ASPP2017 Supporting Statement Part A

SUPPORTING STATEMENT A

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) seeks approval to continue its Annual Surveys of Probation and Parole (ASPP) for the 2017-2019 data collection period. The current collection approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is due to expire August 31, 2017. The ASPP provides the only national-level, regularly collected data on the community corrections populations, and, as such, these surveys provide critical data on this key stage of the criminal justice process. Since 1977, these establishment surveys have provided BJS with the capacity to report annually on changes in the size and composition of the community corrections populations in the United States. Data are collected from the known universe of probation and parole supervising agencies, using central reporters wherever possible to minimize burden on the public. BJS will continue work on expanding the known universe of supervising agencies through this collection period.

A. Justification

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under Title 42, United States Code, Section 3732, Article 302 (see Attachment 1), BJS is directed to collect and analyze statistical information concerning the operation of the criminal justice system at the federal, state and local levels. Community corrections, including probation and parole, are a large part of the justice system with over 4.7 million under supervision in 2015 constituting 1.9% of the United States population¹. In addition to annual yearend counts and yearly movements on and off supervision, data collected from the ASPP describe characteristics of the community supervision population, including sex, race/Hispanic origin, most serious offense, and supervision status. Data collected also describe the outcomes of supervision, including the rate at which probationers and parolees completed their supervision and their recidivism rates (i.e., rates of incarceration in prison or jail either for a new offense or because of violation of the conditions of their supervision.)

The size of the population under community supervision and the volume of movements onto and off of community supervision indicate the importance of the ASPP for understanding the U.S. correctional systems. Of the 6.7 million men and women under correctional supervision at yearend 2015 (includes persons in prison or jail, or on probation or parole), more than two-thirds (69 percent) or nearly 4.7 million offenders were supervised in the community probation (3,789,800) or parole (870,500). During 2015, an estimated 4 million adults moved onto or off probation, and nearly 1 million adults moved onto and off parole. Driven by a larger number of probation exits (2.04 million) over entries (1.96 million), the community supervision population declined 1.3 percent during 2015, from an estimated 4,713,200 to an estimated 4,650,900. The estimated number of parole entries (475,200) ² during 2015 exceeded the estimate of parole exits (463,700), a growth of 2.5%.

The data gathered in the ASPP are not available from any other single data source, and these collections fit within a larger BJS portfolio of establishment surveys that, together, cover the entire correctional populations in the United States (see Attachment 2). BJS’s National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) (OMB Control Number 1121-0102) series provides annual data on prison populations, while the Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ) (OMB Control Number 1121-0094) provides national data on the local jail population. The ASPP provides the community corrections data, thus completing BJS’s coverage of correctional populations. These combined surveys are the source for the statistic that 1 in 38 adults in the United States were under some form of correctional supervision at yearend 2015.³

2. Needs and Uses

Assessment of Needs and Uses

BJS actively engages the community corrections field to learn more about emerging topics and substantive issues and where data gaps exist, to seek opinions about community corrections issues from stakeholders, and to make the ASPP collections responsive to stakeholder needs. Feedback obtained from members of the field has been used to address measurement challenges, to make the presentation of data in reports more useful, and to make the data more accessible. BJS’s participation in these discussions has also allowed it to develop relationships with key officials in the field of community corrections that can assist data collection efforts

To further assess the need for the data gathered from the ASPP collections, BJS has also solicited feedback from researchers, practitioners, and policy makers about how they use the data during semi-annual association conferences, and meetings of key stakeholders convened by other federal agencies. At the biannual American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) conferences, BJS regularly convenes a small workgroup of community corrections data providers, practitioners, and researchers to discuss new issues in the probation and parole fields. BJS has also participated in meetings of the APPA’s Research Committee.

Data Users: Needs and Uses Identified

Through these interactions, stakeholders have repeatedly reinforced the point that the ASPP provides the community corrections field with important on community corrections relative to institutional corrections (prisons and jails).

Policy makers, researchers and practitioners who regularly use the ASPP data include—

National Institute of Corrections (NIC) – NIC uses ASPP data to shape and promote correctional practices and public policy; establish standards; evaluate current conditions of the prison, jail, and community corrections populations; and respond to the needs of corrections by providing assistance and educational opportunities to correctional staff and administrators. The library through NIC’s website provides data and resources using the BJS national and state-level data from ASPP. Links to the webtools and ASPP publications are available through its website (https://nicic.gov/library/package/probation).

