Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods
2020 Police-Public Contact Survey
The sample universe for the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) is all persons aged 16 or older in all NCVS interviewed households. The NCVS sample of households is drawn from the more than 120 million US households nationwide and excludes military barracks and institutionalized populations. In 2020, the annual national sample is planned to be approximately 254,000 designated addresses located in 542 stratified Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) throughout the United States.
Frame
The Master Address File (MAF) contains all addresses from the most recent decennial census plus updates from the United States Postal Service, state and local address lists, and other address listing operations. The MAF is the frame for the target NCVS population. Every ten years, the Census Bureau redesigns the samples for all of their continuing demographic surveys, including the NCVS. In general, the purpose of these redesigns is to capture population shifts measured by the most recent decennial census. In 2015, the 2000 sample design started to phase out and the 2010 sample design started to be phased in. The phase-in and phase-out of the sample designs started in January 2015 and continued through December 2017. Beginning in 2016, some PSUs were removed from the sample, some new PSUs were added to the sample, and some continuing PSUs that were selected for both the 2000 and 2010 designs remained in the sample. The 2018 NCVS was the first full year of the phased-in 2010 design where all PSUs and addresses are from the 2010 design.
The new sample sizes are generally larger than in previous years to support state-level estimates in the 22 most populous states.
Rotating Panel Design
The NCVS uses a rotating sample. The sample consists of seven groups for each month of enumeration. Each of these groups stays in the sample for an initial interview and six subsequent interviews, for a total of seven interviews for the typical household. During the course of the 6-month period when the PPCS will be administered, a full sample of seven rotation groups will be interviewed (one-sixth each month). One rotation group enters the sample for its first interview each month.
Sampling
The sample design for the NCVS is a stratified, multi-stage cluster sample. Sample selection for the NCVS, and by default the PPCS, has three stages: the selection of primary sampling units (PSUs), the selection of address units in sample PSUs, and the determination of persons and households from those addresses to be included in the sample.
Stage 1. Defining and Selecting PSUs
Defining PSUs – Formation of PSUs begins with listing counties and independent cities in the target area. For the NCVS, the target area is the entire country. The PSUs comprising the first stage of the sample are formed from counties or groups of adjacent counties based upon data from the most recent decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS). The counties are either grouped with one or more contiguous counties to form PSUs or are PSUs all by themselves. For counties that are grouped, the groupings are based on certain characteristics such as total land area, current and projected population counts, large metropolitan areas, and potential natural barriers such as rivers and mountains. For the NCVS, decennial census counts, ACS estimates, and administrative crime data drawn from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program are also used to stratify the PSUs. The resulting county groupings are called PSUs.
After the PSUs are formed, the larger PSUs are included in the sample with certainty and are considered to be self-representing (SR). The remaining PSUs, called non self-representing (NSR) because only a subset of them are selected for inclusion in the sample, are combined into strata by grouping PSUs with similar geographic and demographic characteristics.
Stratifying PSUs – For the 2010 design, the NSR PSUs are grouped with similar NSR PSUs within states to form strata. Each SR PSU forms its own stratum. The data used for grouping the PSUs is also based on decennial census demographic data, ACS data, and administrative crime data. NSR PSUs are grouped to be as similar or homogeneous as possible. Just as the SR PSUs must be large enough to support a full workload so must each NSR strata. The most efficient stratification scheme is determined by minimizing the variance both between and within PSUs.
Selecting PSUs – The SR PSUs are automatically selected for sample or “selected with certainty.” NSR PSUs are sampled with probability proportional to the population size using a linear programming algorithm. One PSU is selected from each NSR stratum. The 2010 design NCVS sample includes 339 SR PSUs and 203 NSR PSUs. PSUs are defined, stratified, and selected once every ten years. The 2010 design sample PSUs were sampled using population data from the 2010 census.
