1110-0005 Supporting Statement Part B_Final

1110-0005 Supporting Statement Part B_Final.docx

Age, Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested 18 Years of Age and Over; Age, Sex, and Race of Persons Arrested Under 18 Years of Age

OMB: 1110-0005

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PART B. Statistical Methods

The potential respondent universe of the forms Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity of Persons Arrested Under 18 Years of Age (Juvenile ASRE); and Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity of Persons Arrested 18 Years of Age and Over (Adult ASRE) includes all United States (U.S.) LEAs who submit their crime stats via the SRS. In 2015, 11,791 SRS U.S. LEAs voluntarily participated in the FBI’s UCR Program. Out of those agencies that voluntarily participate in the FBI UCR Program, approximately 10,106 reported 1-12 months of arrest data to the FBI UCR Program, leaving 5.7 percent of SRS LEAs that do not report any arrest data. LEAs consist of local, county, state, tribal and federal agencies that correlate to all population group sizes and have many diverse attributes. These agencies include a mix of population density and degrees of urbanization; various compositions of population, particularly youth concentration; population mobility with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors; different economic conditions including median income, poverty level, and job availability; areas with different modes of transportation and highway systems; different cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics; family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness; climate; effective strength of law enforcement; policies of other components of the criminal justice system; citizens’ attitudes toward crime; and crime reporting practices of the citizenry. See the chart below of participating agencies.

SRS Agencies, 2015
	Population Group	Number of Agencies	Population Covered
Cities	Group I (250,000 inhabitants and more)	65	51,448,151
	Group II (100,000 to 249,999 inhabitants)	150	22,312,003
	Group III (50,000 to 99,999 inhabitants)	343	23,737,500
	Group IV (25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants)	586	20,227,802
	Group V (10,000 to 24,999 inhabitants)	1,272	20,294,222
	Group VI (Less than 10,000 inhabitants)^1,2	6,359	17,114,079
Counties	Group VIII (Nonmetropolitan County)²	1,559	15,419,912
Counties	Group IX (Metropolitan County)²	1,457	54,777,536
	Total	11,791	225,331,205

¹ Includes universities and colleges to which no population is attributed.

² Includes state police to which no population is attributed.

Number of Months Submitted	Number of Agencies
1 month	51
2 months	57
3 months	69
4 months	58
5 months	52
6 months	59
7 months	70
8 months	71
9 months	77
10 months	110
11 months	235
12 months	8,523
Non-reporting ASRE agencies	674
Non-reporting agencies	1,685
Total	11,791

Out of the 11,791 agencies that voluntarily participate in the FBI UCR Program, via the SRS, approximately 8,523 submit twelve months complete data (72.3 percent). Of the remaining agencies, 909 submit between one and eleven months of data, 1,685 are non-reporters, and 674 don’t provide ASRE data.

ASRE data are collected/received from state UCR program participants on a monthly basis. The FBI UCR Program has established various time frames and deadlines for acquiring the monthly data. Monthly reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by the seventh day after the close of each month. Annual deadlines are also designated in order to collect/assess receipt of monthly submissions. There are times when special circumstances may cause an agency to request an extension. The FBI UCR Program has the authority to grant these extensions. Although the law enforcement community requested crime data be collected on a monthly basis since police records are run on a calendar month, the FBI UCR Program has agencies that submit data quarterly, twice a year, and even once a year. Upon approval, the FBI UCR Program agencies can submit their data at intervals that minimizes the burdens to the agency.

As the UCR ASRE data collection is intended to collect all reported ASRE offenses from LEAs in the U.S., sampling methodologies are not used. The FBI UCR Program does estimate ASRE data for agencies with partial reports and for non-reporting agencies. Table 29 of CIUS provides the estimated number of persons arrested for the 28 offenses for which the FBI’s UCR Program collects data. The arrest totals presented in this table are national estimates based on the arrest statistics of all LEAs participating in the UCR Program (including those submitting less than 12 months of data). The estimated total number of arrests in this table is the sum of estimated arrest volumes for 28 offenses, not including suspicion. The arrest total for each of the individual offenses is the sum of the estimated volumes within each of the eight population groups. The FBI calculates each group’s estimate by dividing the reported volume figures (as shown in Table 31) by the contributing agencies’ jurisdictional populations. The resulting figure is then multiplied by the total population for each population group. Tables 30-69 of CIUS present ASRE data as it is reported to the FBI. Data in these tables are not estimated.

