SUPPORTING STATEMENT
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is requesting clearance to conduct three annual jail data collections—Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ), Survey of Jails in Indian Country (SJIC), and the jail portion of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP) for a three-year period under a single clearance number.
The ASJ and SJIC are currently approved through OMB No. 1121-0094, which expires on 5/31/2016, but given the changes to the ASJ sampling design as well as the inclusion of the jail portion of the DCRP, we are requesting a new OMB approval date. The DCRP has a separate clearance number (1121-0249), which allows for the collection of information on deaths occurring in both local jails and state prisons. This request covers clearance to collect data from local and Indian country jails. The state prison collection of the DCRP is covered by a separate request.
Started in 1982 and 1998, respectively, the ASJ and SJIC series track changes in the demographic characteristics of the jail population as well as changes in the size of the jail population, jail capacity and crowding, the flow of inmates moving into and out of jails, and use of jail space by other correctional institutions. These statistics are part of BJS’s core corrections statistics, as they contribute fundamentally to BJS’s mission of describing movements of offenders through the criminal justice system.
The SJIC is the ASJ counterpart for Indian country jails. Like the ASJ, the SJIC collects data on admissions, average daily and confined populations of jail inmates held in Indian Country facilities. It also collects the total number of jail inmate deaths occurring in Indian Country. The SJIC was designed as a complement to the ASJ because Indian country populations cannot be accurately measured through the ASJ or the DCRP. Specifically, Indian country jails are administered by local tribal authorities or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. County and city jails covered by the ASJ and DCRP are administered by local law enforcement authorities, such as a sheriff or jail administrator. Together the ASJ and SJIC produce national estimates on jail inmates held in all jails in the U.S. as well as unconfined persons under the supervision of jail authorities.
Since 2000, BJS has obtained data annually on each death occurring in the approximately 3,000 local jails nationwide as part of the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP). Jail administrators are asked to provide a death incident report that describes the circumstances of each death. In addition to information on death, the DCRP collects population data from local jails, including those with no deaths during the year, in order to calculate mortality rates.
All three collections obtain administrative data. Jail administrators provide data that meet the definitions provided by BJS. Critical items on the surveys include -
The number of inmates confined in jail facilities by sex (all three collections);
The number of new admissions (all three collections);
The average daily population (all three collections);
The total number of deaths (DCRP and SJIC);
The numbers of confined male and female juvenile inmates, persons 17 and under held as adults, convicted and unconvicted inmates, and inmates by race/ethnicity categories (ASJ only);
Final discharges from jail facilities (ASJ and SJIC);
Jail rated capacity to hold inmates (ASJ and SJIC);
Name of inmates who died in custody (DCRP only); and
Cause of death and demographic information of the deceased (DCRP only).
In all three collections, data are submitted by reporting units within jail jurisdictions. A reporting unit refers to the reporting entity within a jail jurisdiction responsible for reporting data for one or more jails. There is usually only one reporting unit administering a single jail facility within one jail jurisdiction. A small number of jurisdictions have two reporting units, e.g., sheriff’s office and county jail. The DCRP and the ASJ share the same universe of reporting units within county and city jail jurisdictions.
BJS proposes a few changes to the next round of ASJ (2016-2020). First, the ASJ will be fielded with the DCRP beginning in 2016 (reference year 2015), in an effort to reduce burden on respondents and minimize data collection costs. During the combined collection, jails sampled for the ASJ will complete the ASJ form, while all other local jails will complete the DCRP annual summary form (ASF). The DCRP ASF is shorter than the ASJ form, consisting of a subset of the items on the latter. Combining the DCRP and the ASJ will eliminate the data redundancy between the two collections, as jails in the ASJ sample will no longer complete the DCRP ASF separately.
In addition, the ASJ will adopt the DCRP’s yearend reference date (changing from the midyear reference date), which is consistent with BJS’s other correctional surveys, e.g., the Annual Survey of Probation and Parole Agencies, the National Prisoner Statistics Program, and the National Corrections Reporting Program.
Another major change to the ASJ is the elimination of the long form for jails in the certainty strata (CJ-5D). Starting in reference year 2015, jails in the certainty strata will complete the same form as other sampled jails. These proposed changes will save a total of 634 respondent burden hours.
As a result of these changes, BJS is now reapplying for OMB clearance for all three jail collections—ASJ, SJIC, and DCRP—under a single number. Due to its different universe, the SJIC will remain a separate data collection during the next round. However, it will fall under the same clearance number as the ASJ and the DCRP, as it is designed as the counterpart of the ASJ for Indian country jails.
Jails are primarily local, county, and community based institutions that confine persons before trial and/or after adjudication. In practice, jails are a custodial catch-all, holding an array of inmates with different correctional statuses, including:
Persons awaiting trial, pending either arraignment or being bonded out;
Persons convicted of a misdemeanors being held for typically less than a year;
Juveniles who have been deemed by the court system to be held in juvenile facilities and are awaiting transfer;
Inmates being held for other localities, be it local, state departments of corrections, or federal law enforcement and correctional entities;
Inmates awaiting transfer to other localities, including local, state, federal or military authorities;
Persons under community correction (e.g. probationers and parolees) who returned on a violation;
Prisoners transitioning back to the community at the end of their sentences;
Prisoners held during court appearances;
Persons held in protective custody, in contempt or as material witnesses for local courts.
From the perspective of “persons touched” by the correctional system, local jails are the entry point to the American correctional system, processing more persons in a given year than the other segments of the correctional system in the U.S.—prisons, probation, and parole—combined. While jails hold about half as many people as prisons on any given day, they admit nearly twenty times as many people as prisons.1 From July 2013 through June 2014, approximately 3,000 local jails in the U.S. admitted 11.4 million inmates and held a total average daily population of about 744,600 inmates.2 While 40% of the confined population are sentenced offenders or convicted offenders awaiting sentencing, 60% are unconvicted inmates being held for a variety of reasons (including inability to meet bail, awaiting trial, mental health holds, drug or alcohol detoxification, temporary holds for federal or authorities, etc.). The unconvicted inmate segment of the jail population places large demands on jail administrators’ resources and management capacities.
Through the ASJ, DCRP, and the SJIC, BJS collects data annually from local jails nationwide. BJS uses these data to produce national estimates on inmates confined in local jails, persons under the supervision of jail jurisdictions, average daily population, and counts of admissions and releases.
The SJIC provides unique information about capacity and inmate population trends in Indian country facilities. BJS collaborated with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Corrections Program Office and the American Indian and Alaska Native Desk within the Office of Justice Programs to develop the SJIC. The SJIC is a census of the approximately 80 Indian country jails in the U.S. The nature of tribal justice varies between tribal authorities, and “Indian country” is a statutory term that includes all lands within an Indian reservation, dependent Indian communities, and Indian trust allotments (18 U.S.C. § 1151). Tribal courts sentencing authority was expanded in 2010, when the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) of 2010 was passed into law. Tribal law enforcement agencies act as first responders to both felony and misdemeanor crimes. For most of Indian country, the federal government provides felony law enforcement concerning crimes by or against American Indians and Alaska Natives. Certain areas of Indian country are under Public Law 83-280, as amended, which confers jurisdiction over Indian country to certain states and suspended enforcement of the Major Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1153) and the General Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 1152) in those areas. Indian tribes retain concurrent jurisdiction to enforce laws in Indian country where Public Law 280 applies.
The local jail portion of the DCRP is a national database that captures individual level records on inmate deaths in jails. Prior to the DCRP, jail mortality data were collected at infrequent intervals through BJS’s Census of Jails series but were limited to aggregate counts by sex and broad categories of cause of death (e.g. number of male and female inmate deaths due to illness/natural causes). Per the requirements stated in the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2000 (2000 DICRA, P.L. 106-297, see Appendix C, Attachment A), the DCRP local jail collection is a census out of necessity. Through its jail censuses, BJS found that the majority of jails – in excess of 80%, depending on reference year – did not report a death in their facility. The DCRP confirmed this, finding that the average annual percent of jails since 2000 reporting zero deaths was 82%.3 As required by the 2000 DICRA, the collection was designed as a total enumeration of jails. The 2000 DICRA reporting requirements expired in 2006 but were renewed in December of 2014 with the passage of the Death in Custody Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-242, 2013 DICRA). With information collected from local jails via the DCRP, BJS can track changes in mortality risks of persons held in jail and improve the public’s understanding about the circumstances surrounding inmate deaths.
The information about deaths occurring in local jails cannot be obtained through other existing collections. The National Center for Health Statistics mortality files and the National Death Index, for example, do not identify criminal justice system involvement in deaths. Other sources of data on mortality in the criminal justice system also have significant limitations (see section 5. ‘Efforts to Identify Duplication’).
The 2000 DICRA, required state and local law enforcement agencies, local jails, and state prisons to report to the Department of Justice on a quarterly basis information pertaining to the circumstances of each death occurring in the process of arrest or while offenders were in custody. BJS has continuously collected, analyzed and reported on deaths in custody since the passage of the 2000 Act, as public concerns remained about the safety and humane treatment of suspects, defendants and offenders while in contact with or under the control or supervision of criminal justice agencies.
Under Title 42 of the United States Code, Section 3789g (see Appendix C, attachment B) BJS collects DCRP data for statistical purposes only, does not release data pertaining to specific individuals in the DCRP, and has in place procedures to guard against disclosure of personally identifiable information. DCRP data are maintained under the security provisions outlined in U.S. Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR §22.23, which can be reviewed at: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/bjsmpc.pdf.
