Question 11‐ Percent of street gangs/OMGs involved in Drug Activities: First, this could 
mean anything from use, to sale, to trafficking. Should be more specific. Also, would 
suggest asking ‘what percentage of street level drug sales (or drug distribution 
depending on what they want to know) are attributed to street gangs?’ Otherwise, they 
risk making a correlation between gangs and drugs appear stronger than it actually may 
be. Perhaps 100% of gangs use or sell drugs, but the proportion of total drug use or drug 
sales attributed to gang members is low‐ this question gives you no way of measuring 
that. 

NDIC Response: This question was designed to determine the approximate
percentage of gangs in a jurisdiction that are involved in one or more aspects of
the drug trade to provide an overall perspective of how many gangs are part of
the drug trade in a state or region. Specific information on the volume of gangrelated drug activities would be determined through contacts with federal, state,
and local law enforcement agencies in the specific geographical area.


Question 12:  First part of the question, ‘Drugged driving is a serious consequence of 
illicit drug use,’ is leading and they should consider removing it. Also, first question 
doesn’t add anything and will likely result in all ‘yes’ responses the way it is worded.  

NDIC Response: this question was added at the behest of OMB based on input
from ONDCP and the language and structure of the question were developed
and approved by ONDCP. The first question will identify respondents who do
not see drugged driving as emergent issue or do not perceive it as a threat in
their jurisdiction based on their experience.