SLEPS Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) Survey
The sampling frame for the 2019 SLEPS LEA survey was derived from the 2018 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA). The CSLLEA provides a complete enumeration of all publicly funded state, county, and local law enforcement agencies operating in the United States. The 2018 CSLLEA asked agencies to report the number of full-time sworn officers with general or full arrest powers who served as SROs or whose primary duties were related to safety in K–12 schools for the last pay period of the 2017–2018 school year. SLEPS targeted local police departments, sheriffs’ offices, and school-based agencies that employed one or more full-time sworn SROs. To create the SLEPS LEA sampling frame, BJS filtered the approximately 18,000 agencies in the 2018 CSLLEA down to the agency types of interest for SLEPS: municipal, county, and regional police departments (referred to in this report as local police departments); sheriffs’ offices; and school-based agencies.
The final SLEPS sampling frame consisted of 6,096 agencies. Of these agencies, 2,026 were sampled for the SLEPS LEA survey. The sample represented all local law enforcement agencies, sheriffs’ offices, and school-based agencies in the United States that employed one or more full-time sworn SROs.
Of the 2,026 agencies selected for the LEA survey, 162 were identified as ineligible during data collection because they no longer employed any officers who were primarily assigned to work in public K–12 schools.
A total of 1,524 agencies completed the SLEPS LEA questionnaire, for a response rate of 81.8%. Local police departments had a response rate of 84.3%, sheriffs’ offices had a response rate of 81.5%, and school-based agencies had a response rate of 74.6%.
SLEPS School Resource Officer (SRO) Survey
The sampling frame for the 2019 SLEPS SRO survey was based on sworn SRO rosters received during the first phase of the SLEPS data collection. Of the 1,524 agencies that completed the LEA survey, 1,153 of those agencies provided an SRO roster. Five agencies that did not meet the completion threshold for the LEA survey provided a roster. The rosters from these 1,158 agencies were combined to develop an SRO frame, from which a sample of sworn SROs were selected to receive the SLEPS SRO survey.
SRO data collection was divided into two waves, and wave assignment was based on the date that the agency submitted its SRO roster. Rosters received on or before October 31, 2019, were assigned to Wave 1. Rosters received November 1, 2019, through the end of LEA data collection in February 2020 were assigned to Wave 2.
Of the 1,158 agencies, 726 provided a roster before the Wave 1 cutoff date, and the compilation of these rosters resulted in a frame of 4,802 SROs. Wave 2 included 432 agencies, and the compilation of those rosters resulted in a frame of 4,062 SROs. In total, 8,864 SROs were listed in rosters across both waves. From the Wave 1 frame, 2,184 SROs were sampled. From the Wave 2 frame, 1,591 SROs were selected for the sample.
Survey invitations to Wave 1 SROs were mailed in December 2019, and data collection remained open through early July 2020. Mailouts to Wave 2 SROs were scheduled to begin in late March 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wave 2 data collection was postponed until fall 2020 and ultimately cancelled. Wave 2 SROs were treated as nonrespondents. Many schools began the school year virtually and SROs were not working in schools.
A total of 1,696 SROs completed the SLEPS SRO questionnaire, for a response rate of 81.8% for Wave 1 SROs. With the cancellation of Wave 2, the overall response rate was 46%.
