Notice2023-03260
Request for Information; Criminal Justice Statistics
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
February 16, 2023
Issuing agencies
Science and Technology Policy Office
Abstract
Executive Order, Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety, states that building trust in policing and criminal justice requires "transparency through data collection and public reporting." The Executive Order calls for issuing a report to the President on the current data collection, use, and data transparency practices with respect to law enforcement activities. This includes data related to calls for service, searches, stops, frisks, seizures, arrests, complaints, law enforcement demographics, and civil asset forfeiture. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), on behalf of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, is requesting public input to inform this report.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 88 Issue 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 32 (Thursday, February 16, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10150-10153]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2023-03260]
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OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
Request for Information; Criminal Justice Statistics
AGENCY: Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
ACTION: Notice of request for information.
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SUMMARY: Executive Order, Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and
Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety,
states that building trust in policing and criminal justice requires
``transparency through data collection and public reporting.'' The
Executive Order calls for issuing a report to the President on the
current data collection, use, and data transparency practices with
respect to law enforcement activities. This includes data related to
calls for service, searches, stops, frisks, seizures, arrests,
complaints, law enforcement demographics, and civil asset forfeiture.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), on
behalf of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and in
coordination
[[Page 10151]]
with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, is requesting
public input to inform this report.
DATES: Interested persons and organizations are invited to submit
comments on or before 5 p.m. ET March 30, 2023.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
<bullet> Email: <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#88edf9fde1fce9eae4edece9fce9c8e7fbfcf8a6ede7f8a6efe7fe"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b5d0c4c0dcc1d4d7d9d0d1d4c1d4f5dac6c1c59bd0dac59bd2dac3">[email protected]</span></a>, include ``Criminal
Justice Statistics RFI'' in the message subject line. Email submissions
should be machine-readable [PDF, Word], all attachments must be 25MB or
less, and responses should not be copy-protected. Due to time
constraints, mailed paper submissions will not be accepted, and
electronic submissions received after the deadline cannot be ensured to
be incorporated or taken into consideration.
Instructions: Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each responding
entity (individual or organization) is requested to submit only one
response, in English. Respondents may answer as many or as few
questions as they wish. Please identify the question number(s)
associated with your answer. Submissions must be at most 7 pages in 11-
point or larger font (3,500 words). Responses should include the name
of the person(s) or organization(s) filing the comment, as well as the
respondent type (e.g., academic institution, advocacy group,
professional society, community-based organization, industry, member of
the public, government, or other).
We encourage all members of the public interested in this
initiative to submit their comments. OSTP and the Criminal Justice
Statistics Working Group will consider each comment, whether it
contains a personal narrative, experiences with the Federal government,
or more technical legal, research, or scientific content.
OSTP will not respond directly to submissions. This RFI is not
accepting applications for financial assistance or financial
incentives. Comments submitted in response to this notice are subject
to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Responses to this RFI may be
posted online without notice. OSTP requests that no proprietary,
copyrighted, or personally identifiable information be submitted in
response to this RFI.
In accordance with FAR 15-202(3), responses to this notice are not
offers and cannot be accepted by the U.S. Government to form a binding
contract. Additionally, the U.S. Government will not pay for response
preparation or the use of any information contained in the response.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Karin Underwood, at OSTP, by email at
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#aecbdfdbc7dacfccc2cbcacfdacfeec1dddade80cbc1de80c9c1d8"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="dfbaaeaab6abbebdb3babbbeabbe9fb0acabaff1bab0aff1b8b0a9">[email protected]</span></a> or by phone at 202-456-6121. Individuals who
use telecommunication devices for the deaf and hard of hearing (TDD)
may call the Federal Relay Service (FRS) at 1-800-877-8339, 24 hours a
day, every day of the year, including holidays.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On May 25, 2022, President Biden signed an
Executive Order (E.O.) on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and
Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety
(E.O. 14074). This E.O. aimed to enhance public trust and public safety
by promoting accountability, transparency, equality, and dignity in
policing and the criminal justice system. The E.O. recognized that
better data practices are a vital component of advancing these
objectives, noting that ``Building trust between law enforcement
agencies and the communities they are sworn to protect and serve also
requires accountability for misconduct and transparency through data
collection and public reporting.''
Improving the collection, use, and transparency of criminal justice
data enables a more rigorous assessment of the extent to which law
enforcement agency procedures and policies yield fair, just, and
impartial treatment of all individuals, including those in underserved
communities. To improve outcomes for communities, we need to identify
effective and emerging practices and opportunities to accelerate the
adoption and adaptation of those practices across the nation's
approximately 18,000 State, Tribal, local, territorial (STLT) law
enforcement agencies. To help reach this goal, the E.O. directed the
Equitable Data Working Group to work with the National Science and
Technology Council (NSTC) to create an Interagency Working Group on
Criminal Justice Statistics and tasked this group to develop a report
about how to collect and publish data on police practices.