Stage 2. Preparing Frames and Sampling within PSUs
Frame Determination – The 2010 sample design selects its sample from two dynamic address-based sampling frames, one for housing units (HU) and one for group quarters (GQs). Both frames are based upon the MAF, which is a national inventory of addresses. The MAF is continually updated by various Census Bureau programs and external sources. New housing units are added to the MAF, and therefore the NCVS sampling frame, through updates from a variety of address sources, including the U.S. Postal Service Delivery Sequence File, local government files, and field listing operations.
In the 2010 design, each address in the country was assigned to the sampling frame based on the type of living quarters. Two types of living quarters are defined in the decennial census. The first type is a housing unit. An HU is a group of rooms or a single room occupied as separate living quarters or intended for occupancy as separate living quarters. An HU may be occupied by a family or one person, as well as by two or more unrelated persons who share the living quarters. The second type of living quarters is GQ. GQs are living quarters where residents share common facilities or receive formally authorized care. About 3% of the population counted in the 2010 Census resided in GQs. Of those, less than half resided in non-institutionalized GQs. About 97% of the population counted in the 2010 Census lived in HUs.
Within-PSU Sampling – All of the Census Bureau’s continuing demographic surveys, including the NCVS, are sampled together. This procedure takes advantage of updates from the January MAF delivery and ACS data. This within-PSU selection occurs every year for housing units and every three years for GQs.
Selection of samples is done sequentially, one survey at a time. Each survey determines how the unit addresses within the frame should be sorted prior to sampling. For the NCVS, each frame is sorted by geographic variables. A systematic sampling procedure is used to select addresses from each frame. A skeleton sample is also selected in every PSU. Every six months, new addresses on the MAF are matched to the skeleton frame. The skeleton frame allows the sample to be refreshed with new addresses and thereby reduces the risk of under-coverage errors due to an outdated frame.
Addresses selected for a survey are removed from the frames, leaving an unbiased or clean universe behind for the next survey that is subsequently sampled. By leaving a clean universe for the next survey, duplication of addresses across surveys is avoided. This is done to help preserve response rates by insuring that no unit falls into more than one survey sample.
Stage 3. Persons within Sample Addresses
The last stage of sampling is done during initial contact of the sample address during the data collection phase. For the PPCS, if the address is a residence and the occupants agree to participate, then an attempt is made to interview every person age 16 or older who lives at the resident address and completes the NCVS-1. The NCVS has procedures to determine who lives in the sample unit and a household roster is completed with names and other demographic information. If someone moves out (in) of the household during the interviewing cycle, he or she is removed from (added to) the roster.
Approximately 24,147 persons a month, age 16 and older, in these households are expected to be eligible to be interviewed for the supplement during January through June 2020 for a total of 144,882 possible interviews. Generally, interviewers are able to obtain PPCS interviews with approximately 75 percent of the PPCS eligible household members in occupied units in sample in any given month. A total of 108,806 individuals aged 16 and older are expected to be interviewed for the PPCS during the 6-month collection period.
State Samples
Beginning in January of 2016, BJS and Census increased and reallocated the existing national sample in the 22 most populous states. The states receiving a sample boost include Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. In 2015, each of these 22 states had a population greater than 5 million persons and in total these 22 states comprised 79% of the U.S. population. In each of the 22 states, enough sample was selected to achieve a 10% relative standard error (RSE) for a three-year average violent victimization rate of 0.02. The underlying assumption of the subnational sample design is that three years of data will be needed to produce precise estimates of violent crime, which is experienced by about 1% of the population. Sample sizes in the remaining 28 states and the District of Columbia were determined to ensure full representation and unbiased estimates at the national level. For the 2010 design unlike the 2000 sample design, no strata cross state boundaries and all 50 states and the District of Columbia have at least one sampled PSU.
The NCVS sample for 2020 increased relative to 2018, when the PPCS was last fielded. BJS expects over 20% of respondents to have contact with police and thus anticipates being able to produce state-level estimates of police contact in the 22 most populous states.