NIC also provides a graphic of the United States with point-and-click availability to see the correctional populations for each state. All correctional population data in this tool comes from BJS, and all probation and parole data they use are from the ASPP.⁴

State governments – state community corrections agencies use ASPP to assess conditions within their own jurisdictions relative to others and to the nation overall. For example, in April 2017, a research specialist in the criminal sentencing commission of the Supreme Court of Ohio reached out to BJS for information about correctional data in Ohio and comparisons to averages in other states.

Some state-level officials rely on the historical ASPP data to track changes over time and anticipate trends in their state’s community corrections populations. The BJS data fill a gap in their information systems, as some states information systems do not retain historical population data. Therefore, tracking trends in their state’s community corrections populations is only possible through the annual ASPP data collected and reported on by BJS.

Academia and Independent Researchers – Published uses of ASPP include—

The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (ISPN 978-1-4614-5689-6) has a chapter called “History of Probation and Parole in the United States” that references the Probation and Parole in the United States series of reports that BJS publishes.

McCafferty, James, T. and Laurence, Travis F. III. (2014) History of Probation and Parole in the United States. Springer Science+Business Media, New York.

Phelps, Michelle S. 2017. "Mass Probation: Toward a More Robust Theory of State Variation in Punishment."⁵ Punishment & Society 19(1): 53–73.

Phelps, Michelle S. 2015. "The Curious Disappearance of Sociological Research on Probation Supervision." Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Annual, V. 7 (New Series V. 2): 1-30.

American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) – APPA uses ASPP to encourage public awareness of probation and parole, to pursue certification of probation and parole programs on a national basis and develop standards for probation and parole programs, to sponsor training opportunities for all levels of practitioners giving the membership and others the opportunity to keep current with practices, issues and innovations as well as continuing to develop professional skills, to provide a public information system, and to conduct research and develop activities in support of the field of community corrections. APPA’s quarterly newsletter, Community Corrections Headlines⁶, announces the release of the annual BJS report on community corrections to the field and provides a link to the report on the BJS website. APPA publishes a professional journal, Perspectives, which has cited BJS probation and parole data, in particular the size of the populations and the growth in the populations over time.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) – NCJRS uses ASPP to support research, policy and program development in the criminal justice field, and in particular community corrections, by hosting a link to the BJS community corrections web page on its “Corrections” page for “Parole and Probation” (http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Topics/Topic.aspx?topicid=17), and by including links to numerous BJS community corrections publications on their Community Corrections Resources page (https://www.ncjrs.gov/communitycorrections/statistics.html).

The PEW Foundation – The PEW Foundation’s report “Share of U.S. Adults Under Correctional Control Down 13 Percent Since 2007” (2016) uses BJS data on the total correctional population which combines ASPP data with prison and jail inmate counts to provide information on the entire correctional population.⁷ Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project cited many BJS findings and added them to their publications. Included in these are state specific analysis of community corrections programs like the 2017 article “Doing Less Time: Some States Cut Back on Probation.”⁸

Other Non-Profit Organizations – ASPP data on community corrections are often cited. Examples are:

The Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice has an entire series of parole release revocations across the 50 states, which use data from the Annual Surveys of Probation and Parole.⁹

The Vera Institute of Justice (www.vera.org) often cites BJS statistics on community corrections taken from the ASPP collection.

The Sentencing Project releases a publication each year using data from BJS and ASPP titled “The State of Sentencing YYYY: Developments in Policy and Practice”¹⁰ where they look at state-specific and overall national changes in sentencing practices.

The Public –Corrections Unit’s staff at BJS receive regular inquiries from ASKBJS, BJS’s online information request mechanism. The ASPP data are used to answer questions about trends in growth in the probation and parole populations, factors related to changes in the populations, outcomes of offenders supervised in the community and trends in the outcomes, the volume of offenders entering and exiting community supervision, the types of offenses for which people are supervised on probation or parole, and offender characteristics such as the sex and racial compositions of the community corrections populations.