The ASJ, DCRP, and SJIC fit into BJS’s larger portfolio of administrative data collections on correctional populations in the United States. BJS’s National Prisoner Statistics Program (OMB Control Number 1121-0102) and National Corrections Reporting Program (OMB control number 1121-005) provide annual data on prison populations, while its Annual Probation Survey and Annual Parole Survey (OMB Control Number 1121-0064) provide data on community corrections populations. Together, the ASJ, DCRP and SJIC complete BJS’s annual data collection on correctional populations by covering the jail segment.
Through these collections, BJS has been able to describe major trends in the jail population. For example, the jail population has increased about 1% annually since 2000, while the jail incarceration rate per 100,000 U.S. residents has steadily declined since 2007;4 the number of deaths in jails has averaged an annual increase of 2% since 2009;5 California’s jail population has increased by nearly 11,000 inmates since the California Realignment law took effect in 2011; and that the number of inmates held in jails in Indian Country has increased 12% since 2010.6
The ASJ is an establishment survey that provides nationally representative data on jail populations. The data from ASJ enable BJS to measure the count and characteristics of inmates under the supervision of local jails. Via the ASJ, BJS reports on the number of adults and juveniles being held in adult jails; the number of persons not confined but still under the authority of the jail; the number of persons serving their sentence over the weekend; the number of non-U.S. citizens in local facilities; the conviction status of jail inmates; the sex and race/Hispanic origin of inmates; the number of admissions and releases to the facilities; the rated capacity, or the number of inmates that jail are authorized to hold; and the percent of capacity utilized. In conjunction with data from National Prisoners Statistics (NPS) series, BJS is able to estimate and track the total number of persons incarcerated in the United States. The ASJ provides data to meet the needs of jail administrators, researchers, and policy makers in understanding changes in jail population sand in developing policies that can adequately address these changes.
The SJIC is the only national data collection that provides an annual source of data on Indian country jails. After the passage of TLOA, BJS was tasked with implementing a tribal data collection system that supported tribal participation in national records and information systems. Core SJIC items include admissions, releases, confinement counts, average daily population, and the most serious criminal offense for which the offender was being held. It also asks about the operation and staffing of Indian country jails. It is also the only vehicle for capturing the total number of Indian country jail inmates dying in custody. While the survey asks for total death counts, respondents are not asked to submit individual-level death forms.
The jail portion of the DCRP is BJS’s effort to mortality throughout the criminal justice system. BJS uses the data to track and report on all-cause, and cause-specific mortality trends in jails. Furthermore, BJS assesses whether changes in the composition of the populations in custody or conditions within confinement facilities, such as crowding in jails, contribute to the long-term trends.
The DCRP jail collection has two forms: the death form collects individual-level data on the characteristics of inmates who died in local jails as well as causes and circumstances of death; the Annual Summary Form (ASF) is a short questionnaire which collects yearend inmate counts at the jail reporting unit level. Jails that did not have deaths in a year are still asked to fill out the ASF because not only is it required by the DICRA (2000 and 2012), but a total population count of inmates is necessary to calculate accurate mortality rates. Through the DCRP jail collection, BJS also updates the list of active jail facilities every year, thereby enhancing the sampling frame relied on by other BJS jail surveys, including the National Inmate Survey (NIS) and ASJ, and the 2013 Census of Jails (“2013 Census”).
In 2009, the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) of the National Academies reviewed BJS programs and data collections and released a report that made several suggestions for corrections data collection.7 Of these, the suggestions of particular relevance to the jail collections included: (a) develop and enhance longitudinal datasets; (b) emphasize the flows and transitions of inmates in the corrections system; and (c) facilitate linkage to existing datasets.
During the past three years, BJS has used the SJIC, ASJ and DCRP to address these gaps in the following ways:
Develop and enhance longitudinal datasets – Jails in the SJIC, the ASJ and the DCRP all have assigned government division codes that uniquely identifies reporting units as established by the U.S. Census Bureau. These codes allow for the creation of longitudinal jail data sets to track jail populations at the local, state and national levels and over time. The linked dataset will also allow BJS to report on how jails have cycled in and out of the DCRP since 2000. Before creating a longitudinal dataset, BJS could only report on the total number of jails reporting each year without definitively stating how many jails that failed to report were temporary or permanent data collection drop-outs. The DCRP data collection agent, RTI International, will begin in 2016 to build a similar longitudinal dataset for the ASJ. The dataset will append the historical ASJ datasets to the DCRP jails sampled for the ASJ, resulting in a file that will supplement the somewhat limited population data collected on the DCRP with data collected under the ASJ.
Flows and transitions of inmates – By building longitudinal DCRP and DCRP-ASJ datasets, BJS will be able to better understand the flow of inmates through the criminal justice system. Currently, both the ASJ and the DCRP collect admissions data from our respondents, but only the ASJ collects data on discharges. A linked dataset will provide a better, albeit limited, understanding of the flow of inmates in and out of jails in the U.S.
Facilitate linkage between existing datasets – The aforementioned government division codes (GID) are just one of several ‘hooks’ that allow other datasets to be linked to BJS data. The current DCRP jail frame has ANSI and FIPS codes in addition to the GIDs and together these three identifiers allow existing datasets to be added to the DCRP jail file. In 2015, nine community-level datasets (including, but not limited to - the American Community Survey, the Uniform Crime Report, and the Area Health Resource File) were appended to the 2013 Census. The resulting files contains measures of community demographics, crime, health services, and economic status and poverty measures in addition to jail population and facility measures. The file and resulting reports will allow for a comprehensive look at jails in relation to the communities they serve.
In addition to the improvements outlined above, BJS is working with federal partners at the U.S. Census Bureau to link BJS datasets to Census files. Specifically, in 2014, BJS funded an interagency agreement (IAA) with the Center for Administrative Records Research and Applications (CARRA) at the U.S. Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies (CES). The main goal of this IAA is to link records from the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) data to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Numident file behind the U.S. Census’ secure firewall. Once the work with the NCRP is finished, BJS is planning (once appropriate permission is secured) to extend the CARRA groups work to the DCRP jail files, which like the CARRA data collects individual records. This will further enhance current jail data without adding burden to respondents.
Earlier this year, BJS finalized an agreement with APPRISS, a software service provider that serves as the database system for the majority of jails in the U.S. (approximately 80%). BJS is currently working with pilot data from three states, using historical DCRP and ASJ to assess data quality. Based on the success of this pilot, BJS may expand the APPRISS project to all jails served by the system. If successful, BJS will be able to enhance the existing ASJ and DCRP datasets and may eventually be able to phase out some survey items (e.g. admissions, releases, average daily population) if the quality of APPRISS data meets BJS’s standards.
Changes to Survey Operation
Historically, the ASJ and DCRP were separate survey operations. However, there is a redundancy in data collections, as all population items on the DCRP ASF form are also included in the ASJ questionnaire (one-day confinement count; holds for other correctional or federal authorities; admissions,8 and average daily population (ADP)). Specifically, one-third of the jails nationwide are asked to report inmate counts twice a year: once at midyear in the ASJ and again at yearend in the DCRP. In an effort to control costs and reduce respondent burden, starting in reporting year 2015, the ASJ will be fielded at the beginning of the calendar year along with the DCRP.
During the combined DCRP and ASJ collection (hereafter referred to as “DCRP-ASJ”), 875 jail jurisdictions will be sampled and sent the ASJ forms (form CJ9A/5 for single jurisdiction jails; form CJ10A/5 for private and multi-jurisdictional jails), while the remaining jurisdictions will receive the DCRP annual summary forms (form CJ9A for single jurisdiction jails; form CJ10A for private and multi-jurisdictional jails). The ASJ forms are longer than the traditional DCRP annual summary forms, and include the critical items measured for the Jail Inmates at Midyear report series. Combining the two collections to a single operation will reduce total burden hours (see Section 13 for more information on burden hours).
The ASJ currently uses a stratified probability sample of jail jurisdictions to estimate the number and characteristics of local inmates nationwide. The sample is selected from the most recent census of jails and retained until the next round of census. The current ASJ sample was drawn from the 2013 Census of Jails, which was fielded under the DCRP data collection (OMB clearance number 1121-0249). The sampling design will remain the same moving forward.
The current ASJ sample includes approximately 370 reporting units (335 jurisdictions), which are selected for participation every year. These jails, called “certainty jails”, consist of the largest jails, and regional jails. Between 2010 and 2014, these “certainty jails” received a longer questionnaire (form CJ5D for single jurisdiction jails, and form CJ5DA for regional jails) with additional questions on staffing, physical assaults on staff, and the numbers of rule violations by inmates in various categories, while the non-certainty jails received the shorter CJ5 or CJ5A (private facilities only) forms. The estimated time to complete the longer form was 2 hours, while the estimated time to complete the shorter form was 1.25 hours. Starting in reference year 2015, BJS will cease fielding the longer ASJ form, although it will retain the item on jail staffing, which will now be asked of all sampled jail jurisdictions. Jail staffing is a critical item as it relates to safety and security in jails, inmate-to-staff ratio, and a key item for evaluating staffing needs based on jail inmate populations. The jail staffing questions was successfully fielded in the 2013 Census of Jails and had overall item response rate of about 86%.
As BJS changes the schedule of ASJ collection to coincide with that of DCRP collection, the reference date in the DCRP-ASJ (i.e., the date on which respondents are asked to base their confined populations) will change from last weekday in the month of June to December 31st, to be consistent with all other BJS corrections collections, including the DCRP. The ASJ form will retain an item asking respondents to report a midyear confinement count to allow BJS to report limited data on midyear jail populations. Starting in 2016, BJS’s ASJ annual bulletin, better known as the ‘Jails at Midyear’ report series will begin reporting yearend population counts along with midyear population counts. This will maintain continuity of reporting.
Changes in Questionnaires
DCRP-ASJ
The DCRP-ASJ collection consists of six forms -
CJ-9A/5 (Appendix C, attachment C): Deaths in Custody – 2015 Annual Summary on Inmates Under Jail Jurisdiction. Previously known as form CJ5. This form goes only to jail jurisdictions in the ASJ sample that are operated by the county or city.