Weighting and Estimation
The purpose of the PPCS is to make inferences about police-public contacts of the population age 16 or older in the US. Before such inferences can be drawn, it is necessary to adjust, or weight, the sample of people to ensure it is similar to the entire population in this age group. The PPCS weights are a combination of household-level and person-level adjustment factors. Household and person respondents from the NCVS sample are adjusted on a bi-annual basis to represent the U.S. population age 12 or older. For the PPCS, the population is restricted to persons 16 or older.
NCVS household and person weights are first adjusted to account for any subsampling that occurs within large GQs. The NCVS nonresponse weighting adjustment then allocates the sampling weights of nonresponding households and persons to respondents with similar characteristics. Additional factors are then applied to correct for the differences between the sample distributions of age, race/ethnicity, and sex and the population distributions of these characteristics. The resulting weights were assigned to all interviewed households and persons in the NCVS file.
PPCS weighting begins with the NCVS final person weight, which is then multiplied by a PPCS noninterview adjustment factor. PPCS noninterview adjustment factors are computed by distributing the weights of PPCS noninterviews to the weights of the PPCS interviews, with adjustment cells determined by age, race/Hispanic-origin, and gender. The result is a PPCS person-level weight that can be used for producing estimates from the PPCS variables.
Variance Estimates
The PPCS and NCVS estimates come from a sample, so they may differ from figures from an enumeration of the entire population using the same questionnaires, instructions, and enumerators. For a given estimator, the average squared difference between estimates based on repeated samples and the estimate that would result if the sample were to include the entire population is known as sampling error. The sampling error quantifies the amount of uncertainty in an estimate as a result of selecting a sample.
Variance estimates can be derived using direct estimation or generalized variance functions (GVFs). Replication methods provide estimates of variance for a wide variety of designs using probability sampling, even when complex estimation procedures are used. This method requires the sample selection, data collection, and estimation procedures to be carried out (i.e., replicated) several times. In addition, the Census Bureau produces parameters for GVFs that estimate the variance of the prevalence of police contact based on the value of the estimate. To do this, estimates and their relative variance are fit to a regression model using an iterative weighted least squares procedure where the weight is the inverse of the square of the predicted relative variance.
The PPCS is designed to calculate national and state-level (for the 22 most populous states) estimates of contact between the police and the public for the target population - the noninstitutional resident population aged 16 years and older.
Data collection
For the six-month period, January through June 2020, the PPCS will be administered to approximately 78,740 designated households. The NCVS uses a rotating sample that consists of seven groups for each month of enumeration. Each housing unit selected for the NCVS remains in the sample for three years, with each of seven interviews taking place at 6-month intervals.
The NCVS-500 (Control Card) is used to complete a household roster with names and other demographic information of the household members. For some demographic questions that are asked directly of respondents, flashcards are used, such as for education, race, ethnicity, employment, and household income. Respondents are asked to report victimization experiences occurring in the six months preceding the month of interview. The NCVS Crime Screener instrument (NCVS-1) is asked of all respondents age 12 years or older in the household and is used to ascertain whether the respondent has experienced a personal crime victimization during the prior six months and is therefore eligible to be administered the NCVS Crime Incident Report instrument (NCVS-2). The NCVS-1 collects the basic information needed to determine whether the respondent experienced a crime victimization (rape or other sexual assault, robbery, aggravated or simple assault, personal larceny, burglary, motor vehicle theft, or other household theft). When a respondent reports an eligible personal victimization, the NCVS-2 is then administered to collect detailed information about the crime incident. The NCVS-2 is administered for each incident the respondent reports. For each victimization incident, the NCVS-2 collects information about the offender (e.g. sex, race, Hispanic origin, age, and victim-offender relationship), characteristics of the crime (including time and place of occurrence, use of weapons, nature of injury, and economic consequences), whether the crime was reported to police, reasons the crime was or was not reported, and victim experiences with the criminal justice system. All NCVS forms and materials including the NCVS-500, NCVS-1 and NCVS-2 have been previously approved by OMB (OMB NO: 1121-0111).
