Passback Q and A

April 23, 2012

From: Michael Planty, Ph.D., Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice

Responses to OMB questions and comments

Based on our discussion, we have revised the NCVS companion study (NCVS-CS) documentation/instruments in the following areas:

1. Contact letters and commonly asked questions, issues with confidentiality statements and use: We have revised the letters to a) place a stronger emphasis on the confidentiality regulation, b) revised the “use of the information” response (Who will use this information section?), and c) added in the information on our authorization to conduct the study. These are highlighted in yellow in the appendix bundle on pages 12, 14, 30, and 31. The “commonly asked questions” sections in the three instruments have been revised in a similar fashion. We have also made consistent the use of “Bureau of Justice Statistics” in the letters and added “Office of Justice Programs” under the Director’s name.

2. In the script introduction (page 18), we have replaced the “Department of Justice” with the “Bureau of Justice Statistics.”

3. In the cover package we have inserted on page 1, paragraph 2, a request for an exception to printing the OMB expiration date on the instruments.

4. Race question (page 24 in appendix bundle), use of “Other-specify” response category: I did confirm in the core-NCVS collection Census FRs are instructed not to read these response categories out loud in an in-person interview, but rather show the respondent a “race” flashcard with the five categories (see attachment NCVS-554, page 10). For telephone interviews, which are primarily conducted during the 2^nd through 7^th follow-up interviews and not during the first, only the five categories are read out loud. This being said, the demographic information is only updated or changed if it was missing or coded incorrectly from a previous enumeration. The 6 “Other-specify” category is only used if the respondent chooses to say something other than the 5 categories. This is coded as such by the FR and then allocated into one of the 5 categories through procedures/rules defined in the processing and editing stage.