1110-0004 Supporting Statement A (2025.Final)

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

1110-0004

NUMBER OF LAW ENFORCEMENT EMPLOYEES AS OF OCTOBER 31

A three-year extension of this approved collection is requested.

Data Collection

The Number of Law Enforcement Employees Data Collection is an annual compilation which includes details on law enforcement agency (LEA) staff as of October 31 for the collection year. The information was originally included in an early version of the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) form when both collections were annual. However, by the

mid-1970s, the two collections separated as the LEOKA data changed to a monthly report, while the police employee collection remained an annual compilation.

Over the past few years, new developments have led to changes in the details collected. Included are the addition of part-time and auxiliary officers and employees. Due to this change, the formal name of the collection (Number of Full-time Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31) no longer reflected an accurate representation of the data being collected. In 2021, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program requested a name change for this collection along with the normal changes and renewal of authorization. The change involved removing the “Full-time” verbiage from the title and changing the official name to “Number of Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31.”

The FBI’s UCR Program publishes law enforcement counts and associated demographics in multiple venues. They appear in traditional UCR platforms such as the Crime Data Explorer (CDE) and are used as a denominator to calculate the rates of law enforcement assaults in the LEOKA publication.

Part 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) and the FBI’s authority to acquire, preserve, and exchange identification, criminal identification, crime, and other records, 28 U.S.C. § 534, the FBI’s UCR Program requests data annually about law enforcement employee counts from federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial LEAs throughout the country in order to generate reliable information.

LEAs submit law enforcement counts which provide the FBI’s UCR Program with a yearly total count of full-time, part-time, and reserve/auxiliary/other sworn male and female law enforcement officers (LEOs) and full-time, part-time and reserve/auxiliary/other male and female civilian employees by race and ethnicity, as of October 31 of the reporting year. This information collection is necessary for the FBI to maintain a database and serve as the national clearinghouse for the collection and dissemination of this information.

2. Needs and Uses

The Extensible Markup Language (XML), the Flat File Technical Specification, and the Microsoft Excel Summary Workbook are necessary to provide the LEAs a mechanism to report the total number of law enforcement employees to the FBI’S UCR Program. The FBI is able to generate reliable information annually for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management, nationwide. The information released is viewed as a guide or an indicator of police strengths, to establish staffing needs, in both number and makeup, and to provide enforcement and protection. Examples of other agencies’ uses are:

• Federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and military agencies, domestic and foreign, have used the data for selected city population groupings to determine standard police strengths.

• The Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, utilizes the FBI’s UCR Program’s data in awarding local law enforcement formula grants, such as the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding.

• The Community Oriented Policing Services program receives the UCR data for the purpose of awarding grant money to LEAs.

• Criminal justice coordinators use the data in the form of percentage of cities employing female officers.

• City and county police agencies use the data to request assistance from other departments.

• City councils, legislators, citizens, organizations, and social scientists request police employee data.

3. Use of Information Technology (IT)

The FBI’s UCR Program’s participants submit the data electronically. The FBI currently provides three options for states, UCR programs, and individual LEA participants to submit police employee data: XML, Flat File Data Specification, and the re-branded Collection of Law Enforcement and Crime Tool (COLECT), formerly known as the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Collection Application (NCA).

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, COLECT allows agencies to access a new online portal to submit employee data directly to the FBI’s UCR Program. State UCR programs and individual LEAs have the option to submit these electronic submissions via email at ucr@fbi.gov. However, as the usage of COLECT expands for new and current data collections, ucr@fbi.gov will become an obsolete reporting method.

The FBI’s UCR Program crime data collection begins at the local agency level when LEOs 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’s UCR Program. This link allows for IT interaction within the required electronic data submission formats.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

This information collection is established by 28 U.S.C § 534, Acquisition, Preservation, and Exchange of Identification Records; Appointment of Officials.

There are two additional entities which have collected law enforcement employee statistics:

• The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) published “Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA)” every four years through 2008.

• The Bureau of Census (BOC) also publishes the “Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll (ASPEP).”

BJS, BOC, and the FBI’s UCR Program have different purposes for collecting the data, respondent universes, and data collection procedures. Each entity provides data about the number of sworn and nonsworn officers on a voluntary basis but differs in the type of information provided about police employees as well as in the number and size of the participating agencies.

