1110-0004 Supporting Statements A

SUPPORTING STATEMENT A

1110-0004

NUMBER OF FULL-TIME LAW ENFORCEMENT EMPLOYEES AS OF OCTOBER 31

An extension of this currently approved collection for three years is requested.

History

In December 2015, the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Advisory Policy Board (APB) approved a series of recommendations which created a new national data collection on law enforcement use of force. Part of the process of identifying the scope and content of the new data collection was the input from a Use-of-Force (UoF) Task Force. This task force was comprised of representatives from both major law enforcement organizations, state, local, tribal, and college/university law enforcement agencies. A key theme to the discussions from both the CJIS APB and the UoF Task Force was the need to provide sufficient context around the data collected on use of force in order for the general public to understand the reported figures. As a result, the UoF Task Force recommended the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) pursue the additional information on agency workforce and to detail it within the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Police Employee collection.

The Police Employee collection is an annual compilation, which includes details on the sworn or civilian status and gender of the law enforcement agency (LEA) staff as of October 31 for the collection year. The information was originally included in an early version of the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) form when both collections were annual. However, by the mid-1970s the two collections separated as the LEOKA data changed to a monthly report, while the Police Employee collection remained an annual compilation.

There are two primary areas where the police employee counts are published by the FBI UCR Program. They appear in their own section of Crime in the United States (CIUS) where both aggregate and agency-level information is provided on counts of law enforcement officers (LEOs) and civilians in total, and by gender, as well as aggregate law enforcement rates per 1,000 in population. In addition, these counts are used as a denominator to calculate the rates of law enforcement assaults in the LEOKA publication.

Part A. Justification

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under the provisions of the Uniform Federal Crime Reporting Act of 1988, Title 34, United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 41303 (2012) (reorganizing and reclassifying this title from the notes of 28 U.S.C. § 534) and the FBI’s authority to acquire, preserve, and exchange identification records, 28 U.S.C. § 534, the FBI UCR Program requests data annually about police employee counts from federal, state, local, and tribal LEAs throughout the country in order to generate reliable information on police employee counts.

Form 1-711, Number of Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31, provides the FBI UCR Program with a yearly total count of full-time, part-time, and reserve/auxiliary/other sworn male and female LEOs and full-time, part-time and reserve/auxiliary/other male and female civilian employees by race and ethnicity, as of October 31 of the reporting year. This information collection is a necessity in order for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of this information.

2. Needs and Uses

The Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Police Employee Flat File Technical Specification, and the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook are necessary to provide the LEAs a mechanism to report the total number of police employee counts to the FBI UCR Program. The FBI is able to generate reliable information annually for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management, nationwide. The information released is viewed as a guide or an indicator of police strengths, to establish manpower needs, in both number and makeup, and to provide enforcement and protection. Examples of other agencies’ uses are:

• Federal, state, local, tribal, and military agencies, domestic and foreign, have used the data for selected city population groupings to determine standard police strengths.

• The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, utilizes the FBI UCR Program data in awarding local law enforcement formula grants, such as the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding.

• The Community Oriented Policing Services Program receives the UCR data for the purpose of awarding grant money to LEAs.

• Annually, the FBI UCR Program data are provided to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). This central repository serves as a single facility from which colleges/universities can obtain social science data. The ICPSR website currently houses thirty-six years of the UCR Police Employee data.

• Criminal justice coordinators use the data in the form of percentage of cities employing female officers.

• City and county police agencies use the data to request assistance from other departments.

• City councils, legislators, citizens, organizations, and social scientists request police employee data.

3. Use of Information Technology

All FBI UCR Program participants submit this data electronically. The FBI provides three options for states, UCR programs, and individual LEA participants to submit Police Employee data: XML, Flat File Data Specification, and the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook.

The XML interface specification complies with the National Information Exchange Model and Logical Entity Exchange Specifications, which are both data standards for information exchange used by law enforcement. The Flat File Data Specification is submitted as an American Standard Code for Information Interchange text file. Finally, the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook allows agencies to submit data via an excel workbook, which is translated into a standard format for processing the data into the UCR System. State UCR programs and individual LEAs currently submit these electronic submissions via e-mail at [email protected].

The FBI UCR Program crime data collection begins at the local agency level when the LEOs submit administrative and operational data to their record management personnel from hardcopy or electronic incident reports. The local agency record managers then compile the crime data and submit it to their state UCR programs. Many state UCR programs have a centralized repository and have established electronic communications with the LEAs throughout their state, as well as the FBI UCR Program. This link allows for information technology interaction within the required electronic data submission formats.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This information collection was authorized by a 1988 amendment to 28 U.S.C § 534, Acquisition, Preservation, and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials.

