August [DAY], 2013
[NAME OF COMMISSIONER/SECRETARY]
[STREET ADDRESS 1]
[STREET ADDRESS 2]
[CITY, STATE, AND ZIP CODE]
Dear [COMMISSIONER/SECRETARY NAME]:
Thank you for allowing the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and its data collection RTI International to conduct a pilot study of the Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI) in [INSERT NAME OF FACILITY] and [INSERT NAME OF FACILITY]. Your help has been instrumental for the development of a survey that will be administered to prison inmates nationwide. With your support, we were able to meet the main objectives of the pilot study, including determining whether the targeted number of interviews with prison inmates could be completed in three days of data collection, assessing the operational/logistical and survey sampling procedures, and determining the necessary changes to the questionnaire to reduce the length of the interview and increase data quality.
The staff at both institutions facilitated our work in an efficient and friendly manner, especially [INSERT NAMES OF KEY STAFF FROM FACILITY ONE] and [INSERT NAME OF KEY STAFF FROM FACILITY TWO]. They skillfully managed the teams’ movements around the facilities, directed inmates to and from interview sites, supplied the necessary facility-based information, and resolved unexpected issues that occurred during the course of the pretest.
Again, I would like to express my appreciation to you for your help and thank you for your support of the SPI. BJS and RTI are planning to field the national study in the early part of 2014. Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback about the pilot study or the SPI national study. You can contact either me via e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (202) 514-1062 or the chief of BJS’s Corrections Statistics Program, Daniela, at [email protected] or (202) 616-5164.
Sincerely,
William J. Sabol, Ph.D., Acting Director
Bureau of Justice Statistics
cc: Daniela Golinelli, Ph.D., Bureau of Justice Statistics
Chief, Corrections Statistics Program
Lauren Glaze, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Statistician and SPI Project Manager, Corrections Statistics Program
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Tracy L. Snell |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-30 |