CJ-10A/5 (Appendix C, attachment D): 2015 Deaths in Custody – 2015 Annual Summary on Inmates in Private and Multi-Jurisdiction Jails. Previously known as form CJ5A. This form goes only to confinement facilities in the ASJ sample that are administered by two or more governments (regional jails) and privately owned or operated confinement facilities.
CJ-9A (Appendix C, attachment E): Deaths in Custody – 2015 Annual Summary on Inmates Under Jail Jurisdiction. This form goes to all jail jurisdictions operated by the county or city that are not in the ASJ sample.
CJ-10A (Appendix C, attachment F): Deaths in Custody – 2015 Annual Summary on Inmates in Private and Multi-Jurisdiction Jails. This form goes to all confinement facilities administered by two or more governments (regional jails) and privately owned or operated confinement facilities that are not in the ASJ sample.
CJ-9 (Appendix C, attachment G): Deaths in Custody, 2015 Death Report on Inmates under Jail Jurisdiction.
CJ-10 (Appendix C, attachment H): Deaths in Custody, 2015 Death Report on Inmates in Private and Multi-Jurisdiction Jail.
The DCRP-ASJ forms (CJ-9A/5 and CJ-10A/5) each contain 17 questions. All jails in the ASJ sample will be asked to report their average daily population, peak population count in December, admissions and releases, counts of confined population by demographic characteristics including: sex, adult/juvenile breakouts, citizenship status, race/ethnicity, conviction status, offense type, and the number of inmates being held for federal, state and other local jail authorities. Also collected will be data on the number of persons under jail supervision but not confined (e.g., electronic monitoring, day reporting, etc.). Jail administrators will also be asked to report capacity and the number of correctional and other staff. The two forms contain the same items with slightly different wording (e.g., using “jurisdiction” in CJ-9A/5 vs. “supervision” in CJ-10A/5), reflecting their different target respondents.
In an effort to reduce burden on survey respondents, compared to the previous OMB clearance cycle, the DCRP respondents sampled for the ASJ will receive is simpler and shorter survey form. Eliminated survey items include (See Appendix C, attachment I):
Historical ASJ Forms CJ-5D, CJ-5DA:
Item II.3 a1 and a2: Detailed data on inmate conviction status (sentenced or unsentenced);
Item II.3 b1-b3: The number of unconvicted inmates awaiting trial/arraignment, or transfers/holds for other authorities (only overall conviction status will be collected);
Item II.8b and 8c: Operational capacity and design capacity;
Item II.10a-g: The number of discharges from custody, broken down by conviction status and time served;
Item III.2a-e, Item III a-c: Sex/age and conviction status of persons under jail supervision who were not confined;
Item IV2-IV4: The number of inmate-inflicted physical assaults on correctional officers and other staff and the number of staff deaths as a result; and the number of inmates, by category, who were written up or found guilty of a rule violation.
While respondents report consistent numbers of sentenced and unsentenced inmates, we found during the 2013 Census work that some jails do not track data on inmate conviction status by correctional status, e.g. sentenced, awaiting trial, etc., so the desired response rate for this item is lower than the overall convicted/unconvicted population that is reported in the Jail Inmates at Midyear series. The DCRP-ASJ will collect the total counts of convicted and unconvicted inmates only. Design capacity and operational capacity are less useful facility measures for BJS than rated capacity and have lower item response rates (between 80% and 93% between 2010 and 2014). Unlike rated capacity, design capacity is based on planners intended number of beds for jails and does not consider added beds to the jail space. Operation capacity is also limited to the number of inmates that can be accommodated based on staff, existing programs and services in the facilities. Rated capacity on the other hand benefits from a nearly 100% response rate every year and is the standard measure for most jails and captures the maximum number of beds or inmates assigned by a rating official to a facility. Rated capacity is the standard BJS measure for calculating the percent of capacity occupied. Not all jails track data on persons under jail supervision who were not confined by sex/age and conviction status. BJS will continue to collect on the total number and type of non-confinement supervision.
Detailed discharge information was previously collected from 335 ASJ certainty jail jurisdictions. Including jail jurisdictions that did not respond to the ASJ, nearly 40% did not provide detailed counts of discharges by time served and conviction status during the first year of collection in 2010 and the final year of collecting this item in 2014. Starting with the 2015 ASJ, BJS will collect admissions and discharges by sex only.
BJS planned to produce statistics on jail safety and security based on items collected from the largest jails between 2010 and 2014. The items included the numbers of inmate assaults on correctional staff, the number of deaths of correctional staff resulting from inmate assaults, and other major violations such as physical assaults on other inmates, drug violations, possession of weapons, escape, etc. While analyzing the jail safety and security data, BJS statisticians discovered data quality issues with these items.
The first issue is that there is an unusually high percentage of “no assaults”. About 50% of the certainty jails that received the security items reported no assaults on staff in a year. This percentage seems high given that these jails are the largest in the U.S. and that some jails reported as high as 396 assaults on staff in a year. The second issue is the large fluctuation in the number of assaults reported by some jails from 2010 to 2014. For example, 300 jails provided at least 2 years of data on assaults on staff. Of these, 22 jails reported no assaults in one year, but reported over 40 assaults in another year; another 73 jails reported no assaults in one year, and reported 11 to 40 assaults in another year. Panel data on the number of assaults suggests that assaults and other major violations are unreliably measured and under-reported. This is not a case of missing data that can be dealt with using imputation as the problem likely involves underreporting. Imputation of the missing values of assaults will not correct the bias in reported data. Therefore, BJS removed the jail security items from the next series of the ASJ.
New items added in the DCRP-ASJ include -
Forms CJ-9A/5 and CJ-10A/5
Item 17: The number of correctional officers and other staff employed by jail facilities, by sex;
Item 15: Admissions and discharges by sex;
Item 9: The number of confined inmates by offense type (felony or misdemeanor).
The number of staff employed (item 17) was collected from certainty jails in the ASJ starting in 2010, and had a response rate of 97% in 2014. Staffing questions also appeared on the 2013 Census, and had an 86%. We plan to collect staffing information by sex from ASJ respondents. Based on feedback we received during data quality follow-up during the 2013 Census, we added instruction to clarify the staffing items by specifying types of staff to include and exclude.
Item 15 is a simplified version of discharges by number of days served that appeared on the 2013 Census. The response rate for these items was relatively low, with at 80% of jails reporting that zero inmates were released after serving between 8 and 30 days regardless of conviction status. This is extremely improbable, as the median number of days served by jail inmates in the U.S. is about 20 days. We now ask for admissions and discharges by sex only, because at least 95% of ASJ respondents reported a value other than zero when asked about admissions and final discharges to and from their facility.
Item 9 is a new item that has not been used in the ASJ before, but was successfully administered in the 2013 Census, with a response rate of 92%. The item asks respondents to break down their confined count by the total number of inmates being held for a felony and for a misdemeanor. This information can be used to better describe both jail inmate populations and make inferences about their length of stay, e.g. felons would likely have longer periods of confinement. It may also better inform the shift in the proportion of convicted and unconvicted inmates being held in local jails.
Finally, as previously mentioned, the reference date in the DCRP-ASJ will be changed from midyear (last weekday in June) to yearend (December 31). Respondents will be asked to report the total and disaggregated confined inmate counts at yearend instead of at midyear. In addition, the peak population will be reported for the month of December instead of June. To maintain continuity with earlier ASJ data years, BJS will continue to collect the total number of confined inmates at midyear during this clearance cycle.
The DCRP Annual Summary Form on Inmates Under Jail Jurisdiction (CJ-9A) and Annual Summary Form on Inmates in Private and Multi-Jurisdictional Jails (CJ-10A) will contain the same content and reach out to the same respondents, but there will be some minor editorial changes designed to improve clarity and consistency on the forms (e.g., using “jurisdiction” in CJ-9A vs. “supervision” in CJ-10 to reflect operational differences between single jurisdiction and private and multi-jurisdiction jails). The forms include 5 items and collect sex-specific counts of confined population, admissions, ADP, and deaths. In addition, local jail respondents report the number of inmates held for federal agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Marshals Service, etc. .
The DCRP Death Report on Inmates Under Jail Jurisdiction (CJ-9) and Death Report on Inmates in Private and Multi-Jurisdictional Jails (CJ-10) forms which are sent to all local jails in the U.S. will not change. The forms collect individual level information on those who died in local jails. Items include demographic characteristics (sex, race, Hispanic-origin) and date of birth/death of decedents, their offenses, conviction status, date of admission, the manner and cause of death, location and time of death, medical treatment before death, etc. The items on the two forms are largely the same, save for slight differences in wording (e.g., using “jurisdiction” in CJ-9 vs. “supervision” in CJ-10), to reflect operational differences between single jurisdiction and private and multi-jurisdiction jails.
Through the SJIC, BJS is able to track changes in the number of inmates held in tribal or BIA-operated facilities. The BJS data on Indian country jail inmate population movements meet stakeholder needs for understanding the change in jail populations. Of particular concern to jail administrators is information on the composition of jail populations including the total volume of inmates handled by Indian country jails during a given period of time, and facility crowding.
Through ongoing discussions with the varied stakeholders for SJIC (see ‘Users of BJS Jail Data’ section), BJS has found that there is general satisfaction with the current survey instrument. Respondents feel that critical questions cover important topics and the accompanying instructions for completing the survey are clear. While there are interests in expanding the content of the SJIC to cover topics such as the number of transactions (e.g., transfers to and from counts or among other justice agencies, admissions/discharges, direct and indirect supervision of inmates, and American Indian and Alaska Natives sent to detention services in other states due to overcrowding), the general consensus at this time seems to be that providing these data is beyond the information system capacities of most jail administrators in Indian country.
