1110-0001_Supporting Statement A_061616

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

1110-0001

RETURN A—MONTHLY RETURN OF OFFENSES KNOWN TO POLICE

SUPPLEMENT TO RETURN A—MONTHLY RETURN OF OFFENSES KNOWN TO POLICE

A. Justification.

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under the authority of Title 28, U.S. Code, Section 534, Acquisition, Preservation, and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials, June 11, 1930, the FBI was designated by the Attorney General to acquire, collect, classify, and preserve national data on criminal offenses as part of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

The Return A form, 1-720, supplies the national UCR Program with the number of Part I offenses, (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft), reported monthly by law enforcement, the number of unfounded Part I offenses, the total number of offenses cleared by arrest or exceptional means, and clearances for persons under the age of 18. In addition, form 1-706, Supplement to Return A, supplies the national UCR Program with the monetary value of property stolen and recovered. This form is a companion to the Return A and important for further analysis of the Part I offenses.

This information collection is a necessity in order for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of the total number of offenses reported, unfounded, and cleared, supplemental information on the monetary value of property stolen and recovered, and to ensure publication of the Preliminary Annual Report and Crime in the United States.

A 3-year extension of this currently approved collection is requested.

2. Needs and Uses

These electronic forms are necessary in order for law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to report Part I offense data and monetary value of property stolen and recovered. These data are used for research and statistical purposes. The national UCR Program is able to generate reliable information on Part I offense data. These data serve as a valuable resource to city, county, state, federal, and tribal LEAs, as well as Academe, other government agencies, the general public, and media. Examples of other agencies uses are:

a. The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), utilizes the UCR Program data in awarding local law enforcement formula grants.

b. The FBI is meeting obligatory/mandated purpose to generate/maintain reliable information for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management.

c. Criminologists, sociologists, legislatures, municipal planners, media, and other students of criminal justice use the data for varied research and planning purposes.

d. Data collection permits studies among neighboring jurisdictions and among those with similar populations and other common characteristics.

e. Special interest groups, media, and academe request Return A information for research.

3. Use of Information Technology

Currently, 100 percent of participating LEAs submit these forms electronically. Electronic submissions are received via the UCR Summary Microsoft Excel Workbook Tool, and/or by email at <[email protected]>. The FBI UCR Program has made the UCR Summary Microsoft Excel Workbook Tool available to all LEAs at (www.asucrp.net).

Many states that participate in the FBI UCR Program have a centralized repository serving as a state UCR Program. Several state UCR Programs have established electronic communications with their LEAs throughout their state. Agencies submit data to their state UCR Program who in turn forward it to the FBI.

An agency/state UCR Program will submit the Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police and the Supplement to Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police data through the Summary Reporting System (SRS) to the FBI UCR Program.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This information collection was authorized in direct response to the June 11, 1930 enactment of Title 28, U.S. Code, Section 534. The FBI is the only agency collecting extensive data based on seven Part I criminal offenses, crime clearances, and the monetary values of property stolen and recovered in the United States.

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Entities

This information will have no significant impact on small law enforcement entities. The law enforcement community requested that the forms be collected on a monthly basis since police records are run on a calendar month, however, the FBI minimizes burden on small LEAs by allowing them to submit quarterly, twice a year, or once a year. Although monthly is recommended, upon approval by the FBI UCR Program, agencies can submit data at intervals that minimizes the burdens to the agency.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or Less Frequent Collection

In order to serve as the national repository for crime reporting and to produce a reliable dataset, the FBI collects monthly statistics that are reported by participating FBI UCR Program contributors. There is an ever-increasing need for timely and accurate data dissemination by the FBI to assist our partners in law enforcement.

LEAs use UCR data to track crime, task force placement, staffing levels, and officer placement. The UCR data is used for administration, operation, management, and to determine effectiveness of task forces. Agencies will justify staffing levels and officer counts compared to other LEAs in order to receive additional staffing levels or equipment. Some agencies use other agencies’ crime statistics and staffing levels to justify their own crime statistics and staffing levels in order to obtain funding.

In past years, a committee was formed to examine less frequent reporting, below are the results. This committee was chaired by Dr. Peter P. Lejins, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland; Dr. Charlton F. Chute, Director, Institute of Public Administration, New York City; and Mr. Stanley R. Schrotel, Chief of Police, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Frequency of Reports from Cooperating Police Departments

“The committee has very seriously considered the possibility of diminishing the frequency of submission of the statistical reports by the cooperating police departments. This would mean abandoning the present scheme of getting monthly reports and substituting perhaps a quarterly or semiannual report from the police instead. The Committee has, however, rejected the idea of any change in this direction, in spite of the fact that it appears reasonable to assume that a report submitted quarterly, for instance, would decrease the amount of work to be done by the local police departments as compared to a monthly report. This could then perhaps be, used as an argument for requesting an increased amount of information in the less frequent reports. There is the danger that with the pressure for monthly reports removed, the police departments might become somewhat less punctilious and instead of producing more data for the three-month report, might actually become less precise and, not having gotten up a report for a longer period, could conceivably have difficulty in getting data together for the three-months report. Besides, of course, all analyses which are based on monthly reports, for instance the fluctuation of crime frequency in the course of the year, might suffer considerably. After studying this matter, the Committee decided not to recommend any change in the current practice.”

