1110-0002_Supporting Statement A

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

1110-0002

Supplementary Homicide Report

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program requests a 3-year extension of this currently approved collection.

1. Justification

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under the authority of Title 28, U.S. Code, Section 534, Acquisition, Preservation and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials, June 11, 1930, the FBI was designated by the Attorney General to acquire, collect, classify, and preserve national homicide data from local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the country as part of the UCR Program in order to generate reliable information.

Form 1-704, Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) provides the national UCR Program with a record of each homicide incident including details regarding the victim, offender, and relationship status; the weapon used, and the circumstances in which each criminal homicide, justifiable homicide, and manslaughter by negligence is committed.

This information collection is a necessity in order for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of homicide data and to ensure the publication in Crime in the United States (CIUS).

2. Needs and Uses

The Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook and SHR Flat File Data Specification are needed to provide law enforcement agencies (LEAs) a mechanism to report additional information regarding criminal homicide, justifiable homicide and manslaughter by negligence offenses. Homicide data serve as a valuable resource to city, county, state, tribal, and federal LEAs. The information contained within SHR provide law enforcement with data for use in budget formulation, planning resource allocation, assessment of police operations, etc., to help address the crime problem at various levels. Chambers of commerce and tourism agencies examine these data to determine the impact of the crimes within a particular geographic jurisdiction. Criminal justice researchers study the nature, cause, and movement of crime over time. The news media use crime statistics provided by FBI UCR Program to inform the public about the state of crime. Dissemination of the homicide data are provided in the annual publication of CIUS or when requested. These homicide data are invaluable for use in research and statistical analysis. Examples of agencies’ uses are:

1. The FBI serves as the national clearinghouse for storage of all homicide statistics; therefore, the data is available upon request to any requester. In 2015, the FBI UCR Program received 131 requests for SHR data which resulted in 599 SHR files being disseminated to requestors.

2. Law enforcement uses UCR data for administration, operation, management, and to determine effectiveness and placement of task forces.

3. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, utilizes the FBI UCR Program’s violent crime data, which includes homicide, in awarding local law enforcement formula grants.

4. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, uses FBI UCR Program’s homicide data to compile and publish ten years of homicide trends in the United States.

5. Annual FBI UCR Program data are provided to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). This central repository serves as a single facility from which colleges/universities can obtain social science data. ICPSR website currently stores thirty-nine years of FBI UCR Program’s SHR data. This file is an aggregation of SHR data from 1976-2015 and provides detailed information on criminal homicides reported to police. These homicides consist of murders; non-negligent manslaughter; and justifiable homicides.

6. National Center for Juvenile Justice obtains yearly FBI UCR Program SHR data files to incorporate in the agency’s database.

7. In the near future, FBI UCR Program’s Crime Data Explorer web application will provide nationwide SHR crime data available to users around the country.

3. Use of Information Technology

All FBI UCR Program participants submit their crime data electronically. FBI provides three different electronic options for state UCR program and individual LEA participants to submit SHR data: Extensible Markup Language (XML), Flat File Data specification and the FBI–provided Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook.

XML interface specification complies with the National Information Exchange Model (NEIM) and Logical Entity Exchange Specifications (LEXS), which are both data standards for information exchange used by law enforcement. The Flat File Data Specification is submitted as a standard American Standard Code for Information Interchange text file. Finally, the FBI–provided Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook allows agencies to submit data via an Excel Workbook that is translated into a standard format for processing of data into the UCR Technical Refresh System. These electronic submissions are currently received from state UCR programs and individual LEAs via e-mail at <ucrstat@leo.gov>.

UCR Program crime data collection begins at the local agency level when law enforcement officers submit administrative and operational data to their record management personnel from hardcopy or electronic incident reports. The local agency record managers then compile the crime data and submit it to their state UCR programs. Many state UCR programs have a centralized repository and have established electronic communications with LEAs throughout their state, as well as the national UCR Program. This link allows for information technology interaction within the required electronic data submission formats.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This information collection was authorized in direct response to the enactment of Title 28, U.S. Code, Section 534, Acquisition, and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials, June 11, 1930. Only the FBI collects extensive homicide data in the United States.

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Entities

This information will have no significant impact on small businesses. The law enforcement community requested the forms be collected on a monthly basis since police records are run on a calendar month, however, the FBI minimizes burden on small LEAs by allowing them to submit quarterly, twice a year, or once a year. Although monthly is recommended, upon approval by FBI UCR Program, agencies can submit data at intervals that minimize their burden.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or Less Frequent Collection

In order to serve as the national repository for crime reporting and to produce a reliable dataset, the FBI collects monthly statistics which are reported by participating FBI UCR Program contributors. Although monthly reports are preferred, FBI UCR Program has agencies submitting data quarterly, twice a year, and even once a year. Upon approval by the FBI UCR Program, agencies can submit data at intervals that minimize their burden.

SHR provides age, sex, race, and ethnicity of the victim and offender; type of weapon used; relationship status of the victim to the offender; and circumstance information about the incident for all murder and non-negligent manslaughter, justifiable homicide and negligent manslaughter offenses. As the FBI is the only agency collecting this data, users would lose the ability to analyze this supplemental data if this information was not collected.

LEAs use FBI UCR Program data to track crime, task force placement, staffing levels and officer placement. The FBI UCR Program’s data are used for administration, operation, management, and to determine effectiveness of task forces. Agencies will justify staffing levels and officer counts compared to other LEAs in order to receive additional staffing levels or equipment. Some agencies use other agencies’ crime statistics and staffing levels to justify their own crime statistics and staffing levels in order to obtain funding.