• BJS – CSLLEA

• Respondent Universe

  • All state and local LEAs in the United States including primary state police, sheriffs’ offices, local police departments, tribal police, special jurisdiction agencies, and other agencies (such as courts and jails).

• Data Collection

  • The survey measures the number of sworn and civilian employees within state, local, and special jurisdiction agencies in the United States.

  • The data are disaggregated by full-time or part-time status, population, and patrol assignments.

• Frequency

  • Every four years.

• Imputation

  • The CSLLEA imputes missing data due to unit and item nonresponse.

• BOC – ASPEP

• Respondent Universe

  • The ASPEP includes data for full-time LEOs from local police departments, sheriffs’ offices, state police, federal agencies, coroners’ offices, police training academies, investigation bureaus, and temporary holding or lockup facilities.

  • ASPEP excludes sworn officers employed by transit police or school police agencies.

• Data Collection

  • The BOC collects employment data for the federal, state, and local governments as well as their gross monthly salary for March of the survey year.

  • Employee information is captured from the payroll records on an annual basis.

• Frequency

  • Annually.

• Imputation

  • The BOC imputes missing data due to agency nonresponse.

• The FBI’s UCR Program – Number of Law Enforcement Employees as of October 31

• Respondent Universe

  • Participants from federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial LEAs.

• Data Collection

  • The FBI’s UCR Program collects data on the number of full-time sworn officers and civilian personnel; part-time sworn officers and civilian personnel; and reserve/auxiliary/other by sex, race, and ethnicity.

  • Sworn officers and reserve/auxiliary/other personnel must have full arrest powers and must be paid from government funds set aside for sworn LEOs.

  • Civilian personnel must be paid from police funds and includes clerks, radio dispatchers, meter attendants, stenographers, jailers, correctional officers, and mechanics.

  • Excluded from these counts are officers not paid from police funds as well as employees who serve court- and jail-related functions.

  • This data collection also provides the population for each reporting agency.

• Frequency

  • Annually.

• Imputation

  • Data is not imputed for missing agency data.

The police employee data are critical for officer and reserve/auxiliary/other personnel assault rates presented in Crime in the Nation (CITN) and LEOKA publications. Law enforcement employee data files are one of the most requested data files within the user community. The FBI’s UCR Program has successfully collected and published police employee data since the program’s inception in 1930. In December 1944, a conference was held with the then Division of Statistical Standards, the BOC, the Department of Labor, and the FBI’s UCR Program to discuss collection duplication. The outcome of that conference was to allow the FBI’s UCR Program to continue the data collection as requested by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).

5. Minimizing Burden on Small Businesses

This information will have no significant impact on small LEAs. The burden on LEAs is minimized as this is an annual collection.

6. Consequences of Not Conducting or Less Frequent Collection

The law enforcement employee counts are collected annually from participating FBI’s UCR Program contributors. LEAs use these data to justify staffing levels and officer counts compared to other LEAs to receive additional staffing levels, equipment, or funding. Additionally, the FBI’s UCR Program uses the information to calculate coverage rates for the National Use-of-Force (UoF) Data Collection.

7. Special Circumstances

All law enforcement employee data are collected/received from the FBI’s UCR Program participants on an annual basis. Participation in the FBI’s UCR Program is voluntary.

8. Public Comments and Consultations

The 60- and 30-day notices were submitted and published in the Federal Register 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

The FBI’s 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 obtained are part of the public domain. However, UCR collections are all voluntary; therefore, if any LEA believes this information is sensitive, the agency can opt out of this collection.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

The 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: 15,080

Frequency of responses: Annually

Minutes per response: 8 minutes

Annual burden hours: 2,011 hours

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

State Program and Local LEA Outreach:

Number of respondents: 100

Frequency of responses: Varies

Minutes per response: 180

Additional burden hours: 300 hours

Total Annual Burden: 2,011 + 300 = 2,311 hours

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

There are no direct costs to law enforcement to participate in the FBI’s UCR Program other than the time to respond. For many reasons, costs to agency records management systems are very difficult to obtain. Vendors do not divulge costs because vendors charge differently from agency to agency. Many costs are built into the vendors’ contracts. Changes mandated by law could be included within the original contract 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

According to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 cost module provided by the FBI’s 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. The cost module does not separate the costs between the Summary Reporting System and NIBRS for prior collection activities regarding the UCR data. (See pages 8 and 9.)

