Memo

MEMORANDUM

MEMORANDUM TO: Robert G. Sovinski

Official of Statistical and Science Policy

Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH: Melody Braswell

Clearance Officer

Justice Management Division

Trudy Lou Ford

Global Law Enforcement Support Section Chief

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Amy C. Blasher

Crime Statistics Management Unit Chief

Federal Bureau of Investigation

FROM: Elizabeth N. Hensley

Management/Program Analyst

Crime Statistics Management Unit

Federal Bureau of Investigation

DATE: February 11, 2020

SUBJECT: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Request for Office of

Management and Budget (OMB) Clearance for developmental

activities associated with police-public contact under the OMB

generic clearance agreement (OMB Number 1110-0057)

_______________________________________________________

Background

In 2017, the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Advisory Policy Board (APB) moved for the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program to begin collecting and reporting the number of police contacts with the public on an annual basis. The volume of police-public contact will provide context to information collected and reported within the National Use-of-Force Data Collection and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) Data Collection.

Based on the CJIS APB recommendation, the FBI UCR Program staff worked in conjunction with CJIS Systems Officers and UCR State Program Managers to establish a common definition of police contacts with the public:

Police-public contact—a police contact is considered an incident or occurrence where a law enforcement officer is called to respond to a scene by a citizen(s) or initiates an activity which results in contact with a citizen(s).

• This collection will focus on three categories of contact:

  • Citizen calls for service

  • Unit/officer initiated contact

  • Court/bailiff activities

• These counts do not include the total number of individuals encountered at the incident, only the number of contacts.

• It is important to note that ‘citizen(s)’ refers to the general public.

• Proactive citizen interaction will be included under unit/officer initiated contact based on administrative assignment.

  • Administrative assignment is defined using the LEOKA definition as follows: An assignment in which an officer is working management, performance, or executive duties of the federal, state, or local jurisdiction. Examples include, but are not limited to:

    • Handling, transporting, or maintaining custody of persons who are in the custodial care of a law enforcement agency subsequent to an arrest and/or while dealing with persons who are being detained in accordance with the law.

    • Attending community meetings, crime preventative programs, or other organized functions as an official representative of a law enforcement agency.

    • Performing duties and recreational activities associated with agency sanctioned programs such as D.A.R.E., Boys and Girls Clubs, or other youth programs, serving of writs, notices, summonses, subpoenas, hearing notices, notifications, and other civil processes.

    • Transporting papers, equipment, or persons associated with official agency sanctioned activities, function, and programs.

  • These activities are logged within computer-aided dispatch systems under special codes programmed for these particular types of assignments.

• In addition, court deputies or bailiffs have contact with citizens routinely while performing their normal court duties. Agencies may use court docket records that show the number of persons with court hearings on any given date as a source for reporting this information.

On June 6, 2019, during the National Use-of-Force Task Force meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, the FBI UCR Program proposed the collection of police contact with the public be included in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection portal housed within the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP). The task force members concurred that adding the ability to capture police-public contact data on an annual basis would provide context to use-of-force incidents. Agencies will report their police-public contact numbers on a new electronic worksheet within the existing data collection portal.

Similar data collection. The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) conducts a Police Public Contact Survey (PPCS) as a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. The results of this survey provide information on the nature and characteristics of the personal contacts between the police and the public. The data collected includes the reason for and outcome of the contact. For the survey, the BJS interviews a nationally representative sample of United States residents who are 16 years of age and older. The BJS PPCS is based on the reported activities and perspectives of the surveyed participants, does not require agency or officer participation, and is administered every three years. In contrast, for the FBI’s police-public contact data collection, law enforcement will report their data annually and will not include details such as the outcomes for each contact. Given the differing participants and goals for the two data collections, the FBI UCR Program does not foresee any overlap between the BJS PPCS and the FBI’s police-public contact data collection.

Request

The FBI UCR Program requests clearance to conduct a pilot study to measure the number of police contacts with the public and to conduct cognitive interviews with agency staff to measure the effectiveness of the data collected. This request falls under the FBI UCR Generic Clearance (1110-0057).

Purpose of the Research

The FBI UCR Program will use the research from the pilot study to evaluate and improve the overall validity and reliability of this data collection. The goal of the cognitive interview phase is to assess the comprehension of terms and definitions included in the collection. Where necessary, the FBI UCR Program will use the information collected to modify language and question structure and to refine the database.

Design of the Police-Public Contact Collection

The new UCR Police-Public Contact Data Collection is a feature within the existing National Use-of-Force Data Collection application, which is housed within the LEEP. The CJIS APB approved the use of Table 1 for agencies to report annual police contacts with the public. The web application will resemble Figure 1.