To address the potential for expanding the survey content to meet additional needs, during the next several years BJS will, in conjunction with its data collection agent, participate in a series of conferences and meetings with Indian country officials to discuss their and capacity to provide data on a wider range of issues. BJS’s data collection agent (Westat) also has been charged with implementing a process to assess the SJIC for the purposes of enhancing and expanding it to address significant gaps in the SJIC. During this time, BJS will also assess whether measuring yearend population counts in line with other BJS jail and prison surveys would be appropriate for the SJIC. The process will include convening meetings of experts in the issues related to Indian country jails (e.g., tribal members, jail professionals, Indian country criminal justice experts, academics who study Indian country issues, and others) for the purpose of reviewing the data collection instrument, identifying gaps in the collection, assessing the costs and challenges associated with obtaining data to fill gaps, and developing methodologies to obtain the data. The assessment will cover all aspects of SJIC, including the content of the survey, modes of administration, communication with the field about the survey, statistical products from the data collection, and dissemination of products.
BJS enhanced the most serious offense category in 2002 to include domestic violence, and again in 2004, to include more detailed information on violent offenses (domestic violence, simple and aggravated assault, rape and sexual assault, and other violent offense). Since 2010, about 3 in 10 inmates held in Indian country jails have been confined for a violent offense, a decline from about 4 in 10 since peaking in 2007. At midyear 2014, domestic violence (12%) and aggravated or simple assault (9%) accounted for the largest percentage of violent offenders. Inmates held for unspecified violence (5%) and rape or sexual assault (2%) accounted for about 7% of the jail population.9
In 2014, BJS again added detail to the SJIC offense category questionnaire item to include burglary, larceny-theft, and public intoxication. The enhancement allowed for better classification of previously unspecified offenses. As a result, 23% of reported offenses at midyear 2014 included public intoxication (20%), burglary (2%), and larceny-theft (1%). Accordingly, BJS is able to address greater interest by Congress, tribal leaders, and federal agencies to improve the criminal justice system in Indian country by identifying the types of offenders they are holding. Improving the justice system includes identifying crime in Indian country and collecting criminal justice data. The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 (P.L. 111–211) requires BJS to submit to Congress a report describing the data collected and analyzed on crimes in Indian country.
The CJ-5B (SJIC) will go to respondents from Indian country correctional facilities operated by tribal authorities or the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) (currently there are 80 active facilities). As with earlier years, they will be asked to provide information for the following categories (Appendix C, attachment J). There are no proposed changes to the CJ-5B.
Governmental officials, policy makers, graduate students, researchers, and advocates have used the data from the DCRP, ASJ and SJIC widely. Examples of users and uses of these data include the following:
U.S. Congress—Congress has used BJS jail data to evaluate the adequacy of jail and correctional facilities to meet growing inmate populations and to assess the needs of States and local jurisdictions for bed space relative to available resources. For example, both the Senate and House versions of the Criminal Justice Reinvestment Act of 2009 (S. 2772 and H.R. 4080) cite BJS data on jail population growth between 2000 and 2008 as well as BJS data on jail admissions. These data describe the conditions that the legislation aims to ameliorate. In the Second Chance Act (P.L. 110-199), congress refers to BJS jail data to illustrate the significant number of persons released from jails into the community. Some members of Congress (e.g., Senator Thune, SD) have a strong interest in criminal justice issues in Indian country and have used SJIC data to understand trends in corrections in Indian country. The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 (P.L. 111–211) requires BJS to submit to Congress a report describing the data collected and analyzed on crimes in Indian country. The Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (P.L. 113-242) was passed in December of 2014 through a bipartisan effort due to a political interest in accurately measuring deaths occurring in custody.
The White House – In October of 2015, BJS participated in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy committee on Data Driven Justice. The committee was formed to bring counties and government agencies together to discuss models for data sharing among county jails and other social service agencies. The committee is part of a larger White House initiative to reduce the total incarcerated population, especially jails, by identifying potential county-based alternatives to incarceration. BJS discussed data sources, like the ASJ and the DCRP that would better inform the populations jails are currently serving. BJS also discussed potential avenues for more timely delivery of the data it currently collects.
National Institute of Corrections (NIC)—The NIC, through its National Jail Exchange, is a major consumer of BJS jail data, using it to evaluate local jail conditions, establish standards, and assess needs for technical assistance and training for local jail officials. Data from BJS’s ASJ and its statistical reports derived from ASJ are regularly cited in NIC publications on local jails. These publications are broadly disseminated throughout the jail administrator community.
American Jail Association – the American Jail Association (AJA) has reproduced BJS data in full or in part on several occasions through their weekly electronic newsletter, the “AJA Alert”, and their “American Jails” magazine. Per AJA’s Execute Director Robert Kasabian, a copy of ‘American Jails’ is sent to every jail in the United States. The June 2015 issue of “American Jails” excerpted a recent BJS report on medical treatment of jail inmates10 and Director Kasabian expressed interest in doing an excerpt of the ‘2014 Jail Inmates at Midyear’ because he believed jail staff would be very interested in the findings.11 Furthermore, the press release for the most recent ASJ (“Jail Inmates at Midyear 2014”), DCRP reports (“Mortality in Local Jails and State Prisons, 2000-2013”) and SJIC reports (“Jails in Indian Country, 2014”) were included in the AJA Alert.
Office of Justice Programs— The Assistant Attorney General for OJP routinely requests BJS jail data on various topics. The resulting report from the SJIC was cited numerous times in OJP’s Tribal Law and Order Act: Long Term Plan to Build and Enhance, section on Facility Operations and Management Challenges. Most recently, requests have focused on SJIC data, particularly as they pertain to the utilization rate of jail space and recommending tribes with jails to implement correctional alternative programming to incarceration. Agencies with OJP, such as the National Institute for Justice (NIJ), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) have all used BJS’s jail data. NIJ uses BJS jail data to provide a comparative analysis of prison and jail conditions, specifically to determine whether jail conditions in Indian country meet guidelines as outlined in the Department of Justice appropriations for fiscal year 2006 in response to a recommendation in the U.S. House of Representatives Conference Report No. 108–792. BJA uses the published DCRP jail population data to estimate incarcerated veterans to better inform their veteran treatment court program. OJJDP uses ASJ and DCRP jail population data to estimate the number of juveniles housed in U.S. adult facilities, and uses ASJ and SJIC to assess whether they are detained as adults or pending juvenile court processing. OJJDP is interested in the data regarding deaths of juveniles in correctional facilities, particularly in regards to juveniles committing suicide in adult jails.
Office of Tribal Justice, DOJ (OTJ)—OTJ is the primary point of contact for the Department of Justice with federally recognized Native American tribes, and advises the Department on legal and policy matters pertaining to Native Americans. OTJ refers to the SJIC and resulting report as a selected resource on corrections and detention.
Bureau of Indian Affairs—BIA works collaboratively with BJS on Indian country issues and uses SJIC data to develop annual statistics on BIA and tribally-operated facilities as well as provide its managers with comparative data with which to assess jail operations and programs.
Local, city, and tribal jail administrators—These officials use BJS jail data to assess inmate populations and characteristics within their own jurisdictions relative to others and to determine needs and budget requirements. For example, BJS staff responds to requests for information from local jail officials about how their jurisdictions compares to other jurisdictions of comparable size or in a nearby geographic location. Through its web-based reporting tool, the DCRP jail collection provides respondents with a customized report that compares their jail’s death data with jails in-state and in the country that are of similar size. This information is frequently used by jail staff for internal and external reports.
Other jail administrators have used the BJS data to articulate the case for including jails in the discussion of recidivism and reentry policies. Notable among these is Arthur Wallenstein, former head of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. As a prominent leader among jail administrators, Wallenstein used BJS data on jail bookings as part of his case to include local jails in national discussions of offender reentry (sponsored by the Urban Institute) by demonstrating that local jails handle many times (about 15-16 times) the volume of offenders in a given year that prisons handle.
The most common request the BJS receives in relation to the DCRP’s jail collection is from respondents asking for a comparison of their mortality to the mortality rate to other jails in the state and the country. As a result, in 2013, BJS worked with its contractor to create a jail report unique to each jail jurisdiction that reports their mortality numbers, rates and comparisons to jails within their state and jails of a similar size (based on average daily population and admissions). The data contained within is used by jail respondents for internal reports to their sheriff, administrators and occasionally the local governing authority.
Facility Administrators in Indian country—The administrators use SJIC data to assess jail conditions within their own jurisdictions relative to others, and to determine needs and budget requirements.
Researchers and Academics—Various research associations and academics use BJS jail data to provide information to their members about conditions in corrections. Gwyn Smith-Ingley, former executive director of the AJA, describes in her executive directors remarks piece, that “[o]ne very important aspect to any intelligent jail is an awareness of relevant data,” citing 2010 ASJ report Jail Inmates at Midyear 2009-Statistical Tables. (See Smith-Ingley, G., “Jail Stats and a Study,” American Jails, Vol. 24, No. 5, p 7.) The Pew Foundation’s report “One in 100: Behind Bars in America, 200812” used BJS’s ASJ data to measure the number of jail inmates incarcerated nationwide, to which they added data from BJS prisoner surveys to calculate that 1 in 100 adults was incarcerated in the U.S. Pew later followed up with a report called “1 in 31” in which they not only used BJS ASJ’ data but cited the finding in BJS press releases on correctional populations about the prevalence of correctional supervision in the United States. Through their use of BJS jail data, Pew has been able to document the scope of corrections and make their case for reducing the size of institutional correctional populations.
