CJRP letter

Section 5.

Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement Form

(CJ-14), cover letter

Alert Letter (sent 4 weeks prior to mailout of forms)

September ##, 200X

Dear Facility Administrator:

This letter is to request your participation in the upcoming 2007 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP), a continuing data collection effort being undertaken by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The CJRP asks for information on persons housed in your facility or in facilities owned or operated by your agency.

The CJRP provides a broad range of information on the youth in residential facilities. OJJDP uses this information to track important characteristics of these youth including age distributions, lengths of stay in facilities and the proportions of minority youth. Your participation is essential to assure accurate and complete information on these young persons.

The U.S. Census Bureau will perform data collection operations for OJJDP. The reference date will be Wednesday, October xx, 2007. You should receive reporting materials for this census approximately two weeks before that date. Please review them so that you can answer the questions on or shortly after October xx. If you have any questions or if you do not receive the CJRP materials, please call Regina Yates or Art Ciampa of the U.S. Census Bureau on 1-800-352-7229.

I trust we can count on your support as we have in the past. I want to thank you in advance for your time and effort in this endeavor.

Sincerely,

TBD

Administrator

Actual Cover Letter (Accompanies the CJRP Form)

October X, 200X

Dear Facility Administrator:

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is again sponsoring the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP). The U.S. Census Bureau is the data collection agent and we request your cooperation in completing and returning your census information to the U.S. Census Bureau.

While you are not legally required to respond to this census, we rely on your cooperation to present a clear picture of the state of juvenile justice placement in this country. The confidentiality of the information you provide on this questionnaire is guaranteed by Title 42, Section 3789 of the United States Code and will only be revealed or used for research purposes. (See page 2 of this letter for more details). Your participation is entirely voluntary and you may decline participation at any time. Since CJRP was first conducted in 1997, we have achieved close to a 100 percent response rate. Without your participation we will have a less than complete picture of young offenders in residential placement. Your response is important to the success of this effort.

The reference date for this survey is October 24, 2007. Please complete the 2007 CJRP on or shortly after that day and mail or fax the completed form by November 28, 2007. Alternatively, you may report your data to the Census Bureau electronically, via a secure, password protected website (http://harvester.census.gov/cjrp). The enclosed flyer provides information on accessing the downloadable Excel spreadsheet and submitting your data electronically. On the reverse side of this letter is a statement regarding confidentiality protections and an estimate of the time it will take to complete the census.

I trust that we can count on your support as we have in the past. If you have any questions, please call Regina Yates or Art Ciampa of the U.S. Census Bureau at the toll free number,

1-800-352-7229.

Thank you for your time and efforts in this important data collection effort.

Sincerely,

TBD

Administrator

Attachments

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2002, 42 U.S.C. § 5661 provides the authority for conducting this data collection. While you are not legally required to respond to this census, we rely on your cooperation to present a clear picture of the state of juvenile justice placement in this country. The confidentiality of the information you provide on this questionnaire is guaranteed by Title 42, Section 3789 of the United States code. This law requires both the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Census Bureau to hold strictly confidential any information that could identify individual youth, employees, or private facilities. The penalty for anyone violating this confidentiality is $11,000. While public facilities are not subject to this statuary protection, OJJDP’s policy is that the information collected for the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP) will only be used or revealed for research or statistical purposes, and it will take appropriate measures to protect the confidentiality of public facilities. The identities of youth residing in public facilities are protected. Your compliance with the request for information is entirely voluntary. If you would like more information concerning this authorization or the confidentiality guarantee, please write to Janet Chiancone at the address below.

Under the Federal Paperwork Reduction Act, a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. We try to create forms and instructions that are accurate, can be easily understood, and which impose the least possible burden on you to provide us with information. We estimate that it will take between 45 to 480 minutes to complete this questionnaire with 180 minutes being the average. The time needed to complete the form will vary depending on several factors including the number of residents, the reasons for placement in this facility, and whether the facility records are computerized. This estimate includes time for reviewing the instructions, searching for and gathering the data, completing the form, and reviewing answers. If you have comments regarding the accuracy of this estimate, or suggestions for making this form simpler, you can write to:

Janet Chiancone

Research Coordinator

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

U.S. Department of Justice

Washington, DC 20531