Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics (2009) / Chapter Skim
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3 Overview of Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Series
3 Overview of Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Series
Pages 75-164
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, corrections (3–B) , law enforcement (3–C)
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340 State Court Processing Statistics 300 Survey Development, Two New Collections 300 Corrections Annual Probation and Parole Statistics 175 Annual Survey of Jails 230 Capital Punishment Statistics 260 Census of Probation and Parole Agencies 250 Deaths in Custody Reporting Program 553 National Corrections Reporting Program 647 National Prisoner Statistics 130 State Prison Expenditures 300 Federal Justice Statistics Program 800 Criminal Justice Employment and Expenditures 222 Firearm Background Check Statistics 360 Tribal Statistics Tribal Criminal History Improvement Program 704 State Tribal Crime Reports 145 State Justice Statistics Program State Statistical Analysis Centers 2,300 Technical Assistance to SACs/Multi-State Projects 1,400 Publication and Dissemination 2,872 Management, Administration, and Joint Federal Statistics Efforts 2,131 Total 38,679 NOTE: Expenditures for National Criminal History Improvement Program grants and for data collections pursuant to the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 are funded through separate lines in the BJS budget. SOURCE: Adapted from table provided by BJS.
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Drawn from an original mandate to study the progress of law enforcement, the NCVS was designed to do so by asking respondents about victimization incidents generally, whether or not they were reported to authorities. Accordingly, the NCVS presented the unique ability to shed light on the "dark figure of crime" -- the phrase coined by Biderman and Reiss (1967)
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BJS's National Criminal History Improvement Program of grants to assist local law enforcement agencies develop criminal history and other information databases has recently expanded to include a tribal justice–specific component. Perry (2007)
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Preliminary versions of NCVS questions on crimes against the disabled were asked as early as 2000, but only those used OVERVIEW OF BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS DATA SERIES starting in 2007 were meant for or suitable for producing regular estimates. SOURCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
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3–A.1 National Crime Victimization Survey Since the outset, BJS has commissioned the U.S. Census Bureau as the data collection agent for the NCVS; the NCVS is one of the major federal surveys administered by the Census Bureau's Demographic Surveys Division.
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BJS still insists that the first interview with a sample household be conducted in person by a Census Bureau enumerator. Beginning in 1980, BJS began to permit every other interview (after the first contact)
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NCVS data have been probed to study the issue of violence and police response to incidents in disadvantaged areas and neighborhoods (Baumer, 2002; Baumer et al., 2 As mentioned in the next section, BJS and the Census Bureau attempted to do many of the NCVS telephone interviews from centralized Census Bureau call centers, but this practice was eliminated in the most recent set of cost-cutting measures. 3 Rennison (2002b)
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Census Bureau, Demographic Surveys Division (2007:51) : The supplement contains questions on preventative measures employed by the school to deter crime; students' participation in extracurricular activities; transportation to and from school; students' perception of rules and equality in school; bullying and hate crime in school; the presence of street gangs in school; availability of drugs and alcohol in
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, stems from a brief provision in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (P 103-322 § 210402) : "the Attorney .L.
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OVERVIEW OF BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS DATA SERIES 85 Figure 3-1 Module of questions on identity theft in the 2004 National Crime Victimization Survey (part 1) NOTE: The questions are part of NCVS-1, the screening questionnaire part of the NCVS interview.
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. BJS fielded a Supplemental Victimization Survey (SVS)
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Other NCVS supplements over the years have included: • Crime seriousness: An early supplement gathered national data on the perceived seriousness of crime, information that has been used to dif ferentially weight incidents to reflect their impact on the public. On a one-shot basis, BJS collaborated with the Office of Community Ori ented Policing Services in conducting community safety surveys by telephone in 12 cities, wholly distinct from the NCVS (Smith et al., 1999)
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Hence, our description of the NCVS in this report is meant to be a brief synopsis rather than a comprehensive overview. However, in this report's description of BJS data series, we believe it is important to mention a complication concerning the 2006 data from the NCVS that was encountered as our interim report was in the end stages of production.
