CLETA letter

Attachment C: Academy Invite Letter

SUBJECT: 2022 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies (CLETA) Cognitive Interview Invitation

Dear [TITLE] [NAME],

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and its data collection agent, RTI International (RTI), are working to develop the 2022 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies (CLETA). The CLETA has been administered to basic training academies approximately every 5 years since 2002 to capture fundamental information about the training new law enforcement officers receive. The upcoming 2022 CLETA will include approximately 700 local and state law enforcement training academies. Data will be used to produce national estimates describing the basic training curricula, characteristics of trained recruits, and instructor qualifications of these academies.

Importantly, before we invite the academies to participate in this survey, we need to obtain direct feedback from a small number of academies to ensure the survey questions and instructions are as clear as possible. I’m writing to ask for your academy’s participation in providing feedback. Your academy was specifically selected to ensure input from different types of academies across the country, and I sincerely hope that you can participate.

If you agree to support this data collection effort by providing feedback, we will:

• provide a copy of the CLETA draft survey to your academy’s point of contact;

• ask them to complete a portion of the survey and return it to us; and

• schedule a 1-hour phone interview (maximum) with RTI staff to discuss the survey.

We hope to collect this feedback throughout July and August, and our team will be flexible to accommodate your schedule.

Please let me know if your academy is willing to provide feedback on the 2022 CLETA, or if you have additional questions about this request.

Sincerely,

Emily D. Buehler, Ph.D.

Bureau of Justice Statistics

U.S. Department of Justice

(202) 307-1552

emily.buehler@usdoj.gov