The New York Times used BJS data in a 2015 piece describing the harshness of probation sentences.

Dewan, Shaila. (August 2, 2015) “Probation May Sound Light, but Punishments Can Land Hard” New York Times.¹¹

In addition the statistics forecasting website www.fivethirtyeight.com did a feature piece with The Marshall Project, where it looked at risk assessment tools that some states use for sentencing and predicting future crimes, which links directly to BJS’s Probation and Parole series¹².

3. Use of Information Technology

BJS uses a multi-mode design in which respondents are directed to a web survey through mailed and emailed instructions. The web survey is hosted by BJS’s data collection agent, RTI International.¹³ Paper forms and electronic .pdf versions will continue to be available as an alternative mode of submission for respondents who request them. Attachment 5 shows screen-shots from the 2016 study questionnaires and the page formats that web respondents will encounter as they complete the 2017 surveys.

Respondent use of the internet has grown steadily since the option was first offered in 2007. Among parole agencies, submission by web increased from 56% in 2007 to 94% in 2015. Among responding probation agencies, participation using web has increased from 19% in 2007 to 91% in 2015.¹⁴

BJS continues to work toward achieving 100 percent online data submission given the advantages of the web over the other modes, including (1) reduced costs; (2) dynamic error checking capability and the ability to incorporate complex skip patterns reducing the potential for response errors; (3) the inclusion of pop-up instructions for selected questions; and (4) the use of drop-down boxes, which are not possible for paper questionnaires.^15,16,17

3. Efforts to Identify Duplication

After reviewing other BJS surveys, federal data collections, and literature, BJS finds that the ASPP provides information that is not duplicated by other data collections.

Several collections collect complementary information to ASPP, including—

• The BJS National Prisoner Statistics Program (NPS; OMB control number 1121-0102) collects data on the number of probation and parole violators returned to prison as part of its measure of prison admission. ASPP expands on this information to measure the number of probationers and the number of parolees returned to prison or jail, including the reason for incarceration (i.e., for a new offense or a violation of the conditions of their supervision). The NPS also provides the number of prisoners released to conditional supervision, including either to probation or parole, while the ASPP provides the total number of offenders placed under community supervision, including those offenders sentenced directly from a court to community supervision not captured by NPS. The data collected from the NPS series and the ASPP collections can be used together to better understand recidivism and the types of offenders that are released to the community.

• The BJS Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI), formerly known as the Survey of Prisoners in State and Federal Correctional Facilities (OMB Control Number 1121-0152), and the BJS Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (SILJ) (OMB Control Number 1121-0098) collect data from large nationally-representative samples of prisoners and jail inmates, respectively, through personal interviews. The type of information gathered in personal interviews with prisoners and jail inmates, most of whom will exit their correctional facility onto community supervision, is not readily available from the administrative records that are the source of information for the ASPP. The inmate survey data complement the ASPP by gathering information about those who returned to incarceration following a period of time on probation and parole, as well as those close to release. The information gathered by SPI also helps to better understand the risk that inmates pose upon release into the community, and their need for community supervision.

• BJS’s National Former Prisoner Survey (NFPS;OMB Control Number 1121-0316), a 2008 one-time survey, was part of the BJS National Prison Rape Statistics Program and collected data from active parolees on sexual victimization experienced during their prior term of incarceration, including any time served in a local jail, state prison, or post-release community correctional facility.¹⁸ The NFPS collected sensitive data from adults under active post-incarceration supervision in the community. The NFPS was not a substitute for the state and national level data gathered by the Annual Parole Survey, which enables BJS to track changes in this population over time.

• The 2006 Census of State Parole Supervising Agencies (OMB Control Number 1121-0169) collected information about the organizational structure of state parole agencies, staffing, supervision levels of offenders, and whether the parole agency had a role in considering prisoners for release, setting the conditions of supervision, and conducting revocation hearings. It also provided information on the use of drug testing, various treatment programs, and the availability of housing and employment assistance programs. The Annual Parole Survey, besides being conducted each year, focuses on the number, characteristics, and flow of the individuals on post-prison supervision.

• The Census of Adult Probation Supervising Agencies (CAPSA; OMB Control Number 1121-0347), conducted in 2014, was used to develop a complete listing of adult felony probation supervising agencies in the United States and to provide national and jurisdiction-level statistics that describe adult probation and the variation across jurisdictions. CAPSA focused only on felony probation agencies.