In conjunction with researchers at the MacArthur Foundation, Matthew DeMichele of RTI International will be using data from the 2013 Census, which was fielded through the DCRP, to reproduce a report on jail incarceration rates’ economic impact on communities. Work on this project will begin once the 2013 Census file is released for public use (slated for yearend 2015).
Jacob Kang-King of the Vera Institute will be using DCRP population data, as well as data from the 2013 Census, to do a time-series analysis on mass incarceration in the U.S. at the county level.
Two BJS visiting fellows, Dr. Christopher Wildeman and Dr. Ingrid Binswanger, are currently using DCRP jail death and population data to complete papers with BJS staff on mortality in correctional settings. Dr. Binswanger is using DCRP jail and prison data to write a journal article on the drug and alcohol-related deaths among incarcerated populations. Dr. Wildeman is using DCRP jail and prison data, as well as data from the SJIC to write a BJS report and an accompanying journal article on mortality among incarcerated American Indians. Both papers are scheduled for release in 2016.
Finally, the DCRP’s data collection agent, RTI International, recently delivered nine datasets that connected the 2013 Census to community level files that include measures on crime, public health, economic status, educational attainment and other community measures. The files will be used by BJS to produce a series of reports in the coming years on jails and the communities they serve.
Academic and federal government researchers have used BJS’s jail data in a variety of studies, some of which have been previously cited in this document. In addition to these, a sample of other studies using BJS’s jail data includes:
Ortiz, N.R. (2015) “County Jails at a Crossroads: An Examination of the Jail Population and Pretrial Release”. National Association of Jails Why Counties Matter Paper Series. Issue 2.
Baradaran, S., F.L. McIntyre (2012) “Predicting Violence,” Texas Law Review 90(3): 497-570.
Hopper, J.D. (2008) “The Effects of Private Prison Labor Program Participation on Inmate Recidivism” Middle Tennessee State University.
Glaze, Lauren E., Kaeble, Danielle. “Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013”. Bulletin. NCJ 248479, Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics
Hayes, LM. (2010) “National Study of Jail Suicide: 20 Years Later” NIC 024308, Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections.
Kane, M., K. Bechtel, et al. (2011). Exploring the Role of Responsivity and Assessment with Hispanic and American Indian Offenders. Boston, MA, Crime and Justice Institute: 113-113.
Maruschak, L., W. Sabol, R. Potter, L. Reid, and E. Cramer (2009) “Pandemic Influenza and Jail Facilities and Populations,” American Journal of Public Health, 99(s2), S339-S344.
Spaulding A.C., R. M. Seals, M.J. Page, A.K. Brzozowski, and W. Rhodes, (2009). “HIV/AIDS among Inmates of and Releases from US Correctional Facilities, 2006: Declining Share of Epidemic but Persistent Public Health Opportunity,” Plos One, 4(11), e7558. (From MEDLINE full-text database.)
Solomon, A., J. Osborne, S.F. LoBuglio, J. Mellow, and D. Mukamal, (2008), Life after Lockup: Improving Reentry from Jail to the Community, Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
ASJ respondents have been able to submit data through a web-based system since 2000. Since its inception, web-based submissions have increased steadily, from 12% in 2000 and 55% in 2011, to about 90% in 2014. BJS established an internet-based data collection tool for the DCRP collection in 2004. Using improvements learned through the DCRP web-based system, BJS will work to maintain high web-based response rates for respondents in the ASJ sample.
The current DCRP web reporting system includes a limited set of online edit checks to identify data entry errors by respondents. BJS has also implemented computer methods for reviewing and editing the entered data in more detail. A set of decision rules are coded and the code is run against the data to identify out-of-range or erroneous values and to assess the impacts of out-of-range values on quantities to be estimated. These methods are used to make decisions about priorities for follow-up contact with respondents.
Based on analytics and comments obtained from respondents during follow-up, the bulleted items that follow are some of the ways in which BJS has used information technology to reduce burden and improve data quality, agency efficiency and responsiveness to the public.
Real time, “always on” data collection. With the start of a calendar year, respondents will have access to the web collection instrument and can report their data as soon as the 2016 data collection year opens on the DCRP-ASJ website. (DCRP and ASJ).
Improvements in identifying the reporting year. Because the DCRP collections are “always on,” the Web site will include buttons that allow DCRP-ASJ respondents to select the relevant year and access multiple years (including previous years) if needed.
Pre-filled forms. Forms are prepopulated with respondent contact information, eliminating the need for respondents to enter this information unless there has been an update to contact information.
Improvements in survey flow. The online data collection tool follows the paper forms, but enhancements to the web tool facilitate navigation through the form. Respondents will be led through the items in smaller segments rather than scrolling through the items on a single screen, minimizing the possibility of them inadvertently skipping an item. This simultaneously enhances data quality while reducing the burden of future data quality follow-up.
Enhanced capacity to add death reports. Respondents are able to create new blank death records for data entry simply by choosing an “Add a Death Report” option button. This is especially helpful for larger jails and prisons, which often submit multiple deaths at a time (DCRP only).
Enhanced capacity to review existing death reports. Respondents are able to easily locate existing records based on a combination of identification criteria (e.g., date of death, date of birth, etc.) or by a list of inmate names (DCRP only).
Timeout warning so that important data are not lost. Warnings are sent to respondents to if a web session is about to automatically timeout due to inactivity. This warning prevents data loss and eliminates re-entry of data.
Real-time prompts that alert respondents of potential errors. The functionality of the Web forms alerts agencies to potential data problems. This includes soft prompts when respondents report improbable values on the prison and jail death forms and the jail annual summary forms. This systems reduces data errors and item non-response.
On-screen reporting capabilities. Upon completion of each form, respondents receive an on-screen report that summarizes their responses. This enhancement was designed in response to respondents’ interest in wanting to assess the completeness of their submission while allowing them to review and edit their entries prior to final submission.
Explicit confirmation of form completion following online form submission. Upon submitting their data, respondents receive confirmation that their submission is complete for the relevant reference year.
Paper versions of submissions for web respondents. Many respondents have expressed that, while they prefer to use the Web-based tool to enter their data, they also need paper copies for documentation. As result, the web-based tool automatically generates .pdfs of completed survey forms that can be printed or saved.
Real-time reporting to data collection agent of errors encountered by respondents. In 2009, DCRP data collection agent RTI introduced an error log, which notifies RTI of errors encountered by respondents as they maneuver within the DCRP web site. This allows RTI to identify and correct systemic issues, which in turn, has resulted in increased user satisfaction with web reporting. (This is a behind-the-scenes enhancement that does not affect the content of the instrument.)
Continual additions to the frequently asked questions (FAQs) document. The FAQ is available on the public-facing DCRP Web site (http://bjsdcrp.rti.org) and can be accessed without a user credentials. BJS and RTI modify the content in response to evolving needs.
As outlined in the 2012-2015 DCRP OMB package, BJS introduced a plan to phase out the use of paper forms. Prior to 2012, respondents received a mailing packet that included a cover letter, reporting instructions and copies of the survey forms. Unlike earlier years, paper surveys were not included in the annual mailings announcing the start of the 2012 data collection. The goal of the experiment was to encourage respondents to report their data via the DCRP web tool. Post-experiment, web-based data submissions increased from about 40% to 64%. As a result, the paperless model became a permanent for the DCRP. The experiment had the biggest impact on submission of the DCRP jail annual summary forms. As of 2015, the web response rate for jails annual summary forms is 93%. While a smaller percentage of jail death forms (73%) are submitted via the web, it is still the preferred submission method for jail respondents. The same web-centric submission model will be applied to respondents sampled for the ASJ.
BJS will expand the paperless feature further in 2016 by mailing a group of truly paperless respondents their survey invitation by e-mail instead of the traditional hardcopy mailing. Similar to the current system, respondents will be given the option to request a hardcopy mailing. Respondents in this group who have not responded by the time of the standard replacement mailing (typically in mid-March) will receive a hardcopy mailing.
The e-mail sent to agencies in the truly paperless group will resemble the normal cover letter, i.e. it will be on electronic OJP letterhead, and it will include a URL to the web site with login credentials. Additionally, URLs will be enclosed in the invitation e-mail which will allow the agency to access a special Web page providing electronic versions of all typical enclosures in the January mailing (e.g., reference year reporting instructions, DCRP handout).
The group of paperless respondents receiving the email invitation will be selected based on agency size, prior year response, and prior year mode of response. Analysis will assess the impact on cost, unit response rate, time/speed of response, and mode of response. If successful, the email notification model will take the place of paper mailing packets.
The online system also allows BJS’s contractors to generate weekly progress reports which allows BJS to assess response rates on a weekly basis and is able to determine the completeness of each jail reporting unit. These reports allow BJS to have a real-time look at the progress of data collection and can identify response rate issues early in the collection cycle. The DCRP web model will also extend to respondents in the ASJ sample, and any improvements on the model will also benefit the ASJ sample.
The SJIC will continue to be distributed via paper survey. Given the rural nature of these jails and their limited access to internet due to the small size of the jurisdictions and the costs associated with internet connectivity and computer systems, a similar web-based effort would not be appropriate for this population in the foreseeable future.
National jail surveys are not duplicated by any other government agency. Researchers have done some jail studies, with limited coverage and varying response rates. The National Association of Counties surveyed 1,322 jails to produce their “County Jails at a Crossroads” report, but the response rate was 21%.13 California releases a quarterly “Jail Profile Survey”, but it is limited to jails in California.14 BJS conducted a search of the National Archives of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) to identify other data on jails that are archived there, and the search did not reveal any duplication with the ASJ or SJIC. BJS also consulted with staff at the AJA and the American Correctional Association—both of which are member organizations serving corrections administrators—about their knowledge of other, similar collections. They were not aware of any other data or survey collections similar to the ASJ and SJIC. No other organization collects comparable data on inmates in local, city, or tribal jails.