7. Special Circumstances

While some agencies have permission to submit data on a quarterly, biannual, or annual basis, most data are collected/received from FBI UCR Program participants on a monthly basis. Monthly reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by the seventh day of each month. Annual deadlines are designated in order to collect/assess receipt of monthly submissions. There are times when special circumstances may cause an agency to request an extension. FBI’s UCR Program has the authority to grant these extensions. Participation in the national UCR Program is voluntary.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

The Federal Registry 60 and 30 day notices have been submitted and published with no public comments received.

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

The FBI’s UCR Program does not provide any payment of gift to respondents.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

FBI UCR Program does not assure confidentiality. However, this information collection does not contain personally identifiable information which may reveal the identity of an individual. The data is obtained from public agencies and are, therefore, in the public domain.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

This information collection does not seek information of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent’s Burden

The estimated hour burden on the respondent for this data collection is as follows:

Number of respondents: 1,581 Summary Reporting System (SRS) respondents

Number of non-respondents: 341

Total annual responses: 18,846

Minutes per response: 9

Annual hour burden: 2,827 hours

State Program and Local LEA Outreach:

Number of respondents: 100

Frequency of responses: Varies

Minutes per response: 180

Annual hour burden: 300 hours

Total Annual Burden: 3,127 hours

	SRS
Number of months submitted	Number of Agencies	Number of Responses	9 Minute Burden	Totals
1 month
2 months	1	2	18
3 months	2	6	54
4 months	1	4	36
5 months	2	10	90
6 months	3	18	162
7 months	1	7	63
8 months	4	32	288
9 months	3	27	243
10 months	5	50	450
11 months	18	198	1,782
12 months	1,541	18,492	166,428
Non-responsive				341
Total Agencies	1,581
Annual Responses		18,846
Form Completion Hr Burden			169,614 minutes	2,827 hours

FBI UCR Program frequently has operational and administrative questions for the state program managers and local LEAs, such as the timeliness initiative. In order for the FBI to conduct this outreach with a larger universe of contributors, FBI UCR Program is including an additional 300 annual burden hours to this information collection request.

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

There are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in FBI UCR Program other than their time to respond. With the renewal of this collection, respondents are not expected to incur any capital, start-up, or system maintenance costs associated with this information collection. Costs to agency Records Management Systems are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs because they charge differently from agency to agency and many costs are built into the vendors contracts. Depending on the contract, changes mandated by law may be included with no other additional costs. However, an estimate has been projected that agencies pay a $107,000 maintenance fee every year for system maintenance costs.

14. Cost to Federal Government

The following is a cost model provided by the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, Resource Management Section, Fee Programs Unit, for the entire FBI UCR Program. These are projections based upon prior collection activity, as well as activities anticipated over the next three years for the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and SRS. This cost model does not separate the costs between the two methods of collecting UCR data.

Data Collection and Processing Costs

Administrative $ 51,366.58

Application for Resources Support $ 33,313.62

Assessments/Analysis – External Customers $ 50,520.46

Budget Activities, Strategic Planning & Program

Control $ 245,155.22

Communication/Reporting $ 132,441.55

Curriculum Design – External Customers $ 98,745.93

Customer Service Group $ 8,610.83

Customer Service Support $ 52,773.95

Data Entry $ 18,476.56

Development, Test, and Integration $ 279,530.52

Editing $ 285,589.82

Human Resource Management $ 172,388.58

Liaison, Correspondence, Data Requests $ 694,243.64

Life Cycle Records Management $ 23,322.74

Manage Congressional Correspondence $ 15,548.49

Manage Freedom of Information Act Requests $ 15,548.49

Marketing $ 23,214.69

Operational Assistance $ 60,685.07

Operations Research and Analysis $ 4,589.31

Perform Strategic Planning $ 28,704.05

Perform Unit Budget Activities $ 13,667.22

Policy, Development, and Program Planning $ 290,486.20

Project and Program Management $ 213,406.96

Provide Technical, Statistical, Mathematical Assistance/

Training $ 3,511.71

Provide Training Instruction – External Customers $ 223,899.58

Request for Information $ 8,748.18

Research and Analysis $ 224,431.85

SENTINEL Management $ 23,322.74

Software Maintenance $ 37,137.98

Source Selection Support $ 6,833.61

Special Interest Research $ 1,529.77

Special Studies Using UCR Data $ 279,492.14

Training/Leadership Development $ 4,680.04

UCR Automation/Development $ 222,424.57

UCR Data Analysis $ 697,374.36

UCR Data Collection $ 235.854.05

UCR Publications/Reports $ 424,671.11

Writing Services/Support $ 206,237.60

Total Cost to Federal Government $ 5,412.479.77

15. Reason for Change in Burden

There will be an increase in burden for the individual respondents as a result of including a burden estimate for state program manager and local LEA outreach; however, the overall annual burden hours have decreased. This adjustment, from 20,855 to 17,111 is a decrease of 3,744. The decrease in burden is due to SRS agencies transitioning to NIBRS.

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to FBI UCR Program from local, county, state, tribal, and federal LEAs throughout the country. Currently, FBI UCR Program publishes data on an annual basis (see below). However, as plans for more timely submissions are established, the program may modify this schedule.

Request missing data from agencies February-March, following year

Deadline to submit data End of March

Data Processing/Analysis July (current year)-April (following year)

Publication data September, following year

17. Display of Expiration Date

FBI UCR Program will display the Expiration Date and OMB Clearance Number on the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

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