In contrast to CAPSA, the APS collects information on the size and flow of offenders under community supervision, the characteristics of the population, and tracks key outcomes of offenders on probation. The APS does not collect information about the other agency characteristics collected by CAPSA. The APS is designed to collect aggregate counts and relies on central reporters (some of which are not supervising agencies). CAPSA enabled BJS to systematically assess the coverage of population for the Annual Probation Survey and enabled BJS to identify a number of agencies to add to the APS frame in the coming years.

• The BJS Federal Judicial Statistics Program (FJSP) collects data on all stages of the federal criminal justice system including individual-level data on federal offenders under supervision from the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services, Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC). With consent from AOUSC, federal probation and parole data collected by the FJSP are aggregated and provide the federal data for ASPP.

• The BJS National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP; OMB Control Number 1121-0065) collects offender-level administrative data annually on prison admissions and releases, yearend prison custody populations, and on parole entries and discharges in participating jurisdictions. The NCRP data do not provide a count of persons on parole at yearend and currently only obtain data from a subset of states (32 states in 2015).

• The National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH; OMB Control Number 0930-0110), sponsored by SAMHSA, is an annual household survey which conducts interviews with randomly selected individuals in the non-institutionalized population age 12 or older. The survey provides national and state level estimates of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drug, non-medical prescription drug use, and other health-related issues, including mental health. Various behavioral and physical characteristics are also collected to provide context to the estimates. NSDUH collects data on whether persons were on probation or parole in the 12 months prior to the interview. NSDUH differs from the ASPP, which provides counts of the population under supervision on a single day. BJS’s ASPP collects data on detailed probation and parole population movements and outcomes. For example, the ASPP, but not NSDUH, collects data on revocation of supervision, return to prison or jail, and completion of community supervision NSDUH also does not to collect criminal justice characteristics including offense type, maximum sentence, and supervision status.

Other data collections focus on populations outside community corrections and, along with ASPP, provide a more complete picture of the entire correctional system. These collections include—

• The BJS Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ; OMB control number 1121-0094) provides data on conviction status of local jail inmates including probation and parole violators, along with inmates who are held for a new offense. However, the number of probation and parole violators held in jail is not measured separately through ASJ. The ASPP provides data on counts of the total number of probationers, the total number of parolees incarcerated, and those being held in local jails.

• The Association of Paroling Authorities International (APAI), a nonprofit organization formed to discuss best practices and current issues surrounding conditional release, reentry into the community and public safety, occasionally conducts surveys of member practices. These surveys are not designed to make estimates of the parole population.

ASPP represents a long-standing effort to provide national and state-level data on the probation and parole populations and is the only ongoing annual collection on the community corrections populations. It is the result of efforts to present comparable data across years and jurisdictions. These qualities allow data users, in particular individual states, to rely on the ASPP data as a source of trend and comparative data on the community corrections populations.

While other collections provide complementary data, the ASPP is the only federal survey that provides aggregate data on the probation and parole stock population, movements, outcomes and characteristics of the community corrections population at both the national and state levels.

3. Efforts to Minimize Burden

BJS has implemented several procedures to reduce burden.

1. Survey forms (CJ-7 and CJ-8, Attachments 6 and 7) are sent to centralized statewide data reporters (e.g., a Department of Corrections that oversees all community corrections supervision throughout the state) whenever possible to minimize the number of respondents asked to participate. In most cases, the centralized data reporters are already collecting much of the requested from agencies in their state for their own data needs. All parole data in the country and probation data from 34 states report from a centralized respondent.

2. BJS uses web-based data collection instruments to ease reporting and reduce the need for follow-up due to errors in reporting and incorrect skips caught by programmatic edit checks.

3. Use of a critical items survey (CJ-8A, Attachment 8) for probation agencies that historically are not able to report to the full survey (CJ-8, Attachment 7). The CJ-8A minimize burden while nevertheless collecting basic information that respondents have available. This approach has shown to be the best approach to maximizing response and data quality from smaller agencies who may not have the capabilities to provide responses with the level of detail requested from the longer form.