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Supreme Court decision precluded the use of adjusted census numbers for purposes of congressional apportionment, it left open the possibility of adjustment for data used in legislative redistricting, in deriving survey controls, or for other purposes. In a series of recommendations, the Census Bureau ultimately decided against adjustment of 2000 census results for any purpose, but said determination required 2 years of additional research and analysis (National Research Council, 2004b)
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limited time and financial re sources prohibited the Census Bureau and BJS staff from fully assessing the effects of CAPI on the 2006 estimates. In releasing its first report on 2007 NCVS data (Rand, 2008)
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We return to a discussion of the NCVS break in series at various points in Chapter 5, particularly Section 5–B.8. 3–B CORRECTIONS The maintenance of statistics on persons under correctional supervision in the United States dates back to the 1850 decennial census, giving corrections data the longest lineage of BJS data series.
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. When the BJS predecessor, National Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Service, was formed in 1971, it took responsibility for the series, engaging the Census Bureau as its data collection agent.
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OVERVIEW OF BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS DATA SERIES 93 Table 3-4 Estimated Number of Adults Under Correctional Supervision in the United States, 1980–2006 Year Prison Jail Probation Parole Total 1980 319,598 182,288 1,118,097 220,438 1,840,400 1981 360,029 195,085 1,225,934 225,539 2,006,600 1982 402,914 207,853 1,357,264 224,604 2,192,600 1983 423,898 221,815 1,582,947 246,440 2,475,100 1984 448,264 233,018 1,740,948 266,992 2,689,200 1985 487,593 254,986 1,968,712 300,203 3,011,500 1986 526,436 272,735 2,114,621 325,638 3,239,400 1987 562,814 294,092 2,247,158 355,505 3,459,600 1988 607,766 341,893 2,356,483 407,977 3,714,100 1989 683,367 393,303 2,522,125 456,803 4,055,600 1990 743,382 405,320 2,670,234 531,407 4,350,300 1991 792,535 424,129 2,728,472 590,442 4,535,600 1992 850,566 441,781 2,811,611 658,601 4,762,600 1993 909,381 455,500 2,903,061 676,100 4,944,000 1994 990,147 479,800 2,981,022 690,371 5,141,300 1995 1,078,542 507,044 3,077,861 679,421 5,342,900 1996 1,127,528 518,492 3,164,996 679,733 5,490,700 1997 1,176,564 567,079 3,296,513 694,787 5,734,900 1998 1,224,469 592,462 3,670,441 696,385 6,134,200 1999 1,287,172 605,943 3,779,922 714,457 6,340,800 2000 1,316,333 621,149 3,826,209 723,898 6,445,100 2001 1,330,007 631,240 3,931,731 732,333 6,581,700 2002 1,367,547 665,475 4,024,067 750,934 6,758,800 2003 1,390,279 691,301 4,073,987 774,588 6,883,200 2003 1,390,279 691,301 4,120,012 769,925 6,924,500 2004 1,421,345 713,990 4,143,792 771,852 6,995,100 2005 1,448,344 747,529 4,166,757 780,616 7,051,900 2006 1,492,973 766,010 4,237,023 798,202 7,211,400 NOTE: Entries in "Total" column are rounded to the nearest 100 "because a small number of individuals may have multiple correctional statuses." Counts for probation, prison, and parole populations are for December 31 of each year; jail population counts are for June 30 of each year. SOURCE: Table 6.1.2006, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online (http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/wk1/t612006.wk1)
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94 Table 3-5 Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Collection History and Schedule, Corrections, 1981–2009 Series 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 Total Prisons Census of State and Federal Prison Facilities · · · • · · · · · • · · · · • · · · · • · · · · • · · · · 5 National Corrections Reporting Program · · • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 27 National Prisoner Statistics • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 29 State Prison Expenditures · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · • · · · · • · · · 3 Survey of Inmates in Federal Correctional Facilities · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · • · · · · · · • · · · · · 3 Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities · · · · · • · · · · • · · · · · • · · · · · · • · · · · · 4 Jails Annual Jail Survey · • · • • • • · • • • • · • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 25 Annual Jail Survey of Indian Country · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • • • • • • • • • • 12 Census of Local Jails · · • · · · · • · · · · • · · · · · • · · · · · · • · · · 5 Survey of Large Jails · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · 1 Survey of Lcoal Jail Inmates · · • · · · · · • · · · · · · • · · · · · • · · · · · · · 4 Probation, Parole, and Recidivism National Census of Parole Agencies · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · 2 National Parole Statistics • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 29 National Probation Statistics • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 29 National Survey of Adult Probationers · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 1 Recidivism Studies · · • · · • · · · · · · · • · · · · · · • · · · · · · • • 6 Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 Collections Survey of Sexual Violence -- Adult Facilities · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • • • • 6 Survey of Sexual Violence -- Juvenile Facilities · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • • • 5 National Inmate Surveys Prisons and Jails · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • 3 Juvenile Facilities · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · 1 Former Prisoners · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · 1 Other Capital Punishment • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 29 Deaths in Custody · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • • • • • • • • 10 NOTES: •, data collected. ·, data not collected.
