Part B. Statistical Methods
1. Universe and Respondent Selection:
Respondents to the National Use-of-Force Data Collection include law enforcement agencies that employ sworn officers that meet the definition as set forth by the LEOKA Program. The LEOKA definition and additional criteria are as follows:
All federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers (such as municipal officers, county police officers, constables, state police, highway patrol officers, sheriffs, their deputies, federal law enforcement officers, marshals, special agents, etc.) who are sworn by their respective government authorities to uphold the law and to safeguard the rights, lives, and property of American citizens. They must have full arrest powers and be members of a public governmental law enforcement agency, paid from government funds set aside specifically for payment to sworn police law enforcement organized for the purposes of keeping order and for preventing and detecting crimes, and apprehending those responsible.
General Criteria
The data collected by the LEOKA Program pertain to felonious deaths, accidental deaths, and assaults of duly sworn federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officers who, at the time of the incident, met the following criteria:
Wore/carried a badge (ordinarily).
Carried a firearm (ordinarily).
Were duly sworn and had full arrest powers.
Were members of a public governmental law enforcement agencies and were paid from government funds set aside specifically for payment to sworn law enforcement.
Were acting in an official capacity, whether on or off duty, at the time of the incident.
Exception to the above-listed criteria
Beginning January 1, 2015, the LEOKA Program effected an exception to its collection criteria to include the data of individuals who are killed or assaulted while serving as a law enforcement officer at the request of a law enforcement agency whose officers meet the current collection criteria. (Special circumstances are reviewed by LEOKA staff on a case-by-case basis to determine inclusion.)
Addition to the LEOKA Program’s Data Collection
Effective March 23, 2016, the LEOKA Program expanded its collection criteria to include the data of military and civilian police and law enforcement officers of the Department of Defense (DOD), while performing a law enforcement function or duty, who are not in a combat or deployed (sent outside of the United States for a specific military support role mission) status. This includes DOD police and law enforcement officers who perform policing and criminal investigative functions while stationed (not deployed) on overseas bases, just as if they were based in the United States.
Exclusions from the LEOKA Program’s Data Collection
Examples of job positions not typically included in the LEOKA Program’s statistics (unless they meet the above exception) follow:
Corrections or correctional officers
Bailiffs
Parole or probation officers
Federal judges
U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S. Attorneys
Bureau of Prison officers
Private security officers
As the National Use-of-Force
Data Collection is intended to collect information on any
use
of force by law enforcement in the United States or a United States
territory that meets one of the three criteria (death of a person,
serious bodily injury of a person, or firearm discharge at or in the
direction of a person), sampling methodologies are not used.
Instead, the FBI’s UCR Program relies upon the enumeration of
these incidents in total to make statements about the relative
frequency and characteristics of use of force by law enforcement in
the United States. However, the voluntary nature of the FBI’s
UCR Program results in some agencies reporting incomplete information
and others not participating in the data collection at all.
The FBI continues to encourage law enforcement participation in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection through targeted outreach to increase the overall response rate. As of May 2025, the coverage rate based on the total law enforcement officer population of participating agencies is 78 percent. When the coverage rate is 80 percent or higher and the nonresponse rate is 30 percent or less, no conditions apply to the dissemination of results.
2. Procedures for Collecting Information
Information on law enforcement use of force will be collected initially by law enforcement agencies that employ law enforcement officers that meet the same definition and criteria as the LEOKA Program (see response to Supporting Statement Part B, Question 1). Agencies will record information on the use-of-force incident for their own purposes in case files may or may not be housed in automated systems. This information will be translated or recoded into standardized answers that correspond to the 41 questions asked in the National Use-of-Force Data Collection.
The process of translating agency information into standardized responses for a UCR data collection more closely aligns with the coding process associated with content analysis, rather than traditional survey design. In the reporting of information on a use of force by law enforcement, the responses will usually be provided by a supervisor of a unit charged with investigating the use of force or one of the staff in such a unit. Rarely would the questionnaire be completed by the individual officer(s) involved in the incident. The FBI will provide both user guides and “just in time” information to guide individuals in the process of responding to questions in a standardized fashion.
Agencies will be encouraged to
begin the process of completing the questions regarding a
use-of-force incident as soon as possible. All work can be
saved within the system and retrieved later for completion. Once an
agency has completed the questions related to an incident, a
designated individual within each agency will indicate that the
information is ready for the next stage in the workflow. At this
point, states can directly manage the collection of use-of-force
information at the state level, much like the other UCR data
collections. Alternatively, states can allow for their agencies to
report their use-of-force data directly to the FBI. Regardless of
whether it would be the state UCR Program or the FBI that receives
the data, all incidents will be subject to review for logical
inconsistencies by staff of the FBI or state UCR Program. If
questions arise regarding the information provided, the original
agency will be asked to resolve data quality issues.
In addition to use-of-force incident information, agencies will be able to indicate monthly that they did not have any use-of-force incidents, which are within the scope for the data collection. These “zero report” submissions will follow through the same general workflow as the use-of-force incident information.