While there are other sources of mortality data related to the topic of custodial deaths, none are as comprehensive as the DCRP. Since the beginning of the DCRP, BJS has undertaken efforts to identify other national data collections that could be redundant with the DCRP. BJS has identified three national databases with custodial death data, but there are significant differences between these systems and the DCRP. The other national collection systems are the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics’ (NCHS) National Death Index (NDI), National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) and the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS).
The National Death Index (NDI) includes all deaths in the United States, as it is a clearing house of death certificates filed in the U.S. However, death certificates do not indicate whether the deceased had been in correctional custody and in turn, the NDI is unable to capture this information.
The NVSS has total coverage of known deaths in the United States and is based on death certificates. However, death certificates currently do not have a flag or other indicator identifying custodial deaths. BJS has had discussion with both NCHS and the National Association of Medical Examiners about the possibility of adding such an identifier to the U.S. Standard Death Certificate, and while there is interest in such an addition, any proposed changes has to be approved by the World Health Organization and changes are proposed and voted on decennially. The next opportunity will not present itself for several years.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) tracks homicides and suicides in 32 states in the U.S. The NVDRS is a state-based surveillance system that triangulates data from death certificates, medical examiner/coroner reports and police reports to create a database on violent deaths. The NVDRS excludes deaths by suicide or homicide in correctional settings in its reporting, but even if these deaths were included, they would only be capturing about one-third of deaths in local jails in two-thirds of states. BJS will pursue work in the next three years to assess overlap in deaths reported to the NVDRS and the DCRP.
As outlined in Section 2 ‘Needs and Uses’, BJS is introducing two changes to the 2015-2017 DCRP-ASJ collection in an effort to minimize burden. ASJ survey operation will be combined with the DCRP jail collection and the approximately 900 jail jurisdictions in the ASJ sample will no longer need to fill out a separate DCRP ASF. DCRP respondents sampled for the ASJ will complete CJ9A/5 or CJ10A/5 summary forms in lieu of the DCRP ASF (forms CJ9A/CJ10A) and will receive the form when they receive the DCRP death forms. Items of lower reliability and response rate, e.g. jail safety and security, in the DCRP-ASJ instrument have been removed from the new survey and as a result the instrument will be shorter. By eliminating the overly burdensome items with lower than desirable response rates from the previous ASJ-CJ-5D and CJ-5DA forms, BJS will reduce the burden by 45 minutes for over 40% of the jail jurisdictions in the 2015-2017 ASJ sample.
As previously mentioned, earlier this year BJS finalized an agreement with APPRISS, a software service provider that serves as the database system for the majority of jails in the U.S. (approximately 80%). The APPRISS project was first undertaken in an effort to reduce respondent burden. If the preliminary test of APPRISS data are to BJS’s satisfaction, e.g. comparison with data collected under the DCRP and the ASJ confirm the quality of the data, BJS will be in the position to drop certain data elements, (admissions, releases, average daily population), that are currently collected under the DCRP and the ASJ for jails that participate in APPRISS and BJS surveys. The data collected by APPRISS does not add any burden to respondents because the company will provide BJS their data through a file transfer system after querying their computer systems.
5. Impact on Small Businesses
Not applicable. The ASJ, DCRP and ASJ data collections do not involve small businesses or other small entities. The respondents are city or county jails, and jails in Indian country.
Through its ASJ, DCRP, and SJIC, BJS is able to provide annual, nationally-representative data on jail population movements. Without the three annual jail collections, BJS would be reduced to providing infrequent jail findings via its periodic census of jails (every 5-6 years). Data from the three jail collections allow BJS to identify changes in jail inmate populations in the inter-census years. For example, using ASJ data, BJS has been able to document declines in jail population since peaking in 2008 and how the Public Safety Realignment policy on California jails population since 2011 impacted the jail inmate growth rate. Using data from ASJ and DCRP, BJS was able to track changes in the jail inmate populations at six-month intervals, which allows for a more nuanced picture of annual changes in the jail population. BJS has also documented important changes in components of the jail population—such as the number of non-US citizens, the number held for other authorities, the increasing female jail population, the declining juvenile population in adult jails, and the expansion of jail capacity.
Collecting death records on a less than annual basis would prevent BJS from reporting to the U.S. Attorney General on custodial deaths as outlined in the 2013 DICRA. While the 2013 DICRA requires quarterly reporting, BJS will fulfill this aspect of the Act by pulling data from the weekly data collection progress summary reports submitted to BJS by its contractor, rather than shifting the burden onto respondents. Quarterly reporting was required under the 2000 DICRA and it was BJS’s experience that respondents would submit incomplete records to satisfy the quarterly element. After the 2000 DICRA expired, BJS advised respondents to submit records once they had all necessary information, e.g. final cause of death as determined at autopsy, to complete the record. The off-shoot of this approach was an annual, ‘always-on’ collection that continues to this day.
Collection on a less than annual basis would further compromise BJS’s capacity to report in a timely manner on trends in deaths in custody and it would pose challenges for data collection due to the relatively high turnover among respondents to the DCRP jail collection. It would also impose additional costs associated with restarting the collection at various intervals, and a less than annual collection would delay collection and publication of mortality data. All of these scenarios played out with the 2009 data collection. BJS delayed the 2009 collection by a year while BJS selected a new data collection agent for the DCRP. Instead, data years 2009 and 2010 were run concurrently in early 2010. Response rates for collection year 2009 declined slightly, and more significantly data quality was compromised because respondent’s ability to complete cause of death information was compromised as death record information was shipped off-site. Respondents are used to an annual collection and have developed internal procedures to facilitate responding to the DCRP over the years. Every year since collection began, BJS has been able to collect data from at least 97% of all jail jurisdictions for DCRP. Due to the sensitivity of the information collected, and the experience with data year 2009, it is likely a drop in participation would take place if collection occurred every 2 or more years.
Turnover among respondents to the collections would potentially negatively impact response rates and increase follow-up costs if the collection were fielded less frequently. Through annual collection, BJS learns about pending turnover at agencies during routine data collection and verification calls (see Part B, section 2 for more information) and can plan for it. With less frequent collection, each effort to obtain data from the approximately 3,000 local jail reporting units nationwide would require more BJS and respondent resources.
Finally, were the collection done on less than an annual basis there would be a loss of information and degradation in data quality. DCRP respondents have relayed that medical records and death certificates are often shipped off site within a comparatively short period of time, usually within a year of the death. If the data were collected on less than an annual basis, some respondents would no longer be able to access this critical piece of data. Other respondents would be required to go to off-site storage to obtain records, typically at an additional cost to the respondent. This would likely result in a negative effect on participation in the collection.
Not applicable. There is no circumstance in which a respondent would respond more than once a year and provide more data than on the survey form. The ASJ, SJIC, and DCRP jail collections are consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.6.
The 60 and 30-day notices for public comment were published in the Federal Register. BJS received one comment in response to the 60-day notice in the Federal Register: a letter of support from NRI, a partner of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. The organization wrote to encourage OMB to allow BJS to add items to the CJ-9A/5, CJ-10A/5 (DCRP-ASJ) forms and the CJ-5B (SJIC) forms on delivery of mental health services to jail inmates. BJS is committed to adding these items, but will request to conduct the necessary piloting working through the BJS generic OMB clearance.
BJS maintains frequent contact with data providers and data users in an effort to improve data collection, reporting procedures, data analysis, and data presentation.
In reviewing the data collection procedures, BJS has consulted with various experts to obtain their views on the instruments. BJS consulted the following jail, mortality and Indian country officials and experts:
Dr. Robert Mitchell, Chief. Office of the Medical Examiner, Washington, D.C.
National Association of Medical Examiners.
Reena Chakraborty, Ph.D. Chief of Strategic Planning and Analysis, D.C. Department of Corrections.
Sergeant Mark Beatley, Data Integrity, Marion County Jail, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Elizabeth Arias, Centers for Disease Control. Mortality Branch, Division of Vital Statistics.
Robert Kasabian, Executive Director of the American Jail Association.
Paul Sutton, Ph.D. Mortality Surveillance Team Lead, National Center for Health Statistics.
Eileen Luna-Firebaugh, Ph.D. University of Arizona.
Margaret Warner, Ph.D. Injury Epidemiologist – Mortality Statistics Branch, National Center for Health Statistics.
David Espey, M.D. Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, Acting Director. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wendy Lin-Kelly, data analyst, Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, Portland, OR.
Sergeant Mark Beatley, data analyst, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Indianapolis, IN.
Arthur M. Wallenstein, Director of Montgomery County Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (retired).
Participation in the surveys is voluntary and no gifts or incentives will be given.
BJS’s pledge of confidentiality is based on its governing statutes Title 42 USC, Section 3735 and 3789g, which establish the allowable use of data collected by BJS. Under these sections (Appendix C, attachment K), data collected by BJS shall be used only for statistical or research purposes and shall be gathered in a manner that precludes their use for law enforcement or any purpose relating to a particular individual other than statistical or research purposes (Section 3735). BJS staff, other federal employees, and Westat (SJIC data collection agent) and RTI International staff (the ASJ and DCRP data collection agent) shall not use or reveal any research or statistical information identifiable to any specific private person for any purpose other than the research and statistical purposes for which it was obtained.
Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 3789g, BJS will not publish any data identifiable specific to a private person (including respondents and decedents). BJS does not plan to report any data at the institution or facility level in which deaths occur. Requests for private information through the Freedom of Information Act will be forwarded to the Office of Justice Programs’ General Counsel for determination of data to be released.
There are no questions of a sensitive nature included in the ASJ or SJIC. In addition, the data collected and published from the surveys are aggregated counts from which the identity of specific persons cannot reasonably be determined.
