AMENDED
MEMORANDUM
MEMORANDUM TO: Jennifer Park
Acting Official of Statistical and Science Policy
Office of Management and Budget
THROUGH: Lynn Murray
Clearance Officer
Justice Management Division
Christopher A. Nicholas
Acting Chief of Law Enforcement Services Section
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Samuel Berhanu
Chief of Crime Statistics Management Unit
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FROM: Kristi Donahue
Management and Program Analyst
DATE: September 2016
SUBJECT: FBI Request for OMB Clearance for conducting exploratory interviews with State Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program Managers and direct contributor agency record managers to improve the business processes used by the FBI’s UCR Program within the New UCR System which includes the Crime Data Explorer Mechanism.
The FBI recently entered into an interagency agreement with the General Services Administration’s (GSA) 18F Group to develop the UCR Program’s Crime Data Explorer (CDE) System. The CDE will be available via a web-based solution that enables the public to view and interact with national UCR data in an intuitive and user-friendly way. The UCR Program will also disseminate all data through the CDE to allow a query, view, and/or download of crime reporting data submitted to the national program.
An opportunity has arisen for the GSA’s 18F Group to attend the Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Program Conference in Anchorage, Alaska from September 27-29, 2016. The 18F contractors will conduct in-person interviews with State Program personnel to garner information for developing the CDE. The information collection mode will change from telephonic, performed by FBI personnel, to in-person for these interviews. The purpose of the research, respondent universe, questions, and burden estimate will not change within this generic clearance.
The CDE will allow CJIS to expand information access and sharing at local, state, regional, tribal, and national levels by improving efficiency, usability, and maintainability while increasing the value of the information sharing products and making data more easily accessible to the entire criminal justice community. The implementation of the CDE will allow the Program to provide customers with faster access to crime data information through enhanced electronic access to the UCR publications.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is requesting clearance to conduct exploratory interviews for improving the technology or means used for receiving, processing, querying, and publishing crime statistics obtained from the state UCR Programs and direct reporting agencies by the new UCR System. The UCR Program is in the process of developing a new system to include the Crime Data Explorer (CDE) mechanism. The Program needs the input from our users in order to develop better processes for receiving, processing and disseminating the current reports and publications. The CDE is a web-based access system that will modernize the delivery of UCR crime data and information to internal and external users.
In order to serve our UCR stakeholders effectively, information sharing is imperative. In an effort to modernize the FBI’s UCR operations, the Program is also striving to provide its customers with more comprehensive reports to their crime data information through enhanced electronic means. The goal is to develop technical capabilities to provide the exchange of offenses and arrest statistical information and improve data analysis.
The current request for approval, under the FBI UCR Generic Clearance (1110-0057), is to conduct exploratory interviews with twenty five state program managers and direct contributor agency personnel. The user interviews will require approximately 25 burden hours.
For this clearance, the FBI UCR Program will conduct exploratory interviews to have an open dialogue with the state program managers and direct contributor agency personnel. The interviews will help the Program to determine how these reports can be improved, to determine how each state uses the reports/error files, to identify the preferred format for submitting submissions to the national program, and to gather relevant information for designing the CDE.
The FBI UCR Program receives data submissions from law enforcement agencies (LEAs) on a monthly, quarterly, biannual, and annual basis. UCR Program personnel interact with these LEAs on a daily basis providing feedback and clarification on the submitted data. The new UCR System will support the needs of the LEAs by improving efforts to provide timely and accurate crime statistics data. There are opportunities within the new UCR system to improve the technology used by the FBI’s UCR Program to receive, process, query, and publish crime statistics. Since the data submitted to the UCR Program is voluntary, the new system must be able to support the current data submission processes, while advancing the FBI’s capability to receive, manage, validate, analyze, and publish the data.
The new UCR System will improve the ability of the Crime Statistics Management Unit (CSMU) personnel to electronically query responses and provide the ability to respond to data submitters in a timely and efficient manner. This will lead to a more productive operation within the CSMU and optimization of data processing, speeding up the ability of CSMU to produce output reports. The list of questions below are those that will be used to open up the discussion with the State Program Managers and direct contributor agencies.
Are the current record cards sent out by the statistical assistants useful when validating data?
What format would you prefer to receive the record cards? (Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, text files, etc.)
How are the Electronic Data Set (EDS) files that are sent to the state programs used? Are they ingested into your Record Management Systems (RMS)?
If the EDS is useful, what file format would be preferable? (XML, text file, PDF file, Excel spreadsheet, etc.)
What information would you like to receive that you aren’t receiving in order to validate your data?
How would you prefer to send data submissions to the FBI UCR Program? (e-mail, web service, SFTP, file upload via web portal, etc.)
Do you prefer to have a data quality report separate from the submission error report or do you prefer them to be combined into one report?
As the conversation continues, the interviewer will open up the floor for more specific state questions that will ultimately allow the UCR Program to tailor these needs to the individual states.
The CDE will significantly enhance the FBI’s UCR Program’s ability to make national crime data accessible on the Internet, by the American public, in near real-time as feasible and thereby be better informed. The CDE will allow the UCR Program to share complete, accurate, and timely local, county, state, federal, and tribal crime statistical data, and when possible useable information derived from the data, with all potential users to include but not limited to: law enforcement and criminal justice agencies; researchers; executive, legislative, judicial, and other non-law enforcement agencies; academia; criminologists and sociologists; advocacy groups; private corporations; news media; and the general public.