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The Census Bureau enters into specific arrangements with each state to provide NCRP data; as of 2003, 41 states (accounting for about 90 percent of the state prison population5 ) , the federal prison system administered by the Bureau of Prisons, and the California Youth Authority contributed data to NCRP (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007d)
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. Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities Every 5–6 years, the Census Bureau has conducted the Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities for BJS.
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. Surveys of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities BJS has commissioned the Census Bureau to conduct personal interviews with inmates of state prisons on an irregular basis, every 5–7 years, through the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities.
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In 2004, Census Bureau staff completed 14,499 interviews of state prisoners and 3,686 of federal prisoners. Each interview (using CAPI)
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reports had been done on jails" until LEAA began a program of jail surveys in 1970. As of that point, "the last Census Bureau report on jails to contain special criminal justice related information such as offenses or sentence data had been in 1933." LEAA fielded initial jail surveys in 1970, 1972, and 1978; these early efforts modeled Census Bureau practice by trying to characterize the inmate population present on the day of the survey, rather than quantifying the flow into and out of jails over the course of the year.
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Since the ASJ series and periodic jail census began in 1982, the Census Bureau has been engaged as the data collection agent. The work developed from experimental efforts in the 1970s, when congressional interest in correctional facility overcrowding led to a first jail census in 1970.
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As of 2002, BJS contracts with the Census Bureau to conduct SILJ interviews. BJS has issued both general summaries of characteristics of the jail population based on the SILJ (Harlow, 1998; James, 2004)
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. BJS collects quarterly reports from state and local law enforcement agencies (known from the Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, as described below)
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The Census Bureau, as data collector for the NCRP also , collects the capital punishment data. Part of the Capital Punishment data collection is an annual update of death penalty statutes in the various states; the Census Bureau sends a separate questionnaire to state justice departments, including questions on any actions by state supreme courts, the minimum age at which persons can be sentenced to death, and the methods of execution authorized by state law.
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Between 1993 and 2005, BJS collected these data in-house, but it contracted with the Census Bureau as data collection from 1980 to 1992 and from 2006 to the present. The probation and parole surveys are establishment surveys, intended to be filled by agency authorities through reference to administrative records.
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The personal interview with sampled probationers included detailed questions on drug and alcohol use, criminal history, and the extent of their contact with their supervising probation authorities. Save for a legislative mandate under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 to query a sample of the probation and parolee population about the incidence of sexual violence during imprisonment, the 1995 survey is BJS's only personal-interview measurement of community corrections to date.
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was struck by the difficulty in studying "law enforcement" as a unified entity, where policy changes made on high directly affect the public experience at the street level: 8 Tenprisoners in the 1994 sample had more than 99 arrest cycles, and one had 176 different arrests on record. In these cases, the earliest arrests were dropped to fit the 99-maximum limit of the database (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002:7)
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Though BJS has framed collections related to specialpurpose agencies such as campus law enforcement departments or medical examiners offices, the data content is administrative in focus, describing workforce levels, available resources, and general workload. Like the NCVS, BJS's law enforcement data collections share some substantive overlap with components of the FBI's UCR program; the law enforcement aspects of the UCR are summarized in Box 4-4.