Activity	FY2024 Annualized Cost	FY2024 Annualized Full-Time Equivalent
CJIS Systems Agency/Officer Development and Support	$4,805.07	0.03
Collaborate with LE and Critical Incident Management Services	$8,479.06	0.06
Conduct Field Office, Office and Partner Engagement, and LEGAT Engagement Activities	$18,456.52	0.15
Conduct Liaison, Education, and Promotion	$530,655.46	4.03
Conduct Other Crime Data Services Activities	$392,300.68	2.81
Conduct Other Partner Engagement Activities	$41,822.65	0.27
Conduct Quality, Process, and System Management Activities	$10,191.78	0.06
Conduct research and release studies on collected data	$221,358.28	1.79
Conduct State and Local Agency Engagement Activities	$71,379.09	0.56
Conduct Tribal Engagement Activities	$9,865.78	0.09
Develop and Maintain Partner Outreach Materials	$8,365.12	0.06
Develop and Manage Policy	$52,028.62	0.36
Direct Customer Engagement for Product/Service Use and Expansion	$156,869.82	1.03
Manage Strategic Communications	$9,212.45	0.06
Perform Administrative and Human Resource tasks	$260,597.57	1.90
Perform Advisory Policy Board (APB) tasks	$60,450.64	0.41
Perform Budget, Strategic Planning, and Program Control	$151,704.61	0.91
Perform Contracting Officer’s Representative Duties	$33,935.03	0.21
Perform Quality Assurance	$160,033.71	1.24
Perform Quality Management	$16,624.04	0.10
Perform Scaled Agile Framework Duties	$457,011.19	3.81
Perform Statistical Reporting	$930.39	0.01
Perform Strategy Management	$40,890.38	0.23
Perform workload management	$16,487.43	0.09
Planning and Implementing New Data Collections	$87,978.26	0.70
Process Media, Freedom of Information Act, and Congressional requests	$79,491.70	0.53
Provide CJIS Multimedia Support	$3,159.67	0.03
Provide End User Support Services	$88,656.10	0.65
Provide Management and Administration	$532,640.20	3.36
Provide Support to Other FBI Units Sections (Temporary Duty, Surge)	$20,154.92	0.20
Respond to Data Calls, Media Requests, etc.	$260,146.69	1.91
Respond to Internal and External Data Calls	$119,149.70	0.69
Support CJIS APB	$51,763.19	0.36
Support CJIS Division Community Outreach Program	$10,105.00	0.09
Support CJIS Systems Officer Training and Communications	$3,899.61	0.03
Support Crime in the United Nation data release	$469,426.78	3.58
Support Law Enforcement Employee Counts Data Collection	$147,784.63	1.16
Support Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection	$102,405.30	0.80
Support Law Enforcement Training	$10,572.66	0.12
Support LEOKA Collection and data release	$275,957.77	2.25
Support National Incident-Based Reporting System	$178,076.89	1.38

Activity – continued	FY2024 Annualized Cost	FY2024 Annualized Full-Time Equivalent
Support National UoF Data Collection	$206,931.23	1.72
Support Originating Agency Identifier Administration	$7,799.21	0.06
Support Reports, Releases, and Publications	$71,322.10	0.61
Support the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer (CDE)	$186,781.39	1.50
Support the Hate Crime Data Collection and data release	$152,748.80	1.18
Support the Law Enforcement Public Contact Data Collection	$40,623.54	0.30
Support the Lawful Access Data Collection	$49,628.26	0.33
Support the Quarterly UCR information	$78,946.16	0.56

15. Reason for Change in Burden

There is no increase in burden for the individual respondents; however, the overall annual burden hours have increased. This is an adjustment, an overall increase (from 1,999 to 2,011), because the number of agencies submitting law enforcement employee data increased.

16. Anticipated Publication Plan and Schedule

Published data are derived from data submissions furnished to the FBI’s UCR Program by federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial LEAs. Data are published in CITN and on the CDE.

Initial Request for Police Employees Data: October (current year)

Second Request for Police Employee Data: December (current year)

Deadline to submit data: Late December (current year)

Data Processing/Analysis: November (current year) - February (following year)

Publication date: With CITN (following year)

17. Display of Expiration Date

The FBI declines to display the expiration date for Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval of the information collection due to the mode of data collection. This collection will be collected via Web form available on the restricted-access COLECT, formerly known as the NCA. To keep an expiration date current would require programming changes on the Web form.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

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

1