The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
is seeking clearance to conduct the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates
(SPI). The 2016 SPI will be a national, omnibus survey of prisoners
age 18 or older within the United States who are incarcerated in
confinement or community-based correctional facilities operated by
or for state or federal governments. BJS has been conducting SPI
periodically since the 1970s among state prisoners and the early
1990s among federal prisoners. A main purpose of this omnibus
survey is to generate reliable national estimates of the
characteristics of prisoners over a variety of domains, including
characteristics that are germane to the corrections field, such as
the severity of offenses committed and criminal history; medical,
mental health, and substance abuse and dependency problems;
behaviors in prison including both rule infractions and
participation in programs. Other important objectives of SPI are to
track changes in these characteristics over time, describe special
populations of prisoners, and identify policy-relevant changes in
the prison population. The 2016 survey will also be used to produce
subnational estimates of prisoners within jurisdictions that have
the largest prison populations (i.e., 100,000 or more) in the
nation. The 2016 data will be collected through personal interviews
with a representative sample of about 23,200 prisoners using
Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing.
There has been a change in the
respondent burden since the 2004 SPI study. The respondent burden
increased because of an increase in the number of sampled
facilities and inmates in order to minimize burden on individual
facilities while also ensuring enhanced levels of precision for key
national estimates of state and federal inmates, and subnational
estimates for jurisdictions with 100,000 or more prisoners. Also,
the estimated burden reported in this supporting statement is the
maximum burden expected which is based on the number of sampled
facilities and inmates, not the number of expected participating
facilities and inmates which relies on assumptions about
nonresponse rates.
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.