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108 Table 3-6 Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Collection History and Schedule, Law Enforcement, 1981–2009 Series 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 Total Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) Survey · · · · · · • · · • · · • · · · • · • • · · • · · · • · · 8 Community Oriented Policing Supplement · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · • · · · • · · · · · · 3 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies · · · · · • · · · · · • · · · • · · · • · · · • · · · • · 6 Special Agency and Service Agency Censuses Federal Law Enforcement Agency Census · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · • · • · • · • · • · • · • · 8 Campus Law Enforcement Survey · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · • · · · · · 2 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · • · · · 2 Census of Medical Examiner and Coroner Offices · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · 1 Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Labs · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · • · · · · 2 National Survey of DNA Laboratories · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · • · · · · · · · · 2 Survey of Law Enforcement Gang Units · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · 1 State Police Traffic Stop Survey · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · • · · • · · · · · 3 Traffic Stop Statistics · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · • · · · 2 NOTES: •, data collected.
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As the figures suggest, the LEMAS instrument is an establishment survey that is intended to be filled out with relatively little need to refer to available records; questions are generally multiple choice. Under the current LEMAS framework, agencies with 100 or more sworn officers as of the most recent Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (see next section)
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110 JUSTICE STATISTICS Figure 3-3 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics questionnaire, 2003, p.
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OVERVIEW OF BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS DATA SERIES 111 Figure 3-4 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics questionnaire, 2003, p.
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The CSLLEA is sometimes known, and is archived in the NACJD, as the Directory of Law Enforcement Agencies (or the Directory Survey) for its comprehensive focus, providing data on all state and local law enforcement agencies.
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, this typically has not been done; in reference to these data collections, the "survey" label is used when a "census" label might be more appropriate. Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies The original 1995 Survey of Campus Law Enforcement Agencies was motivated by concern over the coverage of college police departments in the CSLLEA and LEMAS.
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114 JUSTICE STATISTICS Figure 3-5 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies questionnaire, p.
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OVERVIEW OF BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS DATA SERIES 115 Figure 3-6 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies questionnaire, p.
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In 2002 and 2005, BJS set out to conduct a fuller Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, including those that may not perform DNA testing. In addition to information on the range of services provided by the laboratories, a major focus of the censuses was on workload and backlog
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. The report summarizing the collection notes only that the list of agencies "was compiled from a variety of sources, including professional associations, State law enforcement training organizations, and existing law enforcement data collections" (Hickman, 2005b:21)
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The Census of Law Enforcement Aviation Units follows up on findings from the 2003 LEMAS survey that about 250 service units provide helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft service for state and local law enforcement agencies. BJS also filed a request to obtain clearance from OMB to conduct the Survey of Law Enforcement Gang Units.
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egy that it would later use -- albeit on a much larger scale -- when organizing data collections to respond to the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (see Section 5–A.1)
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and a single intermediate court of appeals, this is not a universal rule: as of 2007, 11 states have no intermediate court of appeals, so that appeals from district and other trial courts are appealed directly to the state supreme court.12 Likewise, some states have two courts of last resort, one for civil and one for criminal cases. In addition to appellate structure, individual state court systems also vary in the degree to which specific legal matters are distributed to specialjurisdiction courts, such as family courts, juvenile courts, and probate courts.
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in discontinuing the data series in the early 1940s. Likewise, the FBI UCR program asked police departments to submit information about judicial disposition of arrests beginning in 1955, but the practice was abandoned after 1977 (Cahalan, 1986:5)
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, which the Census Bureau then keys, codes, and formats. "State courts were the source of NJRP data for about 44% of the 300 counties sampled [in 2004]
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OVERVIEW OF BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS DATA SERIES SOURCE: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
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Results from the Court Statistics Project are posted and maintained on the NCSC website; the URL http://www.courtstatistics.org redirects browsers to the specific site. The core reports from the Court Statistics Project are the annual Examining the Work of State Courts (LaFountain et al., 2007)
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3–D.2 State Court Processing Statistics Originally developed in 1982 and known, through 1994, as the National Pretrial Reporting program, the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) program provides data on the criminal justice processing of felony defendants in a sample of large counties.
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, nor why May is the targeted month. The sampling scheme designed by the Census Bureau calls for 40 counties to be chosen from the 75 in the first stage, 10 with certainty ("because of their large number of court filings")
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Most recently, BJS has used the NORC to collect NPS data. In 2005, the NPS sample was drawn from a frame of 2,400 prosecutorial districts handling felony cases that was assembled by the Census Bureau.
