Supporting Statement A (1110-0001)

Supporting Statement A for the Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

Extension of a previously approved collection

Return A-Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police and Supplement to Return A-Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control # 1110-0001

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) and the FBI’s authority to acquire, preserve, and exchange identification records, 28 U.S.C. § 534, the FBI was designated by the Attorney General to acquire, collect, classify, and preserve national data on criminal offenses as part of the Uniform Crime Reports. For over 90 years, the FBI has collected data and information under this program from federal, state, county, city, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies.

The Return A (Form 1-720) supplies the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program with the number of Part I offenses (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft) reported monthly by law enforcement, the number of unfounded Part I offenses, the total number of offenses cleared by arrest or exceptional means, and clearances for persons under the age of 18. Additionally, the Supplement to Return A (Form 1-706), which is a companion to the Return A, supplies the FBI’s UCR Program with the monetary value of property stolen and recovered. The information collected on both forms is important for the analysis of the Part I offenses noted above.

The FBI’s UCR Program continues the transition to collect data solely under the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Until the transition is complete, new submissions and updates from those agencies reporting via the Summary Reporting System (SRS) are being accepted. This information collection is necessary for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of crime data and to provide the most complete and accurate data possible.

2. Needs and Uses

The Return A and Supplement to Return A Data Collection forms are necessary to provide law enforcement agencies (LEAs) a mechanism to report Part I offense data and the monetary value of property stolen and recovered to the FBI’s UCR Program. The statistics are used for research and statistical purposes, serving as a valuable resource to federal, state, county, city, tribal, and territorial LEAs, as well as to academia, other government agencies, the general public, and the media. Examples of uses are:

a. The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, uses the FBI’s UCR Program data to award non-competitive grants (i.e., formula grants) which are based on a mathematical formula rather than a competitive application process. These grant monies are provided for state, local, and tribal governments to address crime-related issues (e.g., crime prevention, violent crime, and drug trafficking).

b. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion uses data collected by the FBI’s UCR Program in their Healthy People 2030 interactive data tool. This tool focuses on the Healthy People 2030 objectives and allows users to explore the data and technical information.

c. Criminologists, sociologists, legislators, special interest groups, students of criminal justice, municipal planners, and the media use the data collected by the FBI’s UCR Program for various research projects, planning purposes, and news reports.

d. The information collected under the Return A and Supplement to Return A Data Collection permits studies among neighboring jurisdictions and those with similar populations and other common characteristics.

3. Use of Information Technology

Crime data collection for the FBI’s UCR Program begins at the local agency level when law enforcement officers submit administrative and operational data to their records management personnel from hard copy or electronic incident reports. The local agency records managers then compile the crime data and submit the information to their state UCR programs. Many state UCR programs have a centralized repository and have established electronic communications with the LEAs throughout their state and the FBI’s UCR Program. This allows for information technology interaction within the required electronic data submission formats.

All participants in the FBI’s UCR Program submit their crime data electronically and a dashboard is maintained for that purpose. State programs use the dashboard to upload their own flat files to the system. LEAs continuing to use the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook provided by the FBI must generate a flat file for uploading to the dashboard.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

The FBI is the only federal agency collecting extensive data based on Part I criminal offenses, crime clearances, and the monetary values of property stolen and recovered in the United States.

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Entities

This information collection will have no significant burden on small LEAs. Data are collected monthly since police records are run by calendar month. However, the FBI’s UCR Program minimizes the burden on small LEAs by allowing them to submit quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or Less Frequent Collection

To serve as the national repository for reported crime and to produce a reliable dataset, the FBI collects monthly statistics reported by LEAs participating in the FBI’s UCR Program. There is an ever-increasing need for the FBI to collect accurate data and to disseminate the information in a timely manner. Since June 2020, data submitted to the FBI’s UCR Program have been available on the Crime Data Explorer, are now released monthly, and include caveats stating that the information is subject to change.