7. Special Circumstances

All Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police and the Supplement to Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police data are collected/received from the FBI UCR Program participants on a monthly basis. The FBI’s UCR Program has established various time frames and deadlines for acquiring the monthly data. Monthly reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by the seventh day after the close of each month. Annual deadlines are also designated in order to collect/assess receipt of monthly submissions. 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. Participation in the national UCR Program is voluntary.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

The 60 and 30 day notices have been submitted and published in the Federal Register with no public comments received.

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

The FBI UCR Program does not provide any payment or gift to respondents.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

This information collection does not contain personally identifiable information that may reveal the identity of an individual, it is obtained from public agencies and are, therefore, in the public domain. The FBI UCR Program does not assure confidentiality.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

This information collection does not collect information of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent’s Burden

The estimated cost of the respondent’s burden for this data collection is as follows:

Number of respondents 9,964 SRS respondents

Number of non-respondents 1,409

Frequency of responses Monthly—Return A

Monthly—Supplement to Return A

Total annual responses 239,136

Minutes per response SRS 21 minutes

Annual hour burden 40,653 hours

	SRS
Number of months submitted	Number of Agencies	Number of Responses	21 Minute Burden	Totals
1 month	43	43	903
2 months	38	76	1,596
3 months	51	153	3,213
4 months	49	196	4,116
5 months	30	150	3,150
6 months	48	288	6,048
7 months	47	329	6,909
8 months	49	392	8,232
9 months	86	774	16,254
10 months	111	1,110	23,310
11 months	305	3,355	70,455
12 months	9,107	109,284	2,294,964
Non-responsive				1,409
Total Agencies	9,964			9,964
Annual Responses		116,150		116,150
Form Completion Hr Burden			2,439,150 minutes	40,653 hours

13. Cost Burden

There are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in the FBI UCR Program other than their time to respond. The FBI’s UCR Program disseminates the electronic version of the Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police and the Supplement to Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police free of charge via the Microsoft Excel Workbook Tool. Costs to agency Records Management System (RMS) are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs due to the fact that vendors charge differently from agency to agency. Many costs are built into the vendors Service Level Agreement contracts. Depending on the vendor contracts, changes mandated by law are included within the original contract with no other additional costs. However, an estimate has been projected that agencies pay an $18,000 maintenance fee every year for system maintenance costs.

14. Cost to Federal Government

According to the cost object provided by FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), Resource Management Section, Financial Management Unit, the following are projections based upon prior collection activity, as well as activities anticipated over the next three years for SRS. The cost module does not separate the costs between the two methods of collecting UCR data (SRS and the National Incident-Based Reporting System [NIBRS]).

Data Collection and Processing Costs

Communication/Reporting $ 29,583.84

Crime Statistics Management Unit

Correspondence/Documents $ 394,055.53

Data Requests $ 168,878.28

Development $ 187,158.04

Liaison/Correspond with Fed/State/Local Agencies $ 515,310.70

Liaison with Law Enforcement and CJIS User Comm $ 226,846.86

Marketing $ 42,849.55

Operational Assist (Other than Data Coll/Analysis) $ 30,896.72

Perform General Admin $ 412,138.82

Perform Strategic Planning $ 90,211.92

Perform Unit Budget Activities $ 130,835.90

Policy $ 207,329.86

Program Control $ 64,178.69

Program Planning $ 168,459.24

Provide Tech, Stat and Mathematical Assist/Training $ 230,048.19

Risk Management $ 18,336.99

Special Studies Using UCR Data $ 275,413.29

UCR Automation/Development $ 634,081.93

UCR Data Collection/Analysis $ 1,401,215.46

UCR Publications/Reports $ 465,089.64

Total Cost to Federal Government $ 5,692,919.45

15. Reason for Change in Burden

There is no increase in burden on the individual respondents; however, the overall annual burden hours have decreased. This is an adjustment, a decrease from 48,686 to 40,653 which is an overall decrease of 8,033. This decrease in burden is due to the number of respondent agencies converting from the SRS to the NIBRS.

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to the FBI UCR Program from local, county, state, federal, and tribal LEAs throughout the country. Data will be published on an annual basis

Request for missing January-June data August and September

Request for missing 12 month data February and March, following year

Deadline to submit data March

Data Processing/Analysis July-May

Publication of data September of following year/CIUS

17. Display of Expiration Date

All information collected under this clearance will display the OMB Clearance Number and Expiration Date.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

The FBI’s CJIS Division does not request an exception to the certification of this information collection.

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