Some agencies and states have automated systems in place to capture information on law enforcement use of force or have plans to build those systems. The FBI will provide technical specifications to agencies and states wishing to provide data as a bulk file in addition to the instructions.
3. Methods to Maximize Response
The FBI continuously works with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement partners and major law enforcement organizations to increase participation. Specific to the National Use-of-Force Data Collection, the FBI has promoted the data collection in the following ways:
Collaborated with the International Association of
Campus Law Enforcement
Administrators and Campus Safety
Meetings.
Collaborated with the Department of Justice Tribal Access Program.
Partnered with internal and external entities to
publish articles highlighting the
National Use-of-Force Data
Collection.
Attended numerous speaking engagements/conferences
to speak on the National
Use-of-Force Data Collection.
Produced a flyer containing an overview of the
National Use-of-Force Data
Collection.
Continuous stakeholder engagement with state UCR program managers.
Developed the Use-of-Force webpage located at http://www.fbi.gov/useofforce.
Created a series of “how to” videos
demonstrating how to successfully complete
specific tasks
within the use-of-force portal application.
To determine if there is a need for a nonresponse bias study, the FBI will be analyzing overall reporting patterns from agencies prior to publishing counts or estimates. The analysis will look for patterns of unit missing data (i.e., nonparticipating agencies), as well as item missing data (e.g., not reporting within scope the incidents of firearm discharges) by agency type that fall below a threshold of 70 percent. An additional dimension is the data collection is structured in such a way that agencies can leave data elements as “pending further investigation.” This data value is provided for agencies to report an incident in a timely manner and then return to the submission when further information is gained. Once 80 percent coverage is achieved, the FBI’s UCR Program will reassess nonresponse patterns and work with BJS and external experts to provide a methodology for arriving at national estimates.
The recommendation of the CJIS APB in December 2015 to create an FBI-sponsored and FBI-maintained tool is in direct response to issues that have continually provided impediments to the adoption of modifications to the UCR Program. Traditionally, the UCR Program has provided, to both agencies and state UCR programs, a set of technical specifications for a data submission to any part of the UCR data collections. However, that method is created under the presumption that agencies and state UCR programs assume the responsibility to build and maintain a data system for collecting the data. In the case of the National Use-of-Force Data Collection, the FBI sponsors and maintains a data collection tool that will be accessible through LEEP. This portal capability enables agencies to contribute their data directly to the FBI or allows state UCR program managers to use the tool to manage the data collection for their states. The tool has been constructed in such a fashion that state UCR program managers have enhanced privileges to monitor reporting status and other data quality elements.
The data collection on use of force requests that agencies positively affirm monthly that they did not have any incidents which resulted in a fatality, a serious bodily injury to a person, or firearm discharges at or in the direction of a person.
4. Task Force
As specified in CJIS APB Recommendation 2, the FBI established a Use-of-Force Task Force to provide guidance on the content of the data collection. Central to the discussion on the content of the final data collection was ensuring that law enforcement would not be overly burdened by duplicate reporting that could arise because of requirements in the DICRA of 2013. The Use-of-Force Task Force was comprised of representatives from major law enforcement organizations and federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement representatives. Specifically, the following organizations were represented:
International Association of Chiefs of Police
National Sheriffs’ Association
Major Cities Chiefs Association
Major County Sheriffs of America
Police Executive Research Forum
Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives
Association of State UCR Programs
In addition to representatives from these major organizations, the task force welcomed observers from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General (ODAG), the Community Oriented Policing Services Office, DOJ, and BJS.
Throughout the growth and development of the National Use-of-Force Data Collection, the FBI continued to work with law enforcement agencies to discover, address, and define any interpretation issues surrounding existing definitions (e.g., serious bodily injury). Questions surrounding how to define loss of consciousness, scarring, disfigurement, and mental faculty have been longstanding. In addition, the FBI continues to define officer-instituted actions in response to resistance in which a law enforcement agency may question if the officer use of force falls within the scope of this collection. Examples include vehicle and foot pursuits, bystanders, accidental discharges, defining firearms, and federal task forces. Proper policy and guidelines were provided to the law enforcement community to ensure uniform methodology is applied to the best extent possible.
Coordination with DOJ
The FBI was in close contact with the DOJ leadership in the ODAG and the Office of Legal Policy for the last quarter of 2016 and early in 2017. This coordination took the form of weekly teleconferences during which stakeholder agencies and groups impacted by the development of a collection of use-of-force data were able to provide regular updates to each group’s or agency’s initiatives. The FBI has periodically engaged with counterparts in the Office of Justice Programs to maintain coordination of data collections on law enforcement use of force.
5. Contacts for Statistical Aspects and Data Collection
Contacts for statistical aspects and data collection can be reached via email ([email protected]) or telephone (304-625-4830).
Scott E. Schubert
Law Enforcement Engagement and Data Sharing (LEEDS) Section Chief
R. Scott Trent
LEEDS Section, Acting Assistant Chief
Linda Shriver
Crime and Law Enforcement Statistics Unit, Acting Chief
Chad M. Garman
Supervisory Survey Statistician
Malissa C. Vavra
Survey Statistician
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2025-05-31 |