Each interview period the interviewer completes or updates the household composition component of the NCVS interview and asks the crime screener questions (NCVS-1) for each household member age 12 or older. 1 The interviewer then completes a crime incident report (NCVS-2) for each reported crime incident identified in the crime screener. Once the NCVS interview is completed (i.e. nonvictims responded to all NCVS-1 screening questions or victims completed all necessary NCVS-2 incident reports), the interviewer administers the PPCS questionnaire to NCVS respondents age 16 or older.
Until 2015, respondents who completed the NCVS interview in a language other than English were ineligible for participation in the PPCS. This resulted in non-response bias among Hispanics in particular. Additionally, given the potential issues related to contact between police and non-English speaking residents, the inclusion of non-English speakers was an important change to the 2015 collection which continued in 2018, and by extension, 2020. Census field representatives will use ‘on-the-fly’ translation (there is no ‘official’ translation of the PPCS) to administer the PPCS to respondents for whom the NCVS was translated. This is standard practice, as the core NCVS and all other NCVS supplements also use ’on-the-fly’ translation.
The complete 2020 PPCS instrument is included for review as Attachment 5. For details on testing of the instrument, see Section 4.
If the interview occurs during the first contact with a household that is new to the sample, the interview is typically conducted in person. Households that have been previously interviewed and are in their second through seventh interview can be interviewed by telephone whenever possible. Approximately half of all interviews conducted each month are by telephone.
Contact Strategy
Contact materials focus on the NCVS in general and do not specifically reference the PPCS or other supplemental surveys. The Census Bureau mails notifications to households prior to data collection, interviewers contact households for the first time in-person, and interviewers conduct nonresponse follow-up. The Census Bureau mails an introductory letter explaining the NCVS to the household before the interviewer's visit or call. When they go to a household, the interviewers carry cards identifying them as Census Bureau employees. Potential respondents are assured that their answers will be held in confidence and are used for statistical purposes. For respondents who have questions about the NCVS, interviewers provide a brochure, and can also reference information in their Information Card Booklet that contains information such as uses of NCVS data and frequently asked questions and answers. After interviews are completed at each enumeration period, the Census Bureau mails thank you letters to the household. All forms and materials used for contact with the household have been previously approved by OMB (OMB NO: 1121-0111).
The Census Bureau trains interviewers to obtain respondent cooperation and instructs them to make repeated attempts to contact respondents and complete all interviews. The interviewer obtains demographic characteristics of noninterview persons for use in the adjustment for nonresponse. NCVS and PPCS response rates are monitored on a monthly basis and compared to the previous month’s average to ensure their reasonableness.
As part of their job, interviewers are instructed to keep noninterviews, or nonresponse from a household or persons within a household, to a minimum. Household nonresponse occurs when an interviewer finds an eligible household but obtains no interviews. Person nonresponse occurs when an interview is obtained from at least one household member, but an interview is not obtained from one or more other eligible persons in that household. Maintaining a high response rate involves the interviewer’s ability to enlist cooperation from all kinds of people and to contact households when people are most likely to be home. As part of their initial training, interviewers are exposed to ways in which they can persuade respondents to participate as well as strategies to use to avoid refusals. Furthermore, the office staff makes every effort to help interviewers maintain high participation by suggesting ways to obtain an interview, and by making sure that sample units reported as noninterviews are in fact noninterviews. Also, survey procedures permit sending a letter to a reluctant respondent as soon as a new refusal is reported by the interviewer to encourage their participation and to reiterate the importance of the survey and their response.