Table 1 – Police Calls for Service

Category	Call/Request Call/Individuals on the Docket Count
Citizen calls for service	Actual   Estimated   Not Available   Not Applicable
Unit/officer-initiated contacts	Actual   Estimated   Not Available   Not Applicable
Court/bailiff activities	Actual   Estimated   Not Available   Not Applicable

Figure 1

For each of the three categories of contact, agencies can report only one number, either actual or estimated, or indicate the information was not available or not applicable. In order to capture this information, the FBI UCR Program’s National Use-of-Force Development Team created a separate web form within LEEP’s National Use-of-Force Data Collection portal.

Selection of Participants in the Pilot Study

In an effort to gain a broad perspective, the FBI UCR Program will select participants for the pilot study from federal, state, local, tribal, and college/university agencies of varying populations. The agencies must also already provide use-of-force data to the National Use-of-Force Data Collection.

Pilot Study Procedures

Time frame. The pilot study is scheduled to run for a period of eight weeks, from the beginning of April through the end of May 2020.

Reporting data. The FBI UCR Program has worked with the National Use-of-Force Development Team to create a mechanism to capture police-public contact information within the National Use-of-Force Data Collection portal in LEEP. For this pilot, the FBI UCR Program has identified agencies that participate in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection who have access to the portal and directly submit data to the FBI (without going through a state agency). Agencies will report police-public contact data representing calls for service from January 1–December 31, 2019¹.

The collection of police-public contact information will focus on three categories of contact:

• Citizen calls for service

• Unit/officer initiated contact

• Court/bailiff activities

The FBI UCR Program is using definitions established for use by the LEOKA data collection to ensure consistency across the FBI UCR Program when data is submitted.

Sources for data. When reporting their annual police-public counts, agencies can submit one number for each of the three categories recommended by the CJIS APB and indicate whether the numbers are based from actual records, an estimated count, or advise that the number of contacts with the public are not applicable or unavailable (see Table 1). Most agencies use a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system to facilitate incident response and communication in the field. In many instances, agency staff first enter data into the CAD system, followed by entry in a records management system (RMS). Therefore, actual records may be acquired from the agencies CAD or RMS. Estimated numbers may be compiled directly from officer reports and calls. To assist agencies to determine in which category the reported contact should be included, definitions and examples will be provided in the Police-Public Contact Collection Frequently Asked Questions document.

Cognitive interviews. Potentially, 100 agencies will participate in a 30-minute telephone interview to evaluate the pilot study procedures and instructions. The FBI UCR Program staff will first e-mail each participant the Police-Public Contact Collection Frequently Asked Questions and ask them to review the information prior to the telephone interview. The e-mails will be sent to the points of contact listed for each agency in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection portal.

Five staff members from the FBI UCR Program will then conduct one-on-one interviews over the phone with the pilot participants. Prior to conducting these interviews, the five staff members will be trained on the pilot study to ensure consistency among the interviewers. During the subsequent telephone interviews, the FBI interviewers will provide screenshots (see Figure 1) from the National Use-of-Force Data Collection portal and will ask open-ended questions based on data points (clarity of the data categories, frequently asked questions, etc.); the mechanisms for record collection (information on CAD or other reporting systems used to obtain the data); and the LEEP user experience (ease of portal use and layout of the forms). The interviewers will take detailed notes of participants’ responses. The objective is to identify problems, improve the reporting categories, and highlight other difficulties or gaps that respondents have answering questions.

Language

The pilot study will be conducted in English.

Burden Hours for Pilot Study

The pilot study will use a convenience sample of 100 individuals for a total of 50 burden hours (30 minutes per respondent). No incentives will be provided in exchange for participation.

Analysis Plan

Due to the limited number of participants, the analysis will be qualitative rather than quantitative. Notes from the telephone interviews will be analyzed for patterns or problems to determine if there are gaps in understanding. The verbal responses will be categorized by whether there were comprehension problems, confusion related to the specific types of contact, or missing information from the collection aids (such as the Police-Public Contact Collection Frequently Asked Questions). Particular attention will be paid to differences that emerge from the different types of agencies, as well as differences between sworn and civilian law enforcement employees.

In addition to the telephone interviews, the FBI UCR Program will analyze reports generated within the National Use-of-Force Data Collection portal. These reports will contain information on the number of times pilot agencies accessed the police-public contact web form, the counts entered for each category, and if the agency accessed the Police-Public Contact Collection Frequently Asked Questions.

The FBI will produce a final report summarizing overall indications of problems with validity and comprehension. In addition, a question-by-question summary will include any difficulties encountered by participants and recommended changes to questions, instructions, and terminology.

Informed Consent, Data Confidentiality and Data Security

The elements needed to satisfy the requirements for informed consent are included in the pilot study. The telephone survey invitation will provide the purpose of the survey, the voluntary nature of the study, how the participants were selected, and the telephone number to call with questions about the study. The telephone survey invitation and introduction to the survey announce 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 interviewer will reiterate the points listed on the telephone survey invitation e-mail regarding the voluntary nature of the interview and the purpose of the research. In addition, the participants will be assured their responses will be protected to the extent 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.

1 2019 is the most current data available.