LEAs use the data collected by the FBI’s UCR Program to track crime, justify staffing levels, receive additional equipment, and determine appropriate officer placement. Additionally, the information is used for the purposes of administration, operation, management, and evaluation of resources. Less frequent data collection, or the lack thereof, would significantly impede the ability of LEAs to combat crime.

7. Special Circumstances

LEAs participating in the FBI’s UCR Program should submit crime reports by the seventh day of each month. The obligation to respond is mandatory for federal agencies and voluntary for non-federal agencies. Annual deadlines are designated to assess monthly submissions.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

The 60-day notice was published to the Office of Federal Register (OFR) on November 21, 2025, (90 FR 52702), and received no comments. The 30-day notice was published to the OFR on January 23 2026, (91 FR 2962), and received no public comments.

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

The FBI’s UCR Program does not provide any payment or gifts to respondents.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

The FBI’s UCR Program does not assure confidentiality. However, this information collection does not contain personally identifiable information that may reveal the identity of an individual. Additionally, the data collected are submitted to the FBI by public agencies with the expectation that some or all of the information will become publicly available.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

This information collection does not contain information of a sensitive (personally identifiable and law enforcement sensitive information) nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent’s Burden

In 2024, there were 19,328 law enforcement agencies actively enrolled in the FBI’s UCR Program (i.e., the universe of potential respondents). Data submissions from approximately 2,381 law enforcement agencies reporting under SRS totaled 60,447 in 2024. The estimated response time for the Return A is 10 minutes and that for the Supplement to Return A is 11 minutes. To provide a singular calculation of the estimated burden, the approximate number of minutes per form used for the combined collection is 10.5 minutes (i.e., the average of the times required to complete the forms).

Below is the estimated cost of the respondent’s burden for this data collection.

Activity	Number of Respondents	Frequency	Total Annual Responses	Time per Response	Total Annual Burden (Hours)
Return A and Supplement to Return A Forms	2,381	Variable	60,447	10.5 minutes	10,578
Unduplicated Totals	2,381		60,447		10,578

There are approximately 10,578 annual burden hours associated with this collection. As additional SRS agencies complete the transition to NIBRS, it is expected that the number of submissions and, subsequently, the annual burden hours associated with this data collection, will steadily decline. The burden hour estimate presented here is based on the most recent submission values to achieve the highest possible burden estimate.

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

Other than their time to respond, there are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in the FBI’s UCR Program.

All participants in the FBI’s UCR Program submit their crime data electronically and a dashboard is maintained for that purpose. State programs use the dashboard to upload their own flat files to the system. LEAs continuing to use the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook provided by the FBI must generate a flat file for uploading to the dashboard.

For many reasons, costs to agency records management systems are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs because vendors charge differently from agency to agency. Many costs are built into the vendor’s service level agreement contracts. Depending on the vendor contracts, changes mandated by law could be included within the original contract with no additional costs. System maintenance costs vary by agency.

14. Cost to Federal Government

According to the direct cost model provided by the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, Resources Management Section (RMS), Fee Programs Unit, the following are projections based on prior collection activity. Since RMS cannot provide a breakdown for each of the data collections managed by the FBI’s UCR Program, a collective cost of each of the activities is provided.

