1110-0001 Supporting Statements A

SUPPORTING STATEMENT A

1110-0001

RETURN A—MONTHLY RETURN OF OFFENSES KNOWN TO POLICE

SUPPLEMENT TO RETURN A—MONTHLY RETURN OF OFFENSES KNOWN TO POLICE

A. Justification

1. Necessity of Information Collection

Under the provisions of the Uniform Federal Crime Reporting Act of 1988, Title 34, United States Code (U.S.C.), Section 41303 (2012) (reorganizing and reclassifying this title from the notes of 28 U.S.C. § 534) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) authority to acquire, preserve, and exchange identification records, 28 U.S.C. § 534, the FBI was designated by the Attorney General to acquire, collect, classify, and preserve national data on federal criminal offenses as part of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). For nearly 90 years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has also collected data and information under this program from state, local, and tribal criminal justice agencies.

The Return A form, 1-720, supplies the FBI UCR Program with the number of Part I offenses, (murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft), reported monthly by law enforcement, the number of unfounded Part I offenses, the total number of offenses cleared by arrest or exceptional means, and clearances for persons under the age of 18. Additionally, form 1-706, Supplement to Return A, supplies the FBI UCR Program with the monetary value of property stolen and recovered. This form is a companion to the Return A and important for further analysis of the Part I offenses.

This information collection is necessary for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of the total number of offenses reported, unfounded, and cleared; supplemental information on the monetary value of property stolen and recovered; and to ensure publication of the Semi-Annual Report, Crime in the United States, and on the Crime Data Explorer (CDE) website.

2. Needs and Uses

The Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook, and the Return A/Supplement to Return A Flat File Data Specifications are necessary to provide law enforcement agencies (LEAs) a mechanism to report Part I offense data and monetary value of property stolen and recovered. These statistics are used for research and statistical purposes. These data serve as a valuable resource to federal, state, local, and tribal LEAs, as well as academia, other government agencies, the general public, and the media. Examples of other agencies uses are:

a. The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, uses the FBI UCR Program data to award local law enforcement formula grants.

b. 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. The ICPSR website currently stores fifty-seven years of the FBI UCR Program’s Return A and Supplement to Return A data. These data files contain monthly data on the number of offenses reported, unfounded, and cleared, as well as supplemental information on the monetary value of property stolen and recovered.

c. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion currently uses FBI UCR Program data in their Healthy People 2020 interactive data tool. This tool focuses on the Healthy People 2020 objectives and allows users to explore this data and technical information.

d. The FBI is meeting the obligatory/mandated purpose to generate and maintain reliable information for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management (34 U.S.C. § 41303 [b]).

e. Criminologists, sociologists, legislatures, municipal planners, media, and other students of criminal justice use the FBI UCR Program data for varied research and planning purposes.

f. The Return A and Supplement to Return A data collection permits studies among neighboring jurisdictions, as well as those with similar populations and other common characteristics.

g. Special interest groups, media, and academe request Return A and Supplement to Return A information for research.

3. Use of Information Technology

All FBI UCR Program participants submit their crime data electronically. The FBI provides three different options for state UCR program and individual LEA participants to submit Return A/Supplement to Return A data: the XML, Flat File Data Specification, and the FBI–provided Microsoft Summary Workbook.

The XML interface specification complies with the National Information Exchange Model and Logical Entity Exchange Specifications, which are both data standards for information exchange used by law enforcement. The Flat File Data Specification is submitted as an 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, which is translated into a standard format for processing the data into the UCR System. State UCR programs and individual LEAs currently submit these electronic submissions via e-mail at <ucrstat@leo.gov>.

The FBI 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 the LEAs throughout their state, as well as the FBI 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 by a 1988 amendment to Title 28, U.S.C., § 534, Acquisition, Preservation, and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials. The FBI is the only agency collecting extensive data based on seven Part I criminal offenses, crime clearances, and the monetary values of property stolen and recovered in the United States.

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Entities

This information will have no significant impact on small LEAs. 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, semi-annually, or annually. Although monthly submission is recommended, upon approval by the FBI UCR Program, agencies may submit data at intervals to 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. There is an ever-increasing need for the FBI to collect accurate data and to disseminate it in a timely manner to our partners in law enforcement. As such, beginning June 2020, data submitted to the FBI UCR Program will be available within the CDE on a quarterly basis, starting with January – March 2020 data. Data will be released the fifteenth day of June 2020, September 2020, December 2020, and March 2021. The CDE will include caveats stating released data is subject to change.

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

7. Special Circumstances

Monthly reports/submissions should be received at the FBI by the seventh day of each month. Annual deadlines are designated to collect/assess receipt of monthly submissions. Participation in the FBI UCR Program is voluntary.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

The Federal Register 60- and 30-day notices have been submitted and no public comments have been received.

9. Provision of Payments or Gifts to Respondents

The FBI UCR Program does not provide any payment or gift to respondents.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

The FBI UCR Program does not assure confidentiality. However, this information collection does not contain personally identifiable information that may reveal the identity of an individual. The data obtained is considered to be in the public domain.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

This information collection does not contain information of a sensitive (personally identifiable and law enforcement sensitive information) nature.