Interviewer Training
Training for NCVS interviewers consists of classroom and on-the-job training. Initial training for interviewers consists of a full day pre-classroom self-study, 4-day classroom training, post-classroom self-study, and on-the-job observation and training. Initial training includes topics such as protecting respondent confidentiality, gaining respondent cooperation, answering respondent questions, proper survey administration, use of systems to collect and transmit survey data, NCVS concepts and definitions, and completing simulated practice NCVS interviews. The NCVS procedures and concepts taught in initial training are also regularly reinforced for experienced NCVS interviewers. This information is received via monthly written communications, ongoing feedback from observations of interviews by supervisors, and monthly performance and data quality feedback reports.
NCVS interviewers also receive specific training on the PPCS including eligibility, the organization of the PPCS interview, content of the survey questionnaire, addressing potential respondent questions, and internal check items that are in place to help the interviewer ensure that the respondent is being asked the appropriate questions and follow-up when clarification is needed. Interviewers receive a self-study training manual that they are required to read and they must complete a Final Review Exercise to verify their knowledge of the concepts presented in the self-study training manual. The PPCS training materials are distributed to interviewers approximately a month before the supplement goes into the field.
Monitoring Interviewers
In addition to the above procedures used to ensure high participation rates, the Census Bureau implements additional performance measures for interviewers based on data quality standards. Interviewers are trained and assessed on administering the NCVS-1, NCVS-2 and PPCS exactly as worded to ensure the uniformity of data collection, completing interviews in an appropriate amount of time (not rushing through them), and keeping item nonresponse and “don’t know” responses to a minimum. The Census Bureau also uses quality control methods to ensure that accurate data is collected. Interviewers are continually monitored by their Regional Office to assess whether performance and response rate standards are being met and corrective action is taken to assist and discipline interviewers who are not meeting the standards.
Another component of the data quality program is monthly feedback. In 2011, the Census Bureau implemented a series of field performance and data quality indicators. Previously, high response rates were the primary measure of interviewer performance. The data quality indicators are tracked through the Census Bureau’s expanded Performance and Data Analysis (Giant PANDA) tool, and monthly reports provided to the field. Under the revised performance structure, interviewers are monitored on the following:
response rates (household, person, and the current supplement in the field)
• time stamps (the time it takes to administer the screener questions on the NCVS-1 or the crime incident questions on the NCVS-2)
• overnight starts (interviews conducted very late at night or very early in the morning)
late starts (cases not started until the 15th or later in the interview month)
• absence of contact history records (cases missing records of contact attempts with the household and/or persons within the household)
Noncompliance with these indicators results in supervisor notification and follow-up with the interviewer. The follow-up activity may include simple points of clarification (e.g., the respondent works nights and is only available in the early morning for an interview), additional interviewer training, or removal of the interviewer from the survey.
Every effort has been made to make the survey materials clear and straightforward. The PPCS instrument has been designed to make collection of the data as concise and easy for the respondent as possible. The PPCS questions have been cognitively tested to ensure that they are easily understood by most respondents.
Nonresponse and Response Rates
Interviewers are able to obtain NCVS interviews with about 84% of household members in 78% of the occupied units in sample in a given month. The interviewers are trained to make repeated attempts at contacting respondents and to complete interviews with all eligible household members.
Annually, the Census Bureau conducts complete analyses of nonresponse. As was done for previous iterations of the PPCS, the Census Bureau plans to report nonresponse and response rates, respondent and nonrespondent distribution estimates, and proxy nonresponse bias estimates for various subgroups for the 2020 PPCS. Should the analyses reveal evidence of nonresponse bias, BJS will work with the Census Bureau to assess the impact to estimates and ways to adjust the weights accordingly. The interviewers obtain demographic characteristics of noninterview persons for use in the adjustment for nonresponse.
All survey questions were tested during the previous collections and are known to be easily understood and answered. Since 1996, the PPCS has been administered eight times on a periodic basis. In May, June, and July 1996, the BJS supplemented the NCVS with a pilot test of the first PPCS instrument designed to collect answers from respondents to a series of questions about the nature and consequences of their face-to-face interactions with the police. Following the initial PPCS implementation, the BJS redesigned the instrument to accomplish a number of objectives not addressed by the original survey instrument, particularly with respect to broadening the range of participants describing their interactions with the police.