Direct Data Collection and Processing Costs
Activity	Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Cost	FY 2024 Full-Time Equivalent
CJIS Systems Agency/Officer (CSA/CSO) Development and Support	$4,805.07	0.03
Collaborate with LE and Critical Incident Management Services	$8,479.06	0.06
Conduct Field Office, OPE, and LEGAT Engagement Activities	$18,456.52	0.15
Conduct Liaison, Education, and Promotion	$530,655.46	4.03
Conduct Other Crime Data Services Activities	$392,300.68	2.81
Conduct Other Partner Engagement Activities	$41,822.65	0.27
Conduct Quality, Process, and System Management Activities	$10,191.78	0.06
Conduct Research and Release Studies on Collected Data	$221,358.28	1.79
Conduct State and Local Agency Engagement Activities	$71,379.09	0.56
Conduct Tribal Engagement Activities	$9,865.78	0.09
Develop and Maintain Partner Outreach Materials	$8,365.12	0.06
Develop and Manage Policy	$52,028.62	0.36
Direct Customer Engagement for Product/Service Use and Expansion	$156,869.82	1.03
Manage Strategic Communications	$9,212.45	0.06
Perform Administrative and Human Resource Tasks	$260,597.57	1.90
Perform Advisory Policy Board (APB) Tasks	$60,450.64	0.41
Perform Budget, Strategic Planning, and Program Control	$151,704.61	0.91
Perform Contracting Officer’s Representative Duties	$33,935.03	0.21
Perform Quality Assurance	$160,033.71	1.24
Perform Quality Management	$16,624.04	0.10
Perform Scaled Agile Framework Duties	$457,011.19	3.81
Perform Statistical Reporting	$930.39	0.01

Direct Data Collection and Processing Costs–continued
Activity	Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Cost	FY 2024 Full-Time Equivalent
Perform Strategy Management	$40,890.38	0.23
Perform Workload Management	$16,487.43	0.09
Planning and Implementing New Data Collections	$87,978.26	0.70
Process Media, Freedom of Information Act, and Congressional requests	$79,491.70	0.53
Provide CJIS Multimedia Support	$3,159.67	0.03
Provide End User Support Services	$88,656.10	0.65
Provide Management and Administration	$532,640.20	3.36
Process Media, Freedom of Information Act, and Congressional requests	$79,491.70	0.53
Provide CJIS Multimedia Support	$3,159.67	0.03
Provide End User Support Services	$88,656.10	0.65
Provide Management and Administration	$532,640.20	3.36
Provide Support to Other FBI Units Sections (Temporary Duty, Surge)	$20,154.92	0.20
Respond to Data Calls, Media Requests, etc.	$260,146.69	1.91
Respond to Internal and External Data Calls	$119,149.70	0.69
Support CJIS APB	$51,763.19	0.36
Support CJIS Division Community Outreach Program	$10,105.00	0.09
Support CJIS Systems Officer Training and Communications	$3,899.61	0.03
Support Crime in the United States Data Release	$469,426.78	3.58
Support Law Enforcement Employee Counts Data Collection	$147,784.63	1.16
Support Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection	$102,405.30	0.80
Support Law Enforcement Training	$10,572.66	0.12
Support LEOKA Collection and Data Release	$275,957.77	2.25
Support National Incident-Based Reporting System	$178,076.89	1.38
Support National Use-of-Force Data Collection	$206,931.23	1.72
Support ORI Administration	$7,799.21	0.06
Support Reports, Releases, and Publications	$71,322.10	0.61
Support the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer	$186,781.39	1.50
Support the Hate Crime Data Collection and Data release	$152,748.80	1.18
Support the Law Enforcement Public Contact Data Collection	$40,623.54	0.30
Support the Lawful Access Data Collection	$49,628.26	0.33
Support the Quarterly Uniform Crime Report	$78,946.16	0.56
Total	$6,674,552.80	48.94

15. Reason for Change in Burden

The FBI’s UCR Program continues the transition to collect data solely under NIBRS. Until the transition is complete, updates and new submissions from those agencies reporting via SRS are being accepted. As additional SRS agencies complete the transition to NIBRS, it is expected that the number of submissions and, subsequently, the annual burden hours associated with this data collection, will steadily decline.

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Since June 2020, data submitted to the FBI’s UCR Program have been available on the Crime Data Explorer, are now released monthly, and include caveats stating that the information is subject to change.

17. Display of Expiration Date

All information collected under this clearance will display OMB’s Control Number and Expiration Date on the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook provided by the FBI.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

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

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