Items regarding cause of death and circumstances surrounding each death are specified by the 2013 DICRA (P.L. 113-242) and BJS continues to request these items because they are essential to understanding mortality in the criminal justice system. Such items may be considered sensitive to correctional and law enforcement administrators; however, this information is a matter of public record, as part of reports by medical examiners and coroners. BJS guards these data closely. Researchers wishing to use the DCRP death records must comply with the standards of the data enclave at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), including travel to NACJD and review of all materials brought in and taken from the enclave room.
The DCRP-ASJ collection will collect data from 3,000 jail respondents in the U.S. The SJIC will collect data from 80 Indian country jail respondents in tribal communities. Estimates of annual burden on respondents are based on the number of hours required to review the instructions associated with the instruments, search existing data sources, obtain information necessary to complete data collection instruments, and respond to verification calls. Average reporting time is based on 2014 data. A summary of respondent burden estimates under the old model of the ASJ and DCRP as separate collections is provided in Table 1.
The full burden hours for the DCRP-ASJ and the SJIC is presented in table 2.
Table 1. Summary of change in burden hours for ASJ and DCRP and SJIC forms
|
ASJ and DCRP separate |
Merged DCRP-ASJ collection |
|||||
Collection |
Purpose of contact |
Number of respondents |
Average reporting time |
Burden hours |
Number of respondents |
Average reporting time |
New burden hours |
ASJ |
Data collection |
950 |
75-120* minutes |
1,468 |
938 |
75 minutes |
1,173 |
ASJ |
Verification calls |
950 |
5 minutes |
79 |
938 |
8 minutes |
125 |
ASJ |
Follow-up |
285 |
5 minutes |
24 |
281 |
5 minutes |
23 |
DCRP |
Data collection Annual summary forms |
3,000 |
15 minutes |
750 |
2,062 |
15 minutes |
516 |
DCRP |
Data collection – death forms |
900 death records |
30 minutes |
450 |
900 death records |
30 minutes |
450 |
DCRP |
Verification calls |
3,000 |
8 minutes |
400 |
2,062 |
8 minutes |
275 |
DCRP |
Follow-up |
872 |
5 minutes |
73 |
591 |
5 minutes |
49 |
SJIC |
Data collection |
80 |
75 minutes |
100 |
80 |
75 minutes |
100 |
Total |
|
|
|
3,344 |
|
|
2,711 |
*374 of the 950 ASJ respondents were considered certainty jurisdictions and received a lengthier form, which had a total completion time of 120 minutes. The associated burden for the certainty jurisdictions accounted for 748 hours of the total 1,468 hours for the ASJ.
The elimination of the certainty forms for respondents in the ASJ sample, the substitution of the ASJ form in lieu of the DCRP annual summary form for DCRP respondents sampled for the ASJ and the streamlining of verification and follow-up efforts for the DCRP-ASJ results in a net saving of 634 burden hours for respondents.
Burden hours associated with completing death forms and for respondents for the SJIC have not changed as a result of the combined DCRP-ASJ collection. See table 2 (below) for the summary of burden hours associated with the DCRP-ASJ and SJIC.
Table 2. Summary of Total Respondent Burden for the DCRP-ASJ and the SJIC
Reporting mode |
Purpose of contact |
Number of data providers |
Number of responses |
Average reporting time |
Total burden hours |
Online and mail |
DCRP-ASJ |
938 |
938 |
75 min |
1,173 |
Fax and mail |
SJIC |
80 |
80 |
75 min |
100 |
Online and mail |
DCRP annual summary |
2062 |
2062 |
15 min |
516 |
Online and mail |
DCRP death records |
600 |
900 |
30 min |
450 |
Email and telephone |
Data quality follow-up |
872 |
872 |
5 min |
73 |
Telephone |
DCRP-ASJ verification call |
3,000 |
3,000 |
8 min |
400 |
Total |
|
|
|
|
2,711 |
The DCRP-ASJ forms (forms CJ-9A/5 and CJ-10A/5) will be sent to 938 reporting units representing a sample of 875 county and city jail jurisdictions in the U.S. The DCRP annual summary forms (forms CJ9A and CJ10A) will be sent to the 2,062 jails not sampled for the ASJ. The DCRP death forms (forms CJ9 and CJ10) will be sent to approximately 3,000 jail reporting units (about 2,800 jail jurisdictions). The SJIC questionnaire (form CJ-5B) will be sent to 80 Indian country correctional facilities operated by tribal authorities or the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Based on prior years’ reporting, we estimate a reporting time of 75 minutes for both DCRP-ASJ and SJIC questionnaires.
Analysis of data from past years shows that approximately 80% of jails nationwide have zero deaths in a given calendar year. For those reporting zero deaths, jail respondents not in the ASJ sample only need to fill out an annual summary form (Form CJ-9A or CJ-10A), which consists of five items. The estimated reporting time is 15 minutes. Based on past data collection, we expect to receive approximately 900 death reports from 600 jail respondents. The average response time for the death report forms (forms CJ9 and CJ10) is 30 minutes per death, including follow-up time for data quality checks.
All local jail respondents will participate in the verification call with an estimated reporting time of 8 minutes.
Thus, we expect that in any data collection year -
938 sampled ASJ respondents will have an average reporting time of 75 minutes, for a total burden of 1,173 hours.
80 SJIC respondents will have an average reporting time of 75 minutes, for a total burden of 100 hours.
2,062 jail respondents not in the ASJ sample will take 15 minutes each to fill out DCRP Annual Summary Form, for a total burden of 516 hours.
3,000 jail respondents will have an average response time of 8 minutes per verification call, for a total burden of 400 hours.
Local jail respondents will fill out 900 DCRP death forms. Each death form takes 30 minutes to complete, for a total burden of 400 hours.
3,000 local jail respondents will have an average response time of 8 minutes per verification call, for a total burden of 400 hours.
As a result, the total burden of hours associated with the jail data collection is 2,711 hours.
We do not expect the three data collections to incur any financial costs to jail respondents. The information requested is of the type and scope jails normally collect as part of their operations and no special hardware or accounting software or system is necessary to provide information for this data collection. Thus, the data collection does not incur any capital, startup, or system maintenance costs to respondents. Furthermore, purchase of outside accounting or information collection services, if performed by the respondent, is part of usual and customary business practices, not specifically required for providing information to BJS.
Based on the total burden hours at an average labor cost of $23.00 per hour (based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data), we estimate the annual costs to respondents to total $60,674.
14. Estimated Cost to the Federal Government
Total annual cost to the federal government for all aspects of the SJIC and the combined ASJ and DCRP programs will be $1,346,300.
BJS and Data Collection Agent Cost Summary: ASJ and DCRP collections
RTI International is BJS’s data collection agent for the combined DCRP-ASJ collection. The annual cost estimates are as follows (see Table 3):
Table 3. DCRP-ASJ Collection Annual Cost Estimate
BJS ASJ—DCRP collection cost estimate |
|
5% GS-14, Supervisory Statistician |
$6,300 |
35% GS-13, Statistician |
$35,000 |
5% GS-14, Statistician |
$5,500 |
35% GS-11, Statistician |
$29,000 |
5% GS-13, Technical Editor |
$4,500 |
2% GS-12, Production Editor |
$1,700 |
2% GS-13, Digital Information Specialist |
$2,000 |
Benefits ($84,000 subtotal @ 20%)
|
$16,800 |
Other administrative costs ($84,000 subtotal @ 30%)
|
$25,200 |
BSJ subtotal |
$126,000 |
Data collection agent (RTI International) cost estimate |
|
Personnel, benefits |
$403,100 |
Indirect costs |
$457,700 |
Computer expenses, materials, services, travel and other fringe costs |
$157,100 |
Shipping, postage, telecommunications, reproduction, other |
$19,800 |
Subcontractor expenses |
$48,300 |
Data collection agent subtotal |
1,086,000 |
Total costs |
$1,212,000 |
Survey of Jails in Indian Country (SJIC): Currently, the division of labor for a data collection cycle of SJIC is as follows: Westat Inc. maintains and updates the respondent contact information database, conducts the survey through mail or fax, conducts follow-up, collects the data, prepares facility level tables, and prepares a dataset for BJS use. BJS staff analyze the data, prepare statistical tables, and write reports based on these data.
Based upon contractual costs, the estimated costs to the government associated with the collection, processing, and publication of reports, and preparation of data tables are projected for 2015 in Table 4. A total estimated cost of $134,300 is divided between the Westat Inc. for data collection and table creation ($78,100) and BJS for analysis, reporting and dissemination ($56,200). Both BJS and Westat costs include salary, fringe, and overhead.
Table 4. Estimated costs for the Survey of Jails in Indian Country
BJS costs |
|||
|
Staff salaries |
|
|
|
|
GS-14 Statistician (25%) |
$27,500 |
|
|
GS-14 Supervisory Statistician (3%) |
$3,700 |
|
|
GS-15 Chief Editor (1%) |
$1,200 |
|
|
Other Editorial Staff (3%) |
$2,200 |
|
|
Front-Office Staff (GS-15 & Directors) |
$600 |
|
|
Subtotal salaries |
$35,200 |
|
Fringe benefits (33% of salaries) |
$11,600 |
|
|
Subtotal: Salary & fringe |
$46,800 |
|
|
Other administrative costs of salary & fringe (20%) |
$9,400 |
|
|
Subtotal: BJS costs |
$56,200 |
|
Westat Inc., costs (data collection agent) |
|
||
Westat Inc., costs (salaries, fringe benefits, mail-out, fax, email and phone follow-up, programming, table creation, and overhead) |
$78,100 |
||
|
|
||
Total estimated costs |
$134,300 |
||
15. Changes in Respondent Burden
The elimination of the longer ASJ form (forms CJ-5D and CJ-5DA) for 374 jails in certainty strata will save 45 minutes per respondent for a total of 281 hours. Combining the collections of ASJ and DCRP will save each of the 938 ASJ respondents 15 minutes of completing the DCRP ASF (CJ9A and CJ10A) separately, easily offsetting the minor burden incurred by the added question on midyear population on the ASF forms CJ-9A/5 and CJ-10A/5. This will save 235 burden hours. The current total burden hours associated with ASJ (OMB clearance number 1121-0094) and the jail portion of the DCRP (OMB clearance number 1121-0249) is 3,053 hours. The new joint collection of ASJ and DCRP incurs a total burden hours of 2,538 hours for a net savings of 515 burden hours.