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BJS's supporting statement in requesting clearance for the 2007/2008 version of the NPS (see Box 5-4; ICR 200704-1121-004) reflects the confused nature of the collection; though generally maintaining the "National Survey of Prosecutors" nomenclature, it also refers to conducting this version as a "National Census of Prosecutors" or "National Census of State Court Prosecutors." The need -- or even potential use -- for this collection to support more detailed, targeted surveys in subsequent years is not mentioned in BJS's argument.
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BJS's data collection programs range widely in their scope and universe size -- from the sprawling and nationally representative NCVS to the subset of law enforcement agencies that operate dedicated gang units -- and so vary in their level of expense. They vary in methodology from hand-coding of paper court dockets to online questionnaire completion by facility administrators.
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130 Table 3-8 Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Collection History and Schedule, Criminal History Improvement and Miscellaneous Studies, 1981–2009 Series 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 Total Criminal Justice Agency Survey • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • · · · · · · · · · 20 Domestic Violence Processing · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · 1 Domestic Violence Recidivism · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · 1 Expenditure and Employment Statistics • · · · • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 26 Firearm Inquiry Statistics · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • • • • • • • • • 11 Inventory of Correctional Information Systems · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · · · · 1 Justice Assistance Data Survey · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · · · 2 National Study on Campus Sexual Assault · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · · · · · · · · · · · 1 Offender-Based Transaction Statistics · · • • • • • • • • · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · 8 Survey of Cybercrime on Businesses · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • · · • · · · 2 Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems · · · · · · • · • · • · • · • · • · • · • · • · · • · · · 10 Survey of State Procedures on Firearm Sales · · · · · · · · · · · · · · • • • • • • • • • • • · · · · 11 NOTES: •, data collected. ·, data not collected.
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[The report referenced is James and Glaze (2006) and uses data from the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004, and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, 2002.]
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Examples of proposed new inquiries in bills introduced in the 110th Congress include H.R. 259, which would create "a task force within the Bureau of Justice Statistics to gather information about, study, and report to the Congress regarding, incidents of abandonment of infant children." This would involve "collecting information from State and local law enforcement agencies and child welfare agencies regarding incidents of abandonment of an infant child by a parent of that child," including "the demographics of such children and such parents" and "the factors that influence the decision of such parents to abandon such children." Similarly, H.R.
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• BJS's work in law enforcement is hindered by a sharp and overly re strictive focus on management and administrative issues; its analysis of law enforcement generally lacks direct connection to data on crime, much less providing the basis for assessing the quality and effectiveness of police programs. It is also in the area of law enforcement, with the proliferation of numerous special-agency censuses and little semblance of a fixed schedule or interconnectedness of series, where the need for refining the conceptual framework for multiple data collections is most evident.
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BJS develops and maintains a large set of data series that describe the basic features of the sequence of events in the criminal justice system. These data series cover various dimensions of law enforcement, prosecution and pretrial services, adjudication, sentencing and sanctions, corrections, and recidivism.
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Emphasize Flows in Current BJS Series Within its existing data series, BJS could make strides to provide some empirical insight on gross flows in the system through improvements we suggest elsewhere in this report. BJS could more effectively use its surveys, particularly the NCVS, to examine points of contact throughout the justice system; the PPCS is a useful model in this regard by examining public interaction with law enforcement, but targeted modules could also query about experiences with adjudication or correctional systems.
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The Urban Institute's FJSRC staff receive regular extracts from the case management systems of participating federal agencies, corresponding to different stages of the criminal justice process: • Arrest -- The U.S. Marshals Service Prisoner Tracking System includes arrests made by all federal law enforcement agencies (e.g., Customs and Border Protection, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Marshals Service itself)
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An ideal set of correctional data series should yield high-quality stock information -- specifically, yearly counts of the jail, parole, and prison population for each state, for detailed demographic groups. Recommendation 3.1: BJS's goal in providing statistics from ba sic administrative data on corrections should be the development of a yearly count of correctional populations capable of disag gregation and cross-tabulation by state, offense categories, and demographic groups (age, race, gender, education)
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that approximates the linkage between the FBI's ORI "geography" (law enforcement agency jurisdictions, used in UCR and National Incident-Based Reporting System data) and standard geographic boundaries; this file facilitates linkage of LEMAS, UCR, Census Bureau, and other data.
