MEMORANDUM
MEMORANDUM TO: Joseph Nye
Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
Robert Sivinski
Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
THROUGH: Michael A. Christman
Criminal Justice Information Services Assistant Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
FROM: Amy C. Blasher
Crime and Law Enforcement Statistics Unit Chief
Uniform Crime Reporting Program
Federal Bureau of Investigation
DATE: September 16, 2021
SUBJECT: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for expedited final approval of the Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection (LESDC).
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On June 16, 2020, the President of the United States signed into law a Bill which creates a national system to track law enforcement suicides. The “Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act” (LESDCA) directs the FBI to establish a new data collection to better understand and prevent suicides among current and former law enforcement personnel at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels within one year of its enactment. The law establishes requirements for the United States Attorney General, through the FBI, to collect and report on law enforcement suicides and attempted suicides. The data gathered through this collection will provide statistical transparency and help develop solutions to this complex problem.
The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program has been working on development of the LESDC since the passage of the LESDCA. Due to the short (one year) timeline for implementation and data collection, the FBI UCR Program has accelerated development to ensure compliance with the statutory requirements. This has shortened our available time for review on many aspects of the LESDC development.
Under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), all collections of information require formal approval from the OMB prior to the commencement of data collection from public entities. As the FBI UCR Program is required to provide information to Congress detailing the progress and initial results of the LESDC, there needs to be adequate time of live collection before that report is provided. Thus, the LESDC will require formal approval soon enough to allow for this live collection.
Normally, the PRA process to obtain OMB clearance requires a time frame no shorter than 180 days, for completion, with a potentially longer timeline for new collections. However, the FBI UCR Program is aware that the PRA includes processes for accelerated or expedited review to ensure compliance with statutory mandates, including requesting emergency processing of submissions of collections when “[t]he use of normal clearance procedures is reasonably likely to . . . cause a statutory . . . deadline to be missed. 5 C.F.R. § 1320.13(a)(2)(iii) (2020). Due to the extenuating circumstances and the statutory mandate requiring the expedited collection of this information, the FBI UCR Program is asking for formal approval of the LESDC no later than December 31, 2021. This would ensure an appropriate amount of live collection time to detail adequate results to Congress in the mandated report.
The FBI UCR Program is willing to discuss any options that will allow for the expedited review of the LESDC paperwork to ensure compliance with the LESDCA and congressional mandates, as well as the PRA and OMB’s review.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Sell, Bryan A. (CJISD) (FBI) |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-12-01 |