16. Project Schedules and Publication Plans
BJS and data collection agent, RTI International, started preparation work for the next series of the DCRP ASF and ASJ in mid-October 2015. The activities include editing questionnaires, programing web-based forms, sampling, verifying jail eligibility, and mailing out notifications. Pending approval from OMB, data collection is scheduled to begin on January 2, 2016, continuing through April 2016 for the DCRP ASF and ASJ and through August 2016 for the DCRP death forms.
In January 2016, local jails will receive email invitations to complete the DCRP ASF and ASJ for reference year 2016 online. Email or postcard reminders will be sent to jails that did not complete the forms in February. A second reminder along with printed forms will be mailed in March. Data quality follow-up will be conducted through email and phone calls throughout this period until April 2016. Reminder mailing and data quality follow-up for DCRP death forms span March through August 2016. The field work for death forms takes much longer than the ASF and ASJ because jail respondents often need more time to track down autopsies or medical examiner’s reports in order to fill out the death forms.
BJS and RTI will begin planning and working on statistical products while the DCRP-ASJ collections are still in the field. The data will be processed and weighting and imputation will be done. The goal of this effort is to enhance the timeliness of the release of findings once the final data file is available.
Reference year 2015 DCRP ASF and ASJ data will be delivered to BJS with documentation in September 2016. In the same month, the public version of ASJ data will be released through ICPSR. The final statistical tables for the Jail Inmate series are scheduled to be delivered to BJS in October 2016, while the tables of DCRP mortality statistics will be delivered in March 2018.
Annually, data collection activities for the SJIC are scheduled to begin the first week in July by notifying the respondents of the upcoming data collection initiative. At mid-July, the survey respondents will receive a faxed questionnaire to be completed by August 1. One week later, non-respondents will receive a second fax to encourage survey response. By the last week in August, the survey non-respondents will receive another fax reminder to complete the survey and may also receive a phone call from the BJS data collection agent (Westat). By mid-December, survey non-respondents will receive several more requests for participation and non-response follow-up will close. Active data collection will also close, but BJS will continue to accept data until delivery of the final dataset in March.
From August to February of each year, Westat will conduct data quality validation and follow-up with respondents. Around mid-February, Westat will prepare a preliminary dataset for BJS review. From late February to mid-March, Westat will conduct final validation based on BJS review of the preliminary file. By mid-March, Westat will deliver a final dataset and documentation to BJS. By the last week in March, Westat will prepare and deliver the appendix tables used in the Jails Indian Country report.
BJS’s plans for products and publications from jail data over the next three years fall into four categories: bulletins, technical reports, data tools, and special topic reports. The planned products are as follows (also summarized in Table 5):
The ASJ annual bulletin reports rated capacity of jails and percent of capacity occupied. It provides estimates of admissions to jails, details the volume of movement among the jail population, and presents the distribution of jail inmates by sex, race and Hispanic origin. The SJIC annual bulletin provides trends in the number of adults and juveniles held, type of offense, number of persons confined on the last weekday in June, peak population, average daily population, admissions in June, and average expected length of stay in jail upon admission. It also provides data on rated capacity, facility crowding, and jail staffing, and counts of inmate deaths and suicide attempts. BJS also releases an annual bulletin that reports on trends in mortality in deaths in local jails and state prisons. These data provide a “first cut” from the annual DCRP collection, and as described above, focus on the effects of changes in the composition of criminal justice populations on the overall change in mortality rates. More specifically, the bulletin will report on annual changes in the overall mortality rate and number of deaths, as well as mortality rates by characteristics such as age, sex, race/Hispanic origin, and jurisdiction in which deaths occurred. The annual bulletin also serves as a vehicle for providing updates to previous years’ statistics by incorporating into the reports data from delayed data submissions. These statistics are consistent with the Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) recommendation to produce mortality data on a timelier schedule.15
An online query tool, tentatively planned for release in 2017, will allow users to replicate the statistical tables and run additional analysis such as deaths by jurisdiction size and offense type. The tool will use data collected under the DCRP-ASJ and the DCRP annual summary form.
Periodically, BJS produces special topic reports. These reports address a specific issue in more depth than can be addressed in the bulletins. BJS plans to release the following special reports over the next 3 years: Longitudinal tracking of capacity and crowding in local jails and state prisons; life-expectancy among jail and prison inmates; deaths due to acute drug and alcohol intoxication and deaths where drug and alcohol abuse were a factor; jail facility characteristics and associated jail mortality; on the quality of the match of DCRP mortality data to the National Death Index (NDI) data.
Table 5. BJS Calendar for DCRP Publications/Products
Publication type |
Title/topic of publication |
Estimated publication date |
Annual bulletin |
Jail inmates, 2015 |
December 2016 |
Annual bulletin |
Jail inmates, 2016 |
December 2017 |
Annual bulletin |
Jail inmates, 2017 |
December 2018 |
Annual bulletin |
Jails in Indian country, 2015 |
July 2016 |
Annual bulletin |
Jails In Indian Country, 2016 |
July 2017 |
Annual bulletin |
Jails In Indian Country, 2017 |
July 2018 |
Annual bulletin |
Mortality in state prisons and local jails, 2014 |
July 2016 |
Annual bulletin |
Mortality in state prisons and local jails, 2015 |
July 2017 |
Annual bulletin |
Mortality in state prisons and local jails, 2016 |
July 2018 |
Data tool |
Jails in the United States |
December 2016 |
Data tool |
Deaths in Custody Reporting Program |
December 2016 |
Special Report |
Mortality Among Incarcerated American Indians, 2000-2013 |
March 2016 |
Special report |
Capacity and Crowding in Jails and Prisons |
July 2016
|
Special report |
Suicide and Homicide in Jails and Prisons, 2000-2013 |
September 2016 |
Special report |
Life Expectancy Among Jail and Prison Inmates, 2000-2013 |
May 2016 |
Special Report |
Jail Facility and Community Characteristics and Inmate Mortality, 2000-2013 |
Winter 2016 |
Special Report |
Drug and alcohol abuse and mortality in local jails and state prisons, 2000-2013 |
2017 |
Technical report |
DCRP-NDI linkage report |
December 2015 |
Technical Report |
Methodology of DCRP-NDI Linkage (FCSM paper) |
February 2016 |
Technical Report |
DCRP-Community Files Linkage Report (FCSM paper) |
February 2016 |
BJS will continue to archive the SJIC and DCRP-ASJ data at NACJD on an annual basis. Upon release of the report, the public-use data set will also be available for the SJIC and the jail population-centric portion of the DCRP-ASJ. BJS archives DCRP data at NACJD through a physical enclave only. BJS will submit the data files for a given year at the time that it publishes its statistical tables update for that year. Statistical tables for a given calendar year are published in the fall of the following calendar year, given the roughly 18-month period to collect DCRP data.
17. Expiration Date Approval
The OMB Control Number and the expiration date will be published on instructions provided to all respondents.
18. Exceptions to the Certification
There are no exceptions to the Certification Statement. The collection is consistent with all the guidelines set forth in 5 CFR 1320.9.
1 Carson, E. (2014) Prisoners in 2013. U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 247282.
2 Minton, T.D. and Zeng, Z. (2015) Jail Inmates at Midyear 2014. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC. Available at http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5299.
3 Noonan, M., Ginder, S. and Rohloff, H. (2015). ‘Mortality in Local Jails and State Prisons, 2000-2013’. U.S. Department of Justice.
4 Minton, T.D. and Zeng, Z. (2015) Jail Inmates at Midyear 2014. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC. Available at http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5299.
5 Noonan, M., Ginder, S and Rohloff, H. (2015). Mortality in Local Jails in State Prisons, 2000-2013. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC. Available at http://www.bjs.gov.
6Minton, T.D. (2015). Jails in Indian Country, 2014. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington, DC. Available at http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5414.
7 National Research Council (2009). “Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics. A Panel to Review the Programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics”. Robert M. Groves and Daniel L. Cork, eds. Committee on National Statistics and Committee on Law and Justice, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
8 In the ASJ, admissions are based on a specific weeklong period, while DCRP collects admissions in a calendar year.
9 Minton, Todd D. (2014) Jails in Indian Country, 2014, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC. Available at: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/jic14.pdf.
10 Maruschak, L. and Berzofsky, M. and Unangst, J. (2015). “Medical Problems of State and Federal Prisoners and Jail Inmates, 2011-12”. (NCJ 248491). U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
11 Minton, T. and Zeng, Z. (2015). “Jail Inmates at Midyear 2014”. (NCJ 248629). U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
12 Pew Charitable Trusts (2008). ‘One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008’. The Pew Center on the States. URL: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2008/02/28/one-in-100-behind-bars-in-america-2008.
13 Ortiz (2015). ‘County Jails at a Crossroads’. National Association of Counties Why Counties Matter paper series. Issue 2. July 2015. http://naco.org/resources/county-jails-crossroads#full-report.
14 Jails Profile Survey (ND). http://www.bscc.ca.gov/s_fsojailprofilesurvey.php.
15 Panel to Review the Programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Research Council. "Abstract." Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009.
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