The FBI CJIS Division is projected to deploy the New UCR Project later this year. This project will manage the acquisition, development, and integration of a new and improved data collection system which affects UCR participating local, state, tribal, and federal LEAs. The goal for the project is to improve the accuracy and timeliness of the crime data collection and delivery process. The New UCR Project will provide enhanced data management tools for greater efficiency in data collection, processing, and maintenance of crime data. The project will also offer automated processes, tailored reports on an as-needed basis, and will streamline publication processes to give users more timely access to the data.

Although the FBI makes an effort through its editing procedures, training practices, and correspondence to ensure the validity of the data it receives, the accuracy of the statistics depends primarily on the adherence of each contributor to the established standards of reporting. The FBI relies on the integrity of data contributors reporting data; however, staff from the CJIS Audit Unit are available, by request, to conduct Quality Assurance Reviews. The results of the audits are not used to adjust crime data, but are used to educate reporting agencies on compliance with national UCR Program guidelines. Approximately 90.4 percent of the UCR SRS LEAs submit ASRE data.

Response rates are maximized through liaison with state UCR programs. Communications encouraging data submissions occur frequently because of the relationship between the FBI UCR Program staff and LEAs. FBI UCR Program staff have a strong understanding of contextual challenges agencies face in reporting valid and reliable data and regularly work to overcome non-response issues when such challenges occur. The mission of the FBI UCR Program is to acquire ASRE data, establish guidelines for the collection of such data, and publish ASRE data.

Currently, 72.3 percent of the FBI UCR Program SRS reporting agencies report 12 months of complete arrest data to the FBI and 7.7 percent submit between 1-11 months of data. The remaining 20 percent do not participate in the arrest data collection. These agencies are nonresponsive due to being understaffed, underfunded, or are implementing a new data record system. Even though these agencies are non-reporters, they are considered participants of the Program and will submit data when the problems have been resolved. Based on historical reporting trends, similar response rates are expected in future arrest collections, however, the FBI UCR Program actively liaisons with national LEAs to encourage participation in the UCR Program’s data collections.

The FBI UCR Program assists agencies in submitting 12 months of complete data through continuous communication. The FBI provides a listing of missing reports to state UCR Programs and individual LEAs twice a year. The UCR Program training staff also encourages participation. With the national transition to NIBRS, the FBI no longer provides onsite SRS training, however, the trainers are available by telephone or e-mail to SRS LEAs. They provide guidance and answer specific training questions. Providing vital links between local law enforcement and the FBI in the conduct of the UCR Program are the Criminal Justice Information Systems Committees of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA). The IACP, as it has since the Program began, represents the thousands of police departments nationwide. The NSA encourages sheriffs throughout the country to participate fully in the Program. Both organizations serve in advisory capacities concerning the UCR Program’s operation. The Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs (ASUCRP) focuses on UCR issues within individual state law enforcement associations and also promotes interest in the FBI UCR Program. These organizations foster widespread and responsible use of uniform crime statistics and lend assistance to data contributors when needed.

The FBI has conducted the ASRE information collection since 1952. The response rates for the ASRE data have remained relatively consistent from year-to-year. During the implementation of the ASRE information collection in the early 1950’s, extensive research regarding arrests was conducted by members of the FBI UCR Program staff, the IACP, the Committee on UCR Records, and Bureau of Census. Liaison with members of law enforcement, IACP, NSA, and the CJIS Advisory Policy Board (APB) had been effective in the effort to collect ASRE data and to design a collection form which would provide meaningful information to all those concerned.

Beginning in 1980, in response to Public Law 94-311 and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular #A-46, the FBI’s UCR Program expanded its arrest data collection to include the ethnic origin of arrestees. In 1986, the directive to collect the ethnic origin data was no longer in effect, and there was no reason to collect such data. The ASRE forms were revised to delete all references to ethnic origin. Then in 1997, the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity were revised and federal agencies were directed to adopt the changes by 2003. The revision included ethnicity to be recorded along with race. OMB informed the FBI’s UCR Program that adopting the new standards was a requirement; therefore the ASRE forms were revised to include ethnicity categories. These changes were not retested because ethnic origin had been collected by the FBI in previous years and state contributors continued to collect the ethnic data within their state record management systems. Although testing was not done, the addition of ethnic categories were vetted through the CJIS APB process and no comments or suggestions of problems with the form had been reported through CJIS APB Working Groups, UCR Subcommittee, CJIS APB, or the ASUCRP which meet frequently throughout each year and are dedicated to improving the collection, use, and utility of crime data as reported through the FBI UCR Program and all state and local crime reporting programs. The CJIS APB offers guidance to the FBI UCR Program by attesting to the data collected at their state levels rather than from a statistical standpoint.