The PPCS was again conducted as a supplement to the NCVS between July 1, 1999 and December 31, 1999. An improved version of the survey instrument that included a new and more detailed set of questions about traffic stops by police was fielded with a national sample nearly 15 times as large as the pretest sample in 1996. That same PPCS instrument was then repeated as a supplement to the NCVS in 2002, 2005, 2008, and to about 15% of the sample in 2011.
In 2011, BJS redesigned the PPCS with the goals of providing stronger cues for respondents by using more specific questions about types of contact, gathering more data on voluntary contacts with police, improving the measurement of street stops (also known as ‘stop and frisks’), and collecting data on the interactions and behaviors between residents and police. The 2011 PPCS was administered to a split sample of respondents (85% were administered the 2011 instrument while 15% were administered the prior years’ instrument) in order to test the impact of instrument changes on the rate of contact with police and to allow for the continued examination of trends in police contact over time. BJS produced a technical report that provides trends in police contact from 1999 to 2011, adjusting for changes to the 2011 instrument where possible.2 Initial findings suggested that the revised screener resulted in a statistically significant increase in the rate of contact. However, once the prior year rates of contact were adjusted to account for the change, there was no statistically significant change in the rate of contact from 2008 to 2011.
While the revised instrument provided valuable new data on the nature of street stops and resident requests for assistance from police, the analysis also revealed that the changes to the instrument resulted in an inability to generate an overall rate of use of force across all police contacts. Additionally, the new screener created uncertainty about how contacts resulting in arrest were classified by respondents.
Given the issues with the 2011 instrument, BJS revised the 2011 instrument for the 2015 data collection to include a more extensive screener section to better capture the experiences of the public and direct the respondent toward relevant and salient questions to elicit as much information as possible regarding the contact with police. Other changes in 2015 included questions about the number of contacts so that BJS could generate an incident rate; administration of use of force questions to all respondents, regardless of the type of contact experienced during their most recent encounter with police; and administration of the supplement to NCVS respondents who received the NCVS in a language other than English.
In addition, BJS made three substantive improvements to the PPCS instrument prior to the 2018 administration. The first was the addition of a verification question following multiple screener items that ask about various types of contact with the police. The new verification question allowed interviewers to confirm they accurately understood all incidents reported. The other two substantive changes came as a result of the comment period for the 2015 PPCS. BJS received recommendations to include questions to collect data on perceptions of police behavior toward LGBTQ persons. Given the small sample sizes that would be associated with these questions, BJS instead broadened the purview and added two questions—one aiming to address perceptions of verbal and/or sexual harassment by police and one aiming to address perceptions that police behaviors were motivated by prejudice or bias against the respondent. Several minor instrument changes were implemented as a result of previous results and cognitive testing.
Given the adjustments to the screener in particular, cognitive testing on the 2018 PPCS instrument was conducted by the Center for Survey Measurement at the U.S. Census Bureau, under their generic clearance for questionnaire pretesting research (OMB number 0607-0725). It focused on the PPCS screener and the classification and enumeration of different types of police contact, as well as the new questions. The testing was conducted in four rounds between June and November 2017. In total, 50 individuals were interviewed: 15 in each of the first two rounds and10 each in the third and fourth rounds.
Initial rounds of testing indicated that respondents struggled to correctly classify some of their contacts in response to the appropriate screener question. These errors occurred more frequently with questions about self-initiated contacts. Respondents were not always able to make clear distinctions in how they classified crimes, disturbances, suspicious activity, non-crime emergencies, and non-emergency assistance. As a result, they often reported the same incident in response to multiple questions. This occurred because some respondents were not sure which item was a more appropriate fit, and because some respondents were not sure if a better-fitting question was going to be asked or if the current item was their best chance to report the contact. In addition to difficulty classifying the type of contact they experienced, many respondents experienced recall issues, forgetting about contacts or the number of contacts until discussing their experiences with the interviewer and responding to probing questions as part of the cognitive interview.