In this RFI, we are seeking the following:
1. Information to understand the current data collection, use, and
transparency practices across STLT law enforcement activities.
2. Best practice examples and lessons learned from STLT law
enforcement agencies and other entities in the criminal justice system
related to how they have collected, used, and/or made transparent data
disaggregated by demographic information, geographic information, and
other variables to inform changes to policies, procedures, and
protocols to produce more equitable outcomes.
3. Recommendations on how to build the capacity and ability of STLT
law enforcement agencies to collect, use, and make transparent,
comprehensive, high-quality, and disaggregated data on law enforcement
activities.
Law enforcement agencies can use data to foster collaborations
across all levels of government, neighboring jurisdictions, and a
diverse community of external organizations. Public-facing tools and
dashboards can allow civil society organizations and communities to
visualize and use data about police activities and chart their local
law enforcement agency's progress toward equitable outcomes. However,
for these efforts to increase police accountability and legitimacy and
to improve community participation, they must take into account the
data analysis capacity and resources of all stakeholders.
The Equitable Data Working Group noted in its recommendations that
data disaggregation and transparency need to ensure that individual
identities and personally identifiable information (PII) are protected.
The stakes of data privacy are exceptionally high in criminal justice,
where insufficient privacy and confidentiality can have a chilling
effect on victim reporting--including for domestic violence and for
hate crimes such as crimes targeted against LGBTQI+ people, religious
minorities, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander
populations--which, in turn, reduces the ability of law enforcement to
respond to, solve, and prevent crimes.<SUP>1 2</SUP>
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\1\ National Science and Technology Council: Federal Evidence
Agenda on LGBTQI+ Equity.
\2\ DOJ Office of Violence Against Women: Improving Law
Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence by
Preventing Gender.
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We invite members of the public to share perspectives on what could
help achieve comprehensive and transparent criminal justice data and
how the Interagency Working Group on Criminal Justice Statistics should
address the requirements in E.O. 14074.
Please consider the following when responding to this RFI:
<bullet> Datasets: The Working Group is tasked with issuing a
report to the President that assesses current data collection, use, and
data transparency practices with respect to law enforcement activities,
including but not limited to calls for service, searches, stops,
frisks, seizures, arrests, complaints, law enforcement
[[Page 10152]]
demographics, and civil asset forfeiture. Additional datasets about law
enforcement activities to consider include, but are not limited to:
use-of-force, officer-involved shootings, de-escalation incidents,
incidents (including the federally-reported National Incident-Based
Reporting System, NIBRS), hate/bias crimes; solicitations, fees and
fines, officer training, community engagement, vehicle pursuits, body-
worn camera/dashboard camera metadata, accidents/crashes, patrol
locations, and assaults on officers. This RFI does not include
surveillance technologies or body-worn camera imagery.
<bullet> Law enforcement agencies: This Working Group focuses on
policing and criminal justice data from STLT law enforcement agencies,
not Federal law enforcement, which is covered elsewhere in the E.O.
<bullet> Equitable data: Equitable data refers to data that allow
for rigorous assessment of the extent to which government programs and
policies yield consistently fair, just, and impartial treatment of all
individuals, including those who have been historically underserved,
marginalized, and adversely affected by persistent poverty and
inequality. Equitable data can illuminate opportunities for targeted
actions that will result in demonstrably improved outcomes for
underserved communities.
<bullet> Disaggregated data: One key characteristic of equitable
data is that it is disaggregated, or broken down into detailed sub-
categories that will differ based on the context and desired policy
outcomes. For example, data might be disaggregated by demographics
(e.g., race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation,\3\
language spoken, national origin), geography (e.g., rural/urban, police
district, neighborhood), or other variables (disability, veteran
status, housing status), enabling insights on disparities in access to,
and outcomes from, government programs, policies, and services.
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\3\ The Federal Evidence Agenda on LGBTQI+ Equity includes
guidelines for collecting sexual orientation and gender identity
(SOGI) data on forms and in other administrative contexts such as
policing and criminal justice.
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Additional context: The Equitable Data Working Group was
established by President Biden's first Executive Order, Advancing
Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the
Federal Government (E.O. 13985), to study Federal data collection
policies, programs, and infrastructure to identify inadequacies and
provide recommendations that lay out a strategy to ``expand and refine
the data available to the Federal Government to measure equity and
capture the diversity of the American people.'' The Criminal Justice
Statistics Working Group is now part of the NSTC Subcommittee on
Equitable Data. It includes representatives of the Domestic Policy
Council, the Office of the Counsel to the President, the Department of
Justice, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and
Technology Policy, the Gender Policy Council, the Office of Drug
Control Policy, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of
Homeland Security, the Department of Education, and the General
Services Administration.