Currently, the FBI collects crime data from nearly 18,500 law enforcement agencies across the nation. After reviewing and verifying the data, FBI staff, using desk top software applications record and publish the crime data into tables, which are accessible on the internet at fbi.gov. These publications include:
Crime in the United States
Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA)
Hate Crime Statistics
National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)
Preliminary Annual Report
Human Trafficking
In an effort to modernize the FBI’s UCR operations, the UCR Program is striving to provide customers with faster access to crime data through enhanced electronic access to the UCR publications. The new UCR system and the CDE will also provide faster delivery of data to internal and external users by allowing faster processing of requests for crime information.
The CDE is projected to provide the following services and functions to include, but not limited to, the following:
Access via an external web-based portal
Ability to intuitively search past, present, and near real-time data for variable interests
Ad hoc search and visualization of data elements and values
Drill down on full incident from results
Review all crime data by types of offense, date, and person characteristics
Full-scope analytical tool set
Visualize data using graphical software and other tools
Customize and pre-defined reports
Export reports in commonly used formats (i.e., Microsoft Excel, Comma Separate Values [CSV], and XML)
Access from mobile devices
Examine data on local, state, and national levels
Import external data sets for research and analysis for privileged users
Download all verified yearly master files of UCR data
Provide law enforcement and privileged users secure access for enhanced operational support
The goals of these exploratory interviews are to determine the following:
The usefulness of current output records
The preferred format for disseminating/receiving output records and data submissions
How are certain files used and ingested at the state level
Methods for receiving the data quality reports; separate from the submission error report or combined within one report; and,
Identify individual state concerns.
Identify the requirements for the CDE while focusing on meeting the needs/use of law enforcement.
The New UCR System will provide a centralized, searchable data repository storing both legacy and new crime data. From the FBI’s CJIS Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia, the New UCR System will standardize modern hardware and software that supports the FBI’s CJIS Division’s goal to use state-of-the-art technology specific to all CJIS systems.
The New UCR System will provide more comprehensive and robust crime statistics and reporting for both internal and external users. The new FBI UCR system will provide an enhanced data management configuration combined with tools to facilitate and improve entry and maintenance of crime data. The CDE is the primary component of the new UCR system for external users to access the verified national data set.
The CDE will allow CJIS to expand information access and sharing at local, state, regional, tribal, and national levels by improving efficiency, usability, and maintainability while increasing the value of the information sharing products and making data more easily accessible to the entire criminal justice community. The implementation of the CDE will allow the Program to provide customers with faster access to crime data information through enhanced electronic access to the UCR publications.
Most UCR contributors submit crime reports through a centralized crime records facility, called a state UCR Program. State UCR Program gather crime information from the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) under their domain and forward the data to the FBI. Most states in the nation have UCR Programs that streamline the collection of UCR data from local LEAs, ensure consistency and comparability of data, and provide a higher quality of service to the Nations’ law enforcement community. Agencies in states that do not have a state UCR Program submit their statistics directly to the FBI UCR Program.
The state program managers and record managers within the direct contributing agencies were selected based on the role they play within their state/agency. The state program managers and record management supervisors’ work together to develop a record management system that meets the needs of the state/agency. They are the main decision makers within these agencies and were chosen to participate for this reason.
The exploratory interviewing is tentatively scheduled for March 2015 based on OMB approval. The twenty five state program managers/record supervisors will participate in the exploratory interviews after the survey questions and an overview of the concept development plan for the CDE have been distributed via e-mail from the FBI UCR Program. The method involves asking each participant to review the materials received in the e-mail prior to a telephone interview. During the telephone interviews, the FBI interviewer will ask specific, probing questions about the current output jobs distributed to the states (usefulness/format) and submission methods. These questions will also ensure the FBI obtains sufficient information to develop the CDE. The object is to identify problems with the current methods used and identify potential improvements. Each interview will take approximately one hour.
Two individuals from the Program Development Group will conduct the exploratory interviews over the phone with each participant. The interviewers will ask each question from the predetermined list and take detailed notes of responses provided by the participant. In addition to the predetermined list of questions, the interviewers will probe the interviewees to offer any additional information that should be included in the development of the CDE.
The exploratory interviews will be conducted in English.
We request a total of 25 burden hours for 25 State Program Managers/direct contributor agencies (sixty minutes per respondent). No incentives will be provided in exchange for participation.
During the exploratory interviews, participants will be asked to answer questions from the predetermined list. A question-by-question summary will be categorized and shared with CSMU management staff and the ITMS developers. The FBI will produce a final report summarizing our findings.
The telephone invitations and a description of the exploratory interview that was given to the participants previously on the telephone provide the elements of informed consent. The telephone invitation provided the purpose of the survey, the voluntary nature of the study, how the participants were selected, and a number to call with questions about the study. The telephone invitation and introduction to the survey announced the estimated length of the interview in advance, allowing the participant the opportunity to decline if the burden would be unacceptable.
When the telephone interview begins, the exploratory interviewers will reiterated the points delivered during the telephone invitation on the voluntary nature of the exploratory interview and the purpose of the research. In addition, the participants will be assured that their responses will be protected to the extent that we are legally allowed and they may stop the interview at any time for any reason. This information will be provided to the participants via e-mail for their positive response.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Kristi L. Donahue |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-23 |