Due to the recurring issues experienced by respondents, several global changes were made to the questionnaire throughout testing. Before being asked the screener questions about self-initiated contacts, introduction text was added explaining that the interviewer will ask about five reasons why the respondent may have contacted the police in the past 12 months. The intro text also explains that respondents can say yes to more than one reason, but should choose the reason that best fits why they contacted the police on each occasion. Similar intro text was added before the police-initiated contact section of the screener, with text explaining that the respondent will be asked about four reasons why the police may have initiated contact with them.
A verification question was also added after the completion of the screener questions asking about the various types of police contacts. The verification question explains that the interviewer is going to read a list of what the interviewer recorded to make sure everything is correct, and explains that each contact should only be counted once. The interviewer then lists the types of contacts and number of each type of contact the respondent reported, and asks if everything is correct. If the respondent says it is not correct, the interviewer asks what is not correct. Once this verification question is asked and information is corrected, if respondents reported more than one contact, they are asked which of those contacts just discussed occurred most recently to determine the appropriate path for the survey. Later rounds of cognitive testing revealed that the new verification item helped identify contacts that were double reported while also verifying that respondent-reported contacts were correctly classified under the most applicable type of police contact.
While the focus was on the screener questions, the entirety of the questionnaire was cognitively tested. Overall, the survey sections after the screener performed well and caused few issues for respondents. Several additional minor instrument changes were implemented as a result of previous results and cognitive testing. However, because most of the questions on the 2018 instrument had already been used or tested previously, there were few major changes to the instrument as a result of the testing.
The 2020 PPCS instrument maintains all of the questions from the 2018 PPCS and reintroduces one question that was not asked in 2018 but was asked in years prior. The reintroduced question will be asked of residents who report that their most recent contact with police was initiated by the police. These residents will be asked if at any time during the contact, they a) disobeyed or interfered with the officer(s); b) tried to get away; c) pushed, grabbed, or hit the officer(s); d) resisted being handcuffed, arrested, or searched; e) complained to the officer(s); f) argued with the officer(s); g) cursed at, insulted, or verbally threatened the officer(s); and h) physically did anything else. This question was previously tested for other survey years and all other questions on the 2020 PPCS were tested prior to the 2018 administration. Therefore, no cognitive testing occurred for the 2020 PPCS.
BJS takes responsibility for the overall design and management of the activities described in this submission, including developing study protocols, sampling procedures, questionnaires, and overseeing the conduct of the studies and analysis of the data by contractors.
BJS contacts include:
Elizabeth Davis |
Erika Harrell |
Statistician |
Statistician |
202-305-2667 |
202 307-0758 |
|
|
Grace Kena Statistician 202-305-2549 |
|
The Census Bureau is responsible for the collection of all data. Ms. Meagan Meuchel is the NCVS Survey Director and manages and coordinates the NCVS and PPCS.
The Census Bureau contacts include:
Meagan Meuchel
NCVS Survey Director
Associate Director for Demographic Programs – Survey Operations
301-763-6593
Megan Ruhnke
NCVS Assistant Survey Director
Associate Director for Demographic Programs – Survey Operations
301-763-9842
Language regarding data on use of excessive force (34 USC 12602 [sec. 210402])
Copy of the regulatory authority (34 USC 10131 and 10132)
Introduction letters for the NCVS collection: NCVS-572 and NCVS-573
30-day notice for 2020 PPCS
2020 PPCS survey instrument
1 About 6% of NCVS interviews are conducted by proxy. NCVS proxy interviewees are not eligible to complete the PPCS. Given the nature of the questions, BJS determined that proxy respondents would have difficulty describing the details of contacts between police and the sampled respondents. For instance, respondents are asked whether they felt the force was excessive; a proxy interviewee would not know how the sampled respondent felt about the use of force.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Langton, Lynn |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-15 |