There are two additional entities which have collected law enforcement employee statistics:

• The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) published “Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA)” every four years through 2008.

• The Bureau of Census (BOC) also publishes the “Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll (ASPEP).”

The BJS, the BOC, and the FBI UCR Program have different purposes for collecting this data, respondent universes, and data collection procedures. Each entity provides data about the number of sworn and nonsworn officers on a voluntary basis, but differs in the type of information provided about police employees as well as in the number and size of the participating agencies.

• The BJS – CSLLEA

• Respondent Universe

  • All state and local LEAs in the United States to include primary state police, sheriffs’ offices, local police departments, tribal police, special jurisdiction agencies, and other agencies (such as courts and jails).

• Data Collection

  • The survey measures the number of sworn and nonsworn employees within state, local, and special jurisdiction agencies in the United States.

  • The data is disaggregated by full-time or part-time status, population, and patrol assignments.

• Frequency

  • Every four years.

• Imputation

  • The CSLLEA imputes missing data due to unit and item nonresponse.

• The BOC – ASPEP

• Respondent Universe

  • The ASPEP includes data for full-time LEOs from local police departments, sheriffs’ offices, state police, federal agencies, coroners’ offices, police training academies, investigation bureaus, and temporary holding or lockup facilities.

  • ASPEP excludes sworn officers employed by transit police or school police agencies.

• Data Collection

  • The BOC collects employment data for the federal, state, and local governments as well as their gross monthly salary for March of the survey year.

  • Employee information is captured from the payroll records on an annual basis.

• Frequency

  • Annually.

• Imputation

  • The BOC imputes missing data due to agency nonresponse.

• The FBI UCR Program – Number of Full-Time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31

• Respondent Universe

  • Participants from federal, state, local, and tribal LEAs.

• Data Collection

  • The FBI UCR Program collects data on the number of full-time sworn officers and civilian personnel; part-time sworn officers and civilian personnel; and reserve/auxiliary/other by gender, race, and ethnicity.

  • Sworn officers and reserve/auxiliary/other personnel must have full arrest powers and must be paid from government funds set aside for sworn LEOs.

  • Civilian personnel must be paid from police funds and includes clerks, radio dispatchers, meter attendants, stenographers, jailers, correctional officers, and mechanics.

  • Excluded from these counts are officers not paid from police funds as well as employees who serve court- and jail-related functions.

  • This data collection also provides the population for each reporting agency.

• Frequency

  • Annually.

• Imputation

  • Data is not imputed for missing agency data.

The police employee data are critical for officer and reserve/auxiliary/other personnel assault rates produced in CIUS and LEOKA publications. Police employee data files are one of the most requested data files within the user community. The FBI UCR Program has successfully collected and published police employee data since the program’s inception in 1930. In December 1944, a conference was held with the then, Division of Statistical Standards, the BOC, the Department of Labor, and the FBI UCR Program to discuss collection duplication. The outcome of that conference was to allow the FBI UCR Program to continue the data collection as requested by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Businesses

This information will have no significant impact on small LEAs. The burden on the LEAs is minimized as this is an annual collection.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or Less Frequent Collection

The police employee counts are collected annually from participating FBI UCR Program contributors because our crime data is distributed on an annual basis. The LEAs use this UCR data to justify staffing levels and officer counts compared to other LEAs in order to receive additional staffing levels, equipment, or funding. In addition, the FBI UCR Program is using the police employee information to calculate coverage rates for the UoF Data Collection.

7. Special Circumstances

All police employee data are collected/received from the FBI UCR Program participants on an annual basis. Participation in the FBI UCR Program is voluntary.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

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

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

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

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

The FBI UCR Program does not assure confidentiality. However, this information collection does not contain personally identifiable information which may reveal the identity of an individual. The data obtained is considered to be in the public domain. However, UCR collections are all voluntary, therefore, if any LEA believes this information is sensitive, the agency can opt out of this collection.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

The information collection does not seek information of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent’s Burden

The estimated hour burden on the respondent for this data collection is as follows:

Number of respondents: 13,247

Number of non-respondents: 6,491

Frequency of responses: Annually

Total annual responses: 13,247

Minutes per response: 8 minutes

Annual hour burden: 1,766 hours

Total annual responses 13,247 x 1 = 13,247

Total annual hour burden 13,247 x 8 / 60 = 1,766 hours

The FBI UCR Program frequently has operational and administrative questions for the state program managers and local LEAs. In order for the FBI to conduct this outreach with a larger universe of contributors, the FBI UCR Program is including an additional 300 annual burden hours to this information collection request.