In the 2016 survey, 157 out of 461 probation reporters (34 percent) completed the CJ-8A; however, these reporters accounted for only about 5 percent of the more than 3.8 million offenders on probation at yearend 2015. The average yearend probation population was 1,190 among agencies that completed the CJ-8A in 2016, while for those that completed the CJ-8 it was 11,853, or nearly 10 times larger.

4. The deletion of the three questions used in the 2014 and 2015 ASPP to assess coverage of the probation agency frame has lowered the time needed to complete the probation survey.

6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

The ASPP is an annual collection. Collection less frequently would result in a break in series and would reduce the ability to track changes in the community supervision populations on an annual basis. One of the main purposes of these surveys is to provide comparative data across states and years on community corrections. For example, the 2015 ASPP data showed a decline of about 62,300 in the population under community supervision, the lowest number of adults under community supervision since 2000. Year-to-year population changes over the last 10 years have varied 0.5% to 2.6%. It would also diminish the ability to determine which states had a significant impact on changes in the community corrections population over time and BJS’s ability to provide accurate measures of the growth and change in these populations over time.

7. Special Circumstances Influencing Collection

There are no special circumstances in conducting this information collection.

7. Federal Register Publication and Outside Consultation

The research under this clearance is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.6. The 60-day notice for public commentary was published in the Federal Register, Volume 82, Number 78, page 19086 on April 26, 2017, (see Attachment 9). The 30-day notice for public commentary was also published in the Federal Register. Following the publication of the 60-day notice, BJS received comments from 2 organizations and one county probation agency. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) proposed a number of questions to add to the survey and Pew Trusts had suggestions on improving the questions. In addition, a respondent to the survey from Maricopa County, AZ responded that the requested data is easily available in their probation system (See Attachment 26). While BJS did not make any changes to the current questionnaire, the received suggestions have been added to consideration for the next revision.

BJS consulted with states’ departments of corrections staff, administrators from both state and local probation and parole agencies, local probation and parole officers, and researchers and criminal justice experts to improve survey measurement, data collection, reporting, procedures, data analysis, and presentation. The following individuals provided valuable advice and comments on the content and design of these data collection instruments over the past 3 years:

Mr. William D. Burrell, Consultant

37 Cliveden Court

Lawrenceville, NJ 08648

(609) 895-0212

Nathan Lowe, Program Director

American Probation and Parole Association

C/o The Council of State Governments

3560 Iron Works Pike

P.O. Box 11910

Lexington, KY 40578-1910

(859) 244-8057

Laurie Powell

7th District Court Courthouse Annex

212 Paw Paw Street, Suite 130

Paw Paw, MI 49079

Miranda Lafary

Champaign County Municipal Court

205 S Main Street

PO Box 67

Urbana, OH 43078

Joseph Royal

15th District Court – Washtenaw County Courthouse

301 E Huron Street

PO Box 8650

Ann Arbor, MI 48107

Brandon Stewart

Lewis County Probation Department, District Court Probation

345 W Main Street, Floor 3

PO Box 600

Chehalis, WA 98532

Leonard Oram

Vandalia Municipal Court

333 James Bohanan Drive

Vandalia, OH 45377

Amy Vorachek

Division of Parole & Probation

PO Box 5521

Bismarck, ND 58506

Christine Edwards

Nevada Department of Public Safety, Division of Adult Probation & Parole

1445 Old Hot Springs Road, Suite 104

Carson City, NV 89706

Pamela Smyth

Probation and Parole Division, Corrections Department

4337 NM 14

PO Box 27116

Santa Fe, NM 87502

7. Paying Respondents

The ASPP is a voluntary data collection and respondents are notified in written communication that participation is voluntary. No gifts or incentives will be given.

7. Assurance of Confidentiality

The ASPP data are collected under Title 42, USC §3735 Section 304, which states the information gathered in this data collection shall be used only for statistical or research purposes, and shall be gathered in a manner that precludes their use for law enforcement or any purpose relating to a particular individual other than statistical or research purposes. The data collected through the ASPP represent institutional characteristics of publicly-administered or funded facilities and are, therefore, in the public domain. No individually identifiable information is collected. All information obtained consists of aggregated counts of the population under supervision by an agency, which severely limits the potential for the information to be used to identify an individual. BJS does not archive or otherwise release the names, telephone numbers, or email addresses of the persons responsible for completing the questionnaires.