Request for Information
OSTP seeks responses to the following questions about how STLT law
enforcement agencies collect, use, and make data transparent to inform
policies, procedures, and protocols to reduce disparities. Respondents
may provide information for one or more topics below, as desired.
1. What existing reports or research should the Federal government
review to better understand and assess the status of data collection,
use, and transparency in STLT law enforcement agencies? What are the
findings of researchers, groups, and organizations researching the
status of law enforcement agencies' data practices in general and
disaggregated by sociodemographic and geographic variables in
particular?
2. What are promising and effective models for, and what are
lessons learned from, how law enforcement agencies collect, use, and
share disaggregated data to inform policies, procedures, and training
to reduce disparities in policing? What are some examples of law
enforcement agencies using these models? Note: We are seeking models
and examples that collect, use, and share disaggregated data while
being intentional about when data are collected and shared, as well as
how data are protected.
3. What datasets are critical for law enforcement agencies to
collect in order to ensure the comprehensive and disaggregated
collection of operational data, incident-based datasets, and other data
to produce more equitable outcomes? Why?
4. What communities of practice or collaborations can law
enforcement agencies participate in to improve how they collect
comprehensive, quality, and disaggregated data to identify and address
disparities? How can the Federal government encourage and support the
development of collaborations to further promote the exchange of ideas
and best practices?
5. What is and is not working regarding how the Federal government
supports the collection, use, and transparency of disaggregated data on
law enforcement activities, and why?
6. What specific challenges and opportunities do small and
resource-constrained STLT law enforcement agencies face in the
collection, use, and transparency of disaggregated data to inform more
equitable outcomes?
7. How can software vendors (including those that build records
management systems (RMS) and other systems) improve software design,
development, and deployment to reduce barriers for law enforcement
agencies to collect, use, and share comprehensive, quality, and
disaggregated data and further incentivize them to produce more
equitable outcomes?
8. How might professional, academic, nonprofit, and philanthropic
organizations support and/or make investments to help law enforcement
agencies advance equitable and disaggregated data practices?
Data Collection
9. How might the Federal government better understand and improve
the technologies and data systems that law enforcement agencies use to
collect disaggregated data?
10. What standards must be implemented to reduce barriers to data
collection from law enforcement? What organizations or models of data
standards exist that could serve as a model to inform more standardized
police and criminal justice data collection in the future?
11. What are valuable models and lessons learned from data
collected by organizations, groups, and researchers other than law
enforcement agencies that are related to law enforcement activities?
How might these practices lead to the valuable data collection that law
enforcement agencies are unable or unwilling to collect on their own?
Use of Data
12. What are effective examples, and what lessons have been learned
from how law enforcement agencies use data policies, tools, and
practices to improve how police officers interact with underserved
populations?
13. What are examples of law enforcement agencies using data
policies, tools, and practices that have and have not improved how
police officers collect, maintain, review, and act upon data regarding
sexual assault, domestic violence, and other forms of gender-based
violence?
[[Page 10153]]
14. What investments in human capital and data infrastructure can
STLT law enforcement agencies make to disaggregate data and conduct
equity assessments to inform policies, programs, and protocols to
reduce disparities?
15. How might philanthropic organizations and academic researchers
work effectively with government officials to evaluate and improve data
collection, use, and transparency practices for small and resource-
constrained STLT law enforcement agencies?
Data Transparency
16. What are exemplary models of police-community partnerships
where police actively work with the community to share data findings
and discuss how these data can address community needs? What lessons
have been learned?
17. To what extent do law enforcement agencies currently make data
publicly available about their efforts to reduce disparities in
policing outcomes? What are examples and opportunities for law
enforcement agencies to use relevant and accessible approaches to data
transparency?
18. How might small and resource-constrained jurisdictions
participate in public data sharing and use it to inform decision-making
and increase accountability?
19. What relationship-building and what resources would be
effective for expanding opportunities for historically underrepresented
scholars and research institutions to access law enforcement data while
protecting privacy?
20. The E.O. intends to maximize STLT participation in the National
Incident-Based Report System (NIBRS). What are the barriers and
opportunities for improving agency participation in NIBRS, including
its hate crime reporting section and the FBI's National Use-Of-Force
Data Collection?
21. How might the Federal government better share the criminal
justice data it collects through surveys and programs like these in a
manner that assists and empowers STLT government officials,
researchers, and civil society to make use of such data to understand
trends and inform policy decisions?
Dated: February 10, 2023.
Rachel Wallace,
Deputy General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 2023-03260 Filed 2-15-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3270-F1-P
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