1110-0004_Supporting Statement Part B

1110-0004_Supporting Statement Part B.doc

Number of Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31

OMB: 1110-0004

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PART B. Statistical Methods

The potential respondent universe of the form Number of Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31 (OMB No. 1110-0004) includes respondents from United States (U.S.) law enforcement agencies who voluntarily report full-time law enforcement employee counts to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Approximately 18,233 law enforcement agencies participate in the FBI UCR Program, and of those, approximately 14,633 report full-time law enforcement employee data once a year. The law enforcement agencies consist of local, county, state, tribal and federal agencies that correlate to all population group sizes and have many diverse attributes. Possible attributes known of these agencies include: a representation of population density and degrees of urbanization; various compositions of population particularly youth concentration; population mobility with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors; different economic conditions including median income, poverty level, and job availability; areas with different modes of transportation and highway systems; different cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics; family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness; climate; effective strength of law enforcement; policies of other components of the criminal justice system; citizens’ attitudes toward crime; and crime reporting practices of the citizenry. Based on historical reporting trends, similar response rates are expected in future full-time law enforcement employee data collections, however, the FBI UCR Program actively liaisons with national law enforcement agencies to encourage participation in UCR data collections.

All data are collected/received from state UCR Program participants on a one time annual basis. The FBI’s UCR Program has established time frames and deadlines for acquiring the annual data. Letters are disseminated in October to state UCR Program managers requesting the completion of information on current year’s police employee counts as of October 31. The letter specifies that the data submission deadline is December 14. Prior to December 14 the FBI’s UCR Program will contact state UCR Program managers to inform the managers that the FBI has not received the police employee counts. Annual reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by December 14. 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.

Law enforcement agencies submit police employee counts data to the FBI UCR Programs either through an electronic summary submission, or hard copy through mail, email, or fax. Police employee counts can not be submitted through the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

As the UCR full-time law enforcement employee data collection is intended to collect all reported full-time law enforcement employees from law enforcement agencies in the U.S., sampling methodologies are not used. Past police employee data collections have not included estimates for police employee because the FBI UCR Program had not had the imputation procedures defined for the crime police employee data. The UCR Redevelopment Project (UCRRP), the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the FBI UCR Program are working in corroboration with OMB to develop an estimation model that will be used with all of UCR data collections.

Response rates are maximized through liaison with state UCR Programs. Communications encouraging data submissions occur frequently because of the relationship between FBI UCR staff and law enforcement agencies. FBI UCR Program staff has a strong understanding of contextual challenges agencies face in reporting valid and reliable data and regularly work to overcome nonresponse issues when such challenges occur. The mission of the FBI UCR Program is to acquire full-time law enforcement employee data, establish guidelines for the collection of such data, and to publish data. Although the FBI makes every effort through its editing procedures, training practices, and correspondence to ensure the validity of the data it receives, the accuracy of the statistics depends primarily on the adherence of each contributor to the established standards of reporting. Currently, 80 percent of the FBI UCR Program agencies report full-time law enforcement employee data. The universe of reported full-time law enforcement employee counts are collected by contributing agencies and reported to the FBI. The FBI is working to help the absent 20 percent of law enforcement agencies participate in the full-time law enforcement employee data collection with the FBI CJIS Division’s creation of the UCRRP to manage the acquisition, development, and integration of a new information systems solution which affects UCR participating local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies. The UCRRP's goal is to improve UCR efficiency, usability, and maintainability while increasing the value to users of UCR products. The UCRRP will reduce, to the point of elimination, the exchange of printed materials between submitting agencies and the FBI and replace those with electronic submissions. The national FBI UCR Program has begun the process of eliminating the exchange of paper for crime reporting purposes. Beginning July 2013, the FBI UCR Program will begin moving submitting agencies away from paper submissions. After a period of transition, the expectation is to have all data interfaces electronically managed. The goal is to have zero paper burden on the public. The UCRRP has developed five options for paperless submissions, they are: Extensible Markup Language, Flat File Formats, Online Data Entry, a data extraction from the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange Program, and an FBI provided Excel Workbook and Tally Book.

The FBI has trainers who provide on-site training for any law enforcement agency that participates in the FBI UCR Program. The trainers furnish introductory, intermediate, or advanced courses in data collection procedures and guidelines. In addition, the trainers are available by telephone or e-mail to provide law enforcement agencies with answers to specific questions about classification or scoring or other questions about the FBI UCR Program.

Providing vital links between local law enforcement and the FBI in the conduct of the FBI UCR Program are the Criminal Justice Information Systems Committees of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), as it has since the FBI UCR Program began, represents the thousands of police departments nationwide. The NSA encourages sheriffs throughout the country to participate fully in the FBI UCR Program. Both committees serve in advisory capacities concerning the FBI UCR Program’s operation. The Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs (ASUCRP) focuses on UCR issues within individual state law enforcement associations and also promotes interest in the FBI UCR Program. These organizations foster widespread and responsible use of uniform crime statistics and lend assistance to data contributors when needed.

The FBI’s UCR Program is mandated to collect police employee data. Law enforcement agencies are not mandated to submit data to the FBI UCR Program. Participation in UCR is voluntary and to deal with non responsive agencies the FBI UCR Program provides training, liaison, and reference material to law enforcement agencies in order to submit data.

The FBI has conducted the full-time law enforcement employee information collection since 1942 with high rates of response and has specific plans to further improve participation; proposed initiatives are described in Part B #3. During implementation of the full-time law enforcement employee information collection extensive research regarding full-time law enforcement employee counts, potential inclusion of part time employees, salaries of law enforcement employees, and total hours worked by such employees was conducted by members of the FBI’s UCR Program staff, the Secretary of Labor, and the Division of Statistical Standards in 1971. Liaison with members of law enforcement had been effective in the effort to collect full-time law enforcement employee data and to design a collection form which would provide meaningful information to all those concerned. No comments or suggestions of problems with the form have been reported through the CJIS Advisory Policy Board (APB) Working Groups, UCR Subcommittee, CJIS APB, or the ASUCRP which meet frequently throughout each year and are dedicated to improving the collection, use, and utility of crime data as reported through the FBI UCR Program and all state and local crime reporting programs.