7. Justification for Sensitive Questions

There are no questions of a sensitive nature included in the ASPP.

7. Estimate of Hour Burden

The CJ-7 is used to collect data from 52 state and local parole departments. Since 2001, BJS has administered the CJ-8 to the majority of state, federal, and local probation departments and the CJ-8A to a smaller number of local probation departments (e.g., those with limited record-keeping and/or information systems and limited financial and personnel resources) to minimize the burden on those agencies.¹⁹ The burden hours are based on past experience and practice.

The burden hours do not include the federal probation and parole data collected by BJS’s FJSP.

The burden hours include the average time required per respondent to complete a survey form, plus the average time devoted to follow-up contact conducted by the data collection agent or BJS to resolve discrepancies in the data reported by respondents, or to collect data estimates from respondents on missing data elements. The burden hours for each reporting year are—

7. Estimate of Respondent Cost

Web survey invitations will be mailed and emailed to each respondent (see Attachment 11), and hardcopy questionnaires along with a self-addressed stamped envelope will be mailed to respondents upon request (see Attachments 6, 7, and 8). (See Part A, Item 16, “Project Schedule” for more information about the survey invitations and other data collection materials.) The information requested is normally maintained electronically as administrative records in the parole and probation agencies. The only costs respondents will incur are costs associated with their time.

Using a rate of $36 per hour, the cost to respondents for this collection are as follows:

• The CJ-7 form is expected to take 1.5 hours per response plus 0.25 hours for follow-up. The cost for the 52 CJ-7 forms is estimated to be $3,276, or $63.00 per respondent.

• The CJ-8 form is expected to take 1.5 hours per response plus 0.25 hours for follow-up. The cost for the 303 CJ-8 forms is estimated to be $19,089, or $63.00 per respondent.

• The CJ-8A form is expected to take 0.5 hours per response plus 0.25 hours for follow-up. The cost for the 151 CJ-8A forms is estimated to be $4,077, or $27.00 per respondent.

The total respondent cost for the entire collection is $26,442 for the 2017 data collection year.

7. Cost to the Federal Government

The cost to the Federal Government for the collection and dissemination of ASPP data is estimated to be $369,354 for fiscal year 2018.

$289,569 – RTI, International

Labor for questionnaire development (including pilot testing), data collection/processing, imputation and file/documentation, other direct costs, fringe benefits and other indirect costs

$79,785 - Bureau of Justice Statistics

30% GS-12, Statistician ($27,902)

5%, GS-15, Supervisory Statistician ($7,467)

2% GS-15, Chief Editor/Supervisory statistician, ($2,987)

5% GS-13, Editor ($5,372)

2% GS-12, Designer ($1,807)

2% GS-14, Information Technologist ($2,539)

5% GS-14, Information Technology Specialist ($6,348)

2% GS-9, Information Specialist ($1,372)

Senior BJS Management ($5,200)

Fringe benefits (28% of salaries - $15,622)

Other administrative costs (15% of salary & fringe $8,369)

7. Reason for Change in Burden

The estimated total burden for the 2017 ASPP is 716 hours. This is a decrease of 70 hours compared with the burden approved by OMB in 2014. The change is the result of two modifications.

• A reduction of approximately 60 hours was achieved by the deletion of the three questions used in the 2014 and 2015 ASPP to assess coverage of the probation agency frame.

• A net reduction of 10 hours of burden due to changes in the number of probation agencies asked to participate:

  • Increase of 1 CJ-7 agency adds 1 hour- Due to California realignment data.

  • Decrease of 2 CJ-8 agencies reduces burden by 3 hours- Due to closing or merging with other agencies on the frame.

  • Decrease of 10 CJ-8A agencies reduces burden by 6 hours- Due to agencies closing or merging with other agencies on the frame.

7. Project Schedule and Publication/Analysis Plans

Table 3. Project schedule

Task	Start	End
Data collection	January	May
Notification of impending due dates, nonresponse follow-up, thank you letters	January	May
Data editing, verification, final callbacks	January	May
Analysis	May	June
Report writing	June	July
Press release and final report released	September	September

For details on the project schedule, see Supporting Statement B, part 2.

