1110-0002_part B

1110-0002_PART B.doc

Supplementary Homicide Report

OMB: 1110-0002

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PART B. Statistical Methods

The potential respondent universe of the form Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) includes all United States (U.S.) law enforcement agencies. Out of all U.S. law enforcement agencies, 18,233 U.S. law enforcement agencies voluntarily participate in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. Out of those agencies that voluntarily participate in the FBI UCR Program, approximately 17,528 report supplementary homicide data to the FBI UCR Program. Less than five percent of participating agencies do not report any supplementary homicide data. The law enforcement agencies consist of local, county, state, tribal and federal agencies that correlate to all population group sizes and have many diverse attributes. These agencies include a mix of population density and degrees of urbanization; various compositions of population particularly youth concentration; population mobility with respect to residents’ mobility, commuting patterns, and transient factors; different economic conditions including median income, poverty level, and job availability; areas with different modes of transportation and highway systems; different cultural factors and educational, recreational, and religious characteristics; family conditions with respect to divorce and family cohesiveness; climate; effective strength of law enforcement; policies of other components of the criminal justice system; citizens’ attitudes toward crime; and crime reporting practices of the citizenry. See chart below of participating agencies.

	Population Group	Number of Agencies	Population Covered
Cities	Group I (250,000 inhabitants and more)	75	56,398,148
	Group II (100,000 to 249,999 inhabitants)	209	31,323,512
	Group III (50,000 to 99,999 inhabitants)	473	32,816,692
	Group IV (25,000 to 49,999 inhabitants)	888	30,762,527
	Group V (10,000 to 24,999 inhabitants)	1,929	30,586,844
	Group VI (Less than 10,000 inhabitants)^1,2	9,499	26,669,678
Counties	Group VIII (Nonmetropolitan County)²	3,049	30,821,138
Counties	Group IX (Metropolitan County)²	2,111	72,213,378
	Total	18,233	311,591,917

¹ Includes universities and colleges to which no population is attributed.

² Includes state police to which no population is attributed.

Out of the 18,233 agencies that voluntarily report data to the FBI UCR Program approximately 705 agencies do not submit supplementary homicide reports to the FBI UCR Program. These agencies are nonresponsive due to being understaffed, underfunded, or are implementing a new data record system. Even though these agencies are nonreporters they are considered participants of the Program and will submit data when the problems have been resolved. Based on historical reporting trends, similar response rates are expected in future supplementary homicide collections. The FBI UCR Program actively liaisons with national law enforcement agencies to encourage participation in all UCR data collections.

Of the 18,233 agencies 11,586 report data via the Summary Reporting System (SRS) and 6,647 report via the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The NIBRS agencies are not included in the burden estimates because the NIBRS burden hours are captured in the NIBRS Information Collection Request.

SHR data are collected/received from state UCR Program participants on a monthly basis. The FBI UCR Program has established various time frames and deadlines for acquiring the monthly data. Monthly reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by the seventh day after the close of each month. Annual deadlines are also designated in order to collect/assess receipt of monthly submissions. There are times when special

circumstances may cause an agency to request an extension. The FBI UCR Program has the authority to grant these extensions. Although the law enforcement community requested that the forms be collected on a monthly basis since police records are run on a calendar month, the FBI UCR Program has agencies that submit data quarterly, twice a year, and even once a year. Upon approval, agencies can submit their data at intervals that minimizes the burdens to the agency.

Law enforcement agencies submit SHR data to the FBI UCR Program through either the SRS or the NIBRS. The SRS is referred to as the “traditional” FBI UCR Program because it began in 1930, and has had few modifications through the years. The NIBRS is used by participating law enforcement agencies to report offenses and relevant details by incident, using up to 58 data elements to collect details about offenses, offenders, victims, property, and arrestees reported to police. Developed in the late 1980’s, the NIBRS was designed as an automated system to modernize UCR, and includes automated checks to ensure data quality.

As the UCR SHR data collection is intended to collect all reported supplementary homicide incident data from law enforcement agencies in the U.S., sampling methodologies are not used. The FBI UCR Program does not estimate SHR data. The FBI UCR Program does not have imputation procedures defined for supplementary homicide data. With the UCR Redevelopment Project (UCRRP) and the collaboration with OMB and the Bureau of Justice Statistics the FBI UCR Program is working on defining an estimation method that will be used with all of UCR data collections. Please see attached the Estimation Procedure.