State Program and Local LEA Outreach:

Number of respondents: 100

Frequency of responses: Varies

Minutes per response: 180

Additional burden hours: 300 hours

Total Annual Burden: 1,766 + 300 = 2,066 hours

The FBI UCR Program frequently has operational and administrative questions for the state UCR program managers and local LEAs. In order for the FBI to conduct this outreach with a larger universe of contributors, the FBI UCR Program is including an additional 300 annual hours to this information collection request.

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

There are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in the FBI UCR Program other than their time to respond. The FBI UCR Program disseminates the electronic version of the Police Employee form via the XML, Police Employee Technical Specification, and the Microsoft Excel Workbook tool. For many reasons, costs to agency records management systems are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs due to the fact that vendors charge differently from agency to agency. Many costs are built into the vendors contracts. Changes mandated by law could be included within the original contract with no other additional costs. However, an estimate has been projected that agencies pay a $107,000 maintenance fee every year for system maintenance costs.

The FBI is currently undergoing a transition to move the Summary Reporting System (SRS) agencies to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) by January 1, 2021. To assist agencies with this transition, select LEAs and state UCR programs received funding through the National Crime Statistics Exchange from 2015 through 2018. When the NIBRS transition process is complete, the FBI will reevaluate the maintenance fee costs.

14. Cost to Federal Government

According to the cost module provided by the FBI CJIS Division, Resources Management Section, Fee Programs Unit, the following are projections based upon prior collection activity, as well as activities anticipated over the next three years for both the NIBRS and the SRS. The cost module does not separate the costs between the two methods of collecting the UCR data.

Data Collection and Processing Costs

Activity	FY2019 Annualized Cost	FY2019 Annualized Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)
Temporary Duty (TDY) Crime Data Program	$ 92,004.08	1.00
Police Use of Force (UoF)	$ 9,267.53	0.06
UCR Security	$ 9,869.80	0.05
Curriculum design - External Customers	$ 166,386.43	1.11
Administrative	$ 39,044.92	0.20
Assessments/analysis - External Customers	$ 63,363.71	0.40
Provide training instruction - External Customers	$ 229,750.16	1.52
New UCR Metrics and Reporting	$ 20,955.02	0.10
New UCR Operations and Maintenance (O&M)	$ 1,039,673.00	6.22
NIBRS Transition Support to States/ Secured File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) and Web Services	$ 15,914.12	0.10
UoF	$ 193,430.33	1.04
New UCR and Crime Data Explorer (CDE) O&M	$ 62,865.06	0.31
New UCR and CDE O&M	$ 320,556.22	1.97
Conduct UCR audits	$ 80,268.18	1.04
Editing	$ 120,701.94	1.70
Graphics	$ 37,986.43	0.50
Research and Analysis	$ 68,743.57	0.95
Project and Program Management	$ 84,213.69	1.05
Publication	$ 24,056.71	0.30
Video Production	$ 9,050.94	0.12
Writing Services/Support	$ 85,237.45	1.20
Research and Analysis	$ 138,102.45	0.75
Liaison, Education, and Promotion	$ 982,682.24	7.21
Policy, Development, and Management	$ 407,638.57	2.77
Administrative and Human Resource	$ 416,793.71	3.46
Budget Activities, Strategic Planning, and Program Control	$ 557,140.57	3.76
UCR Data Requests and Analysis	$ 691,632.75	6.16
UCR Dev/Ops (UCR- Technical Refresh, CDE, UoF)	$ 801,010.71	6.05
UCR Data Collection & Public Distribution	$ 1,038,030.43	9.55
UCR Life Cycle Support	$ 70,139.67	0.40
UCR Business Management Support	$ 298,661.67	1.80
Program Management	$ 17,381.31	0.15
Conduct Audits	$ 106,545.90	2.00
Direct and Interpret Statistical Methodologies	$ 46,984.00	0.60
	$ 8,346,083.24	65.60

15. Reason for Change in Burden

There is no increase in burden for the individual respondents; however, the overall annual burden hours have decreased. This is an adjustment, a decrease from 1,800 to 1,766, which is an overall decrease of 34. During this revision, the annual respondent figure was calculated by the actual number of agencies which submitted police employee data (13,247), rather than by the universe of agencies (19,738).

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to the FBI UCR Program from federal, state, local, and tribal, LEAs throughout the country. Data will be published on an annual basis in the CIUS for 2019 and 2020 data.

Initial Request for Police Employee Data: October, current year

Second Request for Police Employee Data: December, current year

Deadline to submit data: Late December, current year

Data Processing/Analysis: November (current year) - February (following year)

Publication date: September, following year

17. Display of Expiration Date

All information collected under this clearance will display the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) Clearance Number and Expiration Date on the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

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

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