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From page 139... ...
Greater use of the Census Bureau's dedicated research centers may be useful in this regard, but the cumbersomeness of the Census Bureau's access process is discouraging to potential users; new approaches to these issues should be pursued. Recommendation 3.3: BJS should explore the possibilities of increasing the utility of their correctional data collections by fa cilitating the linkage of records across the data series.
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From page 140... ...
An add-on to the NCVS could serve as the starting point for a concerted effort to follow a sample of individuals (even if they move from an NCVS-sample household) over time for a pure analysis of their experiences with other parts of the justice system and any subsequent victimizations; current data systems based on the justice system funnel model tend to lose focus on victims of crime after the decision to report or not report incidents to police.
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Generically, we characterize these problems as lack of conceptual frameworks across the full suite of data series, within broad topic areas, and even within highly related series. Develop a Blueprint of Existing Data Collections BJS's mapping of its data series to the justice system funnel (Figure 2-2)
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From page 142... ...
Specifically, the plan does not explain: • The unique design features of specific data collections, their method ology (even in capsule form, such as personal interview, facility inter view, or reference to facility or administrative records) , or their capac ity to describe actions at multiple stages of justice system processing; • Goals for key activities and programs; • Priorities across the programs, including the identification of coverage gaps or the development of specific data resources to fill them; • Milestones for key programs, such as the implementation of census updated samples in the NCVS or developments in securing corrections data from frequently nonresponding jurisdictions; or • Evaluative criteria for "success" of individual data series and topic-area groups of data series (separate from evaluative criteria for the agency as a whole)
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From page 143... ...
Moreover, we think that a concerted effort to refine a relatively small core set of questions and build support for regularly scheduled supplements would benefit other BJS surveys besides the NCVS. Based on BJS's presentations to the panel, it is clear that BJS is giving the collection of law enforcement–related data a higher priority in its portfolio.
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Instead, the primary weakness of the special-agency collections is that the appearance of myriad, not-obviouslyconnected data series contributes to a perception that BJS is distracted and trying to do too much at the same time. Moreover, the special-agency inventories appear to serve two basic objectives -- a genuine collection of information on policies, procedures, and resources of highly specialized agencies and a "frame-building" function to update and maintain an inventory of law enforcement–related offices -- neither of which is fully articulated.
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From page 145... ...
Recommendation 3.10: To improve the utility of censuses of law enforcement agencies, BJS should develop an integrated concep tual plan for their periodicity, publish a 5-year schedule of their publication, and integrate their measurement into the LEMAS as supplements. The adoption of a core-supplement strategy for LEMAS is consonant with a recommendation by a predecessor National Research Council panel, the Committee to Review Research on Police Policy and Practices, which recommended that BJS implement "an enhanced, yearly version" of the current LEMAS survey (National Research Council, 2004a:107)
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From page 146... ...
Law enforcement statistics within BJS have been largely defined by the specific LEMAS data collection vehicle, and not a substantive definition of the activities and actors that constitute law enforcement. It would benefit BJS and the consumers of their data if law enforcement were defined substantively and all available data collections were used to illuminate this area of the criminal justice system.
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From page 147... ...
For example, the report of the most recent campus law enforcement census (Reaves, 2008) reveals the universities with the largest number of sworn officers and the degree of implementation of blue-light emergency phones and in-field computers, but it makes no attempt to assess the relationship between agency staffing levels and either the number of reported crimes or service calls.
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From page 148... ...
summary of a series of focus groups organized by the Illinois and Pennsylvania state Statistical Analysis Centers identified four principal and perennial obstacles to "buy-in" by law enforcement agencies to wider data collection efforts: • Inadequate resources for departments to assemble responses and com ply with multiple data collections; • Increased demands on time; • Fear of negative publicity, particularly if new data are not strictly com parable to old data; and • Continual changes in direction in collection and use of data, and pro liferation of data collection requests to address the "next high visibility problem." Cognizant of these constraints, we suggest the creation of a major, new law enforcement–related data set -- but one that draws from existing resources -- in Section 4–C.4. Short of dramatically expanded collection directly from law enforcement and increasing the number of survey questionnaires that departments are expected to complete, there is much that BJS can do to expand its data on policing issues.