Response rates are maximized through liaison with State UCR Programs. Communications encouraging data submissions occur frequently because of the relationship between FBI UCR staff and law enforcement agencies. FBI UCR staff has a strong understanding of contextual challenges agencies face in reporting valid and reliable data and regularly work to overcome nonresponse issues when such challenges occur. The mission of the FBI UCR Program is to acquire SHR data, establish guidelines for the collection of such data, and publish SHR data.

The FBI UCR Program actively liaisons with the State UCR Programs and the national law enforcement agencies to encourage participation in the arrest data collection. To encourage the submission of data, a listing of missing reports are sent to the State UCR Programs and individual law enforcement agencies twice a year and then follow up contact is also made to those agencies to further encourage the submission of missing data. The FBI UCR Program assists agencies in submitting 12 months of complete data through continuous communication. Training also encourages participation in the FBI UCR Program. The FBI has trainers who provide on-site training for any law enforcement agency that participates in the FBI UCR Program. The trainers furnish introductory, intermediate, or advanced courses in data collection procedures and guidelines. In addition, the trainers are available by telephone or e-mail to provide law enforcement agencies with answers to specific questions. Providing vital links between local law enforcement and the FBI in the conduct of the UCR Program are the Criminal Justice Information Systems Committees of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA). The IACP, as it has since the Program began, represents the thousands of police departments nationwide. The NSA encourages sheriffs throughout the country to participate fully in the Program. Both committees serve in advisory capacities concerning the UCR Program’s operation. The Association of State Uniform Crime Reporting Programs (ASUCRP) focuses on UCR issues within individual state law enforcement associations and also promotes interest in the FBI UCR Program. These organizations foster widespread and responsible use of uniform crime statistics and lend assistance to data contributors when needed.

Currently, 96 percent of the FBI UCR Program agencies report supplementary homicide data to the FBI. The FBI is working to help the absent four percent of law enforcement agencies to participate in the SHR data collection with the FBI CJIS Division’s UCRRP to manage the acquisition, development, and integration of a new information systems solution which affects UCR participating local, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies. The UCRRP's goal is to improve UCR efficiency, usability, and maintainability while increasing the value to users of UCR products. The UCRRP will reduce, to the point of elimination, the exchange of printed materials between submitting agencies and the FBI and replace those with electronic submissions. The FBI UCR Program has begun the process of eliminating the exchange of paper for crime reporting purposes. In July 2013, the FBI UCR Program began moving submitting agencies away from paper submissions. After a period of transition, the expectation is to have all data interfaces electronically managed, with a goal of minimal paper burden on the public. The UCRRP has developed five options for paperless submissions, they are: Extensible Markup Language, Flat File Formats, Online Data Entry, a data extraction from the National Data Exchange Program, and an FBI provided Excel Workbook and Tally Book.

Although the FBI makes an effort through its editing procedures, training practices, and correspondence to ensure the validity of the data it receives, the accuracy of the statistics depends primarily on the adherence of each contributor to the established standards of reporting. The FBI relies on the integrity of contributors reporting data; however, Quality Assurance Reviews are conducted by the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Audit Unit on a triennial basis. The results of the audits are not used to adjust crime data, but are used to educate reporting agencies on compliance with national UCR guidelines.

The FBI has conducted the SHR information collection since 1940 with high rates of response and has specific plans to further improve participation; proposed initiatives are described in Part B #3. During implementation of the SHR information collection extensive research regarding murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, justifiable homicide, and manslaughter by negligence were conducted by members of the Crime Records Section staff and special agents in the field, with the assistance of the Division of Statistical Standards, Bureau of the Budget. Liaison with members of law enforcement, IACP, NSA, and the CJIS Advisory Policy Board (APB) had been effective in the effort to collect SHR data and to design a collection form which would provide meaningful information to all those concerned. No comments or suggestions of problems with the form had been reported through the CJIS APB Working Groups, UCR Subcommittee, CJIS APB, or the ASUCRP which meet frequently throughout each year and are dedicated to improving the collection, use, and utility of crime data as reported through the FBI UCR Program and all state and local crime reporting programs.