12. Estimate of Respondent’s Burden

The estimated cost of the respondent’s burden for this data collection is as follows:

Number of respondents 10,023 Summary Reporting System (SRS) respondents

Number of non-respondents 1,097

Frequency of responses Monthly–Return A

Month–Supplement to Return A

Total annual responses 116,438–Return A

97,456–Supplement to Return A

Minutes per response 10 minutes–Return A

11 minutes–Supplement to Return A

Annual hour burden 37,273 hours

State Program and Local LEA Outreach:

Number of respondents: 100

Frequency of responses: Varies

Minutes per response: 180 minutes

Annual hour burden: 300 hours

Total Annual Burden: 37,573 hours

	SRS
Number of months submitted	Number of Agencies (Return A)	Number of Responses (Return A_	10 Minute Burden	Number of Agencies (Supplement)	Number of Responses (Supplement)	11 Minute Burden	Totals
1 month	42	42	420	112	112	1,232
2 months	42	84	840	59	118	1,298
3 months	41	123	1,230	76	228	2,508
4 months	51	204	2,040	67	268	2,948
5 months	57	285	2,850	94	470	5,170
6 months	63	378	3,780	114	684	7,524
7 months	81	567	5,670	123	861	9,471
8 months	66	528	5,280	132	1,056	11,616
9 months	93	837	8,370	168	1,512	16,632
10 months	114	1,140	11,400	210	2,100	23,100
11 months	226	2,486	24,860	373	4,103	45,133
12 months	9,147	109,764	1,097,640	7,162	85,944	945,384
Non-responsive							1,096
Total Agencies	10,023			8,690			10,023
Annual Responses		116,438			97,456
Form Completion Min. Burden			1,164,380 minutes			1,072,016 minutes	2,236,396 minutes
Form Completion Min. Burden							37,273 hours

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

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

There are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in the FBI UCR Program other than their time to respond. The FBI UCR Program disseminates the electronic version of the Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police and the Supplement to Return A—Monthly Return of Offenses Known to Police free of charge via the Microsoft Excel Workbook Tool. For many reasons, costs to agency records management systems (RMS) are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs due to the fact vendors charge differently from agency to agency. Many costs are built into the vendor’s Service Level Agreement contracts. Depending on the vendor contracts, changes mandated by law could be included within the original contract with no additional costs. However, an estimate has been projected wherein agencies pay a $107,000 maintenance fee every year for system maintenance costs.

The FBI is currently undergoing a transition to move SRS agencies to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) by January 1, 2021. To assist agencies with this transition, select LEAs and state UCR Programs received funding through the National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X) from 2015 through 2018. When the NIBRS transition process is complete, the FBI will reevaluate the maintenance fee costs.

14. Cost to Federal Government

According to the cost model provided by FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division, Resources Management Section, Fee Programs Unit, the following are projections based upon prior collection activity, as well as activities anticipated over the next three years for both the NIBRS and SRS. The cost module does not separate the costs between the two methods of collecting UCR data.

Data Collection and Processing Costs

Administrative $ 57,323.65

Application for Resources Support $ 102,408.71

Budget Activities, Strategic Planning & Program Control $ 246,410.76

Communication/Reporting $ 243,362.19

Conduct UCR Audits $ 445,639.38

Crime Data Explorer $ 51,131.81

Develop and Implement Policy $ 89,290.89

Editing $ 155,135.97

Graphics $ 37,903.52

Human Resource Management $ 3,377.87

Liaison, Correspondence, Data Requests $ 396,264.71

Manage Acquisition Review Process $ 1,765.64

Marketing $ 37,654.64

Media Requests $ 52,985.40

New UCR $ 351,744.48

New UCR Contingency Planning $ 6,813.66

New UCR Metrics and Reporting $ 4,214.21

New UCR Operations and Maintenance $ 156,141.15

New UCR Operations and Maintenance Enhancements $ 8,992.64

Operational Assistance $ 88,985.98

Operational Product Compilation $ 43,488.76

Perform Section Budget Activities $ 26,195.09

Perform Strategic Planning $ 75,182.11

Policy, Development, and Program Planning $ 281,749.12

Project and Program Management $ 151,469.22

Provide Technical, Statistical, Mathematical Assistance/

Training $ 59,546.50

Publication $ 45,439.28

Research and Analysis $ 287,208.15

Special Studies Using UCR Data $ 83,601.53

Support UCR Program Development $ 301,690.13

UCR Automation/Development $ 311,085.66

UCR Data Analysis $ 394,412.67

UCR Data Collection $ 391,888.47

UCR Operations and Maintenance $ 217,716.14

UCR Operations and Maintenance Enhancements $ 186,297.66

UCR Publications/Reports $ 500,207.31

UCR Quality Assurance and Content Management $ 14,221.54

UCR Security $ 12,997.37

Writing Services/Support $ 293,842.59

Total Cost to Federal Government $ 6,215,786.56

15. Reason for Change in Burden

The burden increased for the individual respondents; however, the overall annual burden hours have decreased. This is an adjustment, a decrease from 40,653 to 37,273 which is an overall decrease of 3,380. The burden hours decreased for two reasons: (1) the number of respondent agencies converting from the SRS to the NIBRS and (2) during the 2016 renewal, the burden minutes were compiled using the total burden (21) per agency, instead of using the burden minutes for each form (Return A–10 and Supplement to Return A–11).

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to the FBI from federal, state, local, and tribal LEAs throughout the country. Data will be published on an annual basis in the Crime in the United States for 2019 and 2020 data.

Request for missing data from agencies February and March, following year

Deadline to submit data End of March

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

Publication of data September, following year

Beginning June 2020, data submitted to the FBI UCR Program will be available within the CDE on a quarterly basis, starting with January – March 2020 data. Data will be released the fifteenth day of June 2020, September 2020, December 2020, and March 2021.

17. Display of Expiration Date

All information collected under this clearance will display the Office of Management and Budget’s Control Number and Expiration Date on the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

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

8