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From page 149... ...
Using the NCVS to study law enforcement is decidedly not a novel concept; indeed, the original statutory authority to start the National Crime Survey in the first place was a clause approving the collection of data on "the condition and progress of law enforcement" in the United States. Generally, Lynch (2002:62–63)
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From page 150... ...
Recommendation 3.11: The NCVS (and its supplements) should be more effectively used as a tool for studying law enforcement, both in terms of the types of crime that are reported (and not reported)
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From page 151... ...
In our assessment, BJS currently has good access to state court systems through its collaboration with NCSC and other data providers, as well as through contacts through the BJS-funded state Statistical Analysis Centers. Improvements in the adjudication series depend on cultivating and extending those partnerships.
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From page 152... ...
SCPS documentation does not indicate the use of audits or spot checks for completeness and accuracy of provided records, and such information is important to building the credibility of data series. 3–F.3 Improving Statistical Coverage of the Justice System We have already noted in Section 2–C certain missing topics in BJS's statistical coverage of events in the justice system, and our comments on building a framework for BJS's law enforcement collections in Section 3–F.2 also point out areas in which the topic coverage of the agency's existing surveys can be improved by adding supplements.
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From page 153... ...
The Surveys of Inmates of State and Federal Correctional Facilities have been used to construct detailed incarceration rates by age, race, sex, and levels of schooling (Western, 2006)
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From page 154... ...
These special studies of recidivism yielded several widely cited BJS reports. The recidivism microdata were also made publicly available, and have been widely studied by researchers and policy analysts (e.g.
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From page 155... ...
Included in its provisions is a section defining a role for BJS data collections; see Box 3-5. The act permits BJS to routinize its earlier recividism studies, calling for BJS to conduct them on a triennial basis.
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From page 156... ...
cited existing BJS corrections data series in arguing for the bill's merits (Congressional Record, pp.
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From page 157... ...
• Routinize the national recidivism studies: As acknowledged in the de bate on the Second Chance Act and exemplified by a direct request in the act's language, the BJS recidivism studies of 1983 and 1994 have made major contributions to understanding of postprison experiences of state prisoners and should be conducted on a more regular basis. Recidivism studies are also important by significantly expanding the empirical scope of the BJS data collections by including those who have completed sentences and are no longer under any kind of super vision at the time of their return to incarceration.
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From page 158... ...
Although jail incarceration is likely common for released prisoners and releasees might cycle in and out of jail before returning to prison, there are no national statis tics to document the pattern. Likewise, relatively little is known about the frequency with which the same individuals go in and out of the jail system -- for instance, whether frequent contacts with law enforcement and numerous short spells spent in jails or police lock-ups constitute a de facto form of community supervision.
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From page 159... ...
Though prisoners and other institu tionalized populations were counted in the 2000 decennial census and are included in the group quarters component of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, nothing is known of the geographic ar eas from which they originate or much about their lives immediately before institutionalization. By trying to capture the flow of people into and out of prison, and their return, the reentry and recidivism perspective highlights the significant influence of the prison on basic population processes.
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From page 160... ...
A unified system of identifiers for a range of databases -- say, all BJS correctional microdata collections -- would unlock the potential of record linkage. The practical challenges to a unified system are substantial but we urge BJS to explore concrete steps in this direction.
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From page 161... ...
Since the nation has a state and federal justice system, statistical systems describing the prosecutorial function would address both levels. Currently BJS describes the state-level prosecution function with two different but related data collections -- SCPS and NPS -- which we summarized in Section 3–D; federal prosecution is described by the Federal Justice Statistics Program.
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From page 162... ...
• The Federal Justice Statistics Program operated by the Urban Institute with BJS sponsorship links administrative records across decision point in the federal justice system. It does provide the "flow" data that the "funnel" promises, and it does cover more of the decisions made by prosecutors than the SCPS series (including the declination decision)
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From page 163... ...
This is particularly the case if methods to work with electronic submissions from court and prosecutor databases continue to develop. As a short-term measure -- and consonant with our advice to expand the concept of "law enforcement" data beyond the strict management focus of LEMAS (Section 3–F.2)
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Key Terms
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