Information Dissemination from the Annual Probation and Parole Surveys

BJS plans to release a final report and final data file to the public less than a year after the data are collected. BJS makes multiple products available through the BJS website to disseminate key statistics.

Dissemination products include timely press releases, annual bulletins, two Corrections Statistical Analysis Tools (CSAT).

Currently data from 2000 to 2015 are available on the CSAT tools that were first released in 2014. BJS plans to provide data back to 1994 in CY2018. Between March 31, 2016 through March 31, 2017, the parole webtool had 2,379 users and 3,427 page views. Over the same time period, the probation webtool had 2,322 users and 3,230 page views. The probation CSAT tool is available here: https://www.bjs.gov/probation/ and parole CSAT tool is available here: https://www.bjs.gov/parole/,

Annual bulletins in BJS “Probation and Parole Population Series” (http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=42) report the most recent national and state level findings related to the size of the community corrections populations, changes in the populations, and factors related to those changes.²⁰ BJS also publishes data from the ASPP series in its Correctional Populations in the United States Series (http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbse&sid=5)²¹ In addition to providing summary data on the total correctional population, the Correctional Populations series allows BJS to focus more attention on how data from the ASPP change in relation to other components of the correctional population, as well as the size of the community corrections population relative to institutional corrections.

BJS archives data from the ASPP at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/index.jsp), maintained by the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. Making the data available through the NACJD is essential to encouraging external researchers to use these data. The 1994-2015 ASPP data have been archived, representing all years for which electronic data are available. BJS has set a goal of archiving the data from each subsequent year at about the same time of release of its annual report in its Probation and Parole in United States series.

7. Expiration Date Approval

The OMB Control Number and the expiration date will be printed on the CJ-7, CJ-8, and CJ-8A forms and appear on the first screen of the web survey (Attachments 6, 7, 8).

7. Exceptions to the Certification Statement

There are no exceptions to the Certification Statement. The collection is consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.9.

1 Glaze, L. and Kaeble, D. (2015) Correctional Populations in the United States, 2015, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus15.pdf. (See Attachment 3.)

2 Bonczar, T. and Kaeble D. (2015) Probation and Parole in the United States, 2015, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, DC, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ppus15.pdf (See Attachment 4.)

3 Glaze, L. and Kaeble, D., op. cit. (see Attachment 3).

4 See: https://nicic.gov/statestats/default.aspx

5 See: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474516649174

6 See: http://www.appa-net.org/eweb/DynamicPage.aspx?WebCode=VC_PubsReports

7 See: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/analysis/2016/01/25/share-of-us-adults-under-correctional-control-down-13-percent-since-2007

8 See: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/04/26/doing-less-time-some-states-cut-back-on-probation

9 See: http://robinainstitute.umn.edu/publications/numbers-parole-release-revocation-across-50-states/

10 Porter, Nicole D. (2016) “The State of Sentencing 2015: Developments in Policy and Practice”. (http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/the-state-of-sentencing-2015-developments-in-policy-and-practice/)

11 See: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/us/probation-sounding-light-can-land-hard.html?_r=1

12 See: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/prison-reform-risk-assessment/

13 BJS’s cooperative agreement with RTI for the ASPP was the result of a competition (Annual Surveys of Probation and Parole, 2015-2018 Solicitation, BJS-2015-4155; see http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aspp1518.pdf.).

14 In 2007, there was 1 non-respondent each for probation and parole; in 2015, there were 39 non-respondents for probation.

15 Dillman, D.A. (2000). Mail and Internet surveys: the tailored design methods. Second edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

16 Cobanoglu, C., Warde, B., & Moreo, P.J. (2001). A comparison of mail, fax, and Web-based survey methods. International Journal of Market Research, 43(4), 441-452.

17 Skitka, L. J., & Sargis, E. G. (2006). The Internet as psychological laboratory. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 529-555.

18 Ibid.

19 In 2015, 279 probation agencies completed the CJ-8 and 142 completed the CJ-8A.

20 Kaeble, D. and Bonczar, T., op. cit. (see Attachment 4).

21 Kaeble, D. and Glaze, L., op. cit. (see Attachment 3).