CJEE EXTRACTS DEFINITIONS OF TERMS AND CONCEPTS

Following is a glossary of terms and concepts used in the CJEE
Extracts program and comments regarding their limitations.
These definitions are based largely on those used in the Census
Bureau's governmental finances and employment statistics
program.  The justice functional definitions were developed for
the original surveys of Justice Expenditure and Employment
(CJEE Surveys) and, as described in the "Differences in
operational definitions" section of CJEECOMP.TXT 
("Comparability Issues Between the CJEE Survey and the CJEE
Extracts Programs") on this zip archive, the justice
definitions cannot always be fully operationally implemented in
the CJEE Extracts series.
     
These terms are grouped into five categories:
-- governmental units and types of governments
-- population 
-- governmental expenditure
-- governmental employment
-- governmental functions.

GOVERNMENTAL UNITS AND TYPES OF GOVERNMENTS

A government is an organized entity whose governmental
character is evidenced by popular election of the officials or
their appointment by public officials, a high degree of public
accountability, and the power to raise revenue to provide
authorized services.  In addition, a governmental unit must
have sufficient discretion in the management of its own affairs
to distinguish it from the administrative structure of any
other governmental unit.  For detailed information concerning
the identification and classification of governments, see U.S.
Bureau of the Census, "Governmental Organization, 2002 Census
of Governments," Vol. 1, No. 2, GC02(1)-2, 2005, or at
http://www.census.gov/govs/.

Federal Government.  The term Federal encompasses all
activities of the United States Government other than
employment of the Armed Forces.  District of Columbia data are
excluded from this category and included with data for
municipalities.

State governments.  This category refers to the governments of
the 50 States that constitute the United States.

Local governments.  The Bureau of the Census classifies local
governments by five major types:
-- county
-- municipality
-- township
-- independent school district
-- special district.

Counties.  Organized county governments are found throughout
the Nation except in Connecticut, the District of Columbia,
Rhode Island, and limited portions of a few other States. 
These governments are legally designated as "boroughs" in
Alaska and "parishes" in Louisiana.  Excluded from county
government statistics and included with municipalities or
townships are certain local governments that combine area and
governmental characteristics of both counties and
municipalities or townships. 

Municipalities and townships. "Municipalities" as used in the
CJEE Extracts program includes two of the Census Bureau's
separate classes of local governments -- "municipalities" and
"townships."  A municipality is a political subdivision within
which a municipal corporation has been established to provide
general local government services for a specific population
concentration in a defined area.  A municipality may be legally
termed a city, village, borough (except in Alaska), or town
(except in the New England States, Minnesota, New York, and
Wisconsin).  Included in this category are certain cities that
are completely or substantially consolidated with their county
governments, operate outside the geographic limits of any
county, or for other reasons have no organized county
government operations within their boundaries. 

In the individual city tables, certain cities displayed are
either independent, being wholly outside any county area, or
operate entirely or in part as a consolidated city-county
government.  These governments are classified as municipalities
by the Census Bureau and are included as municipalities in the
tables presenting data by type of government.  In general,
these cities are more similar to large counties than to other
large cities in the scope of their justice responsibilities;
that is, in addition to police protection, which is the primary
justice function of most municipalities, these cities also
operate extensive judicial and correctional systems and may
have significant public defense expenditures.

The annual CJEE Extracts tables 15-17 and 20 display data for the 
independent cities of Washington, D.C. (which also has State-type 
responsibilities); Baltimore, Md.; and St. Louis, Mo., and for 
the consolidated city-county governments of San Francisco, Calif.; 
Denver, Colo.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Honolulu, HI; Indianapolis, Ind.;
Baton Rouge and New Orleans, La.; Boston, Mass.; New York City,
N.Y.; Philadelphia, Pa.; and Nashville-Davidson, Tenn.

Townships, as distinguished from municipalities, are created to
serve inhabitants of areas defined without regard to population 
concentration.  This classification is applied to local governments 
in 20 States, including government units officially designated as 
"towns" in the 6 New England States, New York, and Wisconsin; some
"plantations" in Maine; and some "locations" in New Hampshire. 
In Minnesota the terms "town" and "township" are used
interchangeably.  Data for townships are included under the
"municipalities" category.

Independent school districts.  These governments are organized
local entities providing public elementary, secondary, and/or
higher education, which, under State law, have sufficient
administration and fiscal autonomy to qualify as separate
governments.  Excluded are dependent public school systems of
county, municipal, township, or State governments.  Justice
data are not collected for these independent school districts
because these governments generally perform no justice
functions.  However, data for these governments are included in
the denominator when justice expenditure is presented as a
percentage of all government expenditure to allow comparisons
across States and governments that make varying use of these
districts.

Special districts.  These are organized local entities (other
than counties, municipalities, townships, and school districts)
authorized by State law to provide a limited number of
designated functions and with sufficient autonomy to qualify as
separate governments.  They are known by a variety of names,
including districts, authorities, boards, and commissions. 
Justice data are only collected for these districts where their 
primary purpose is either law enforcement or corrections.  Data 
for these governments are included in the denominator when justice
expenditure is presented as a percentage of all government
expenditure to allow comparisons across States and governments
that make varying use of these districts. 

POPULATION 

The "resident population" data used are for July 1 of each year
from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports.
They are consistent with the 1990 and 2000 decennial
enumerations and they do not include adjustments for census
coverage errors.  They are the most current estimates available
when the tables were assembled.  The data in the trend tables
may differ from population data used in single year tables
earlier in this series and in other sources that used estimates
available at the time they were prepared.


GOVERNMENTAL EXPENDITURE

Expenditure is all amounts of money paid out (net of recoveries
and any correcting transactions) other than for retirement of
debt (including interest), investment in securities, extensions
of loans, or agency transactions.  It includes only external
cash payments and excludes any intragovernmental transfers and
noncash transactions, such as the provision of meals or housing
of employees.  It also includes any payments financed from
borrowing, fund balances, intergovernmental revenue, and other
current revenue.  In several instances, two or more governments
share the expense of maintaining a court or a justice agency. 
In these cases, the allowable direct expenditure amount is
reported for each government in the appropriate category.

When a government pays pensions directly to retired employees
from appropriated funds, such payments are included as
expenditure of the government concerned.  However, State and
local government contributions to retirement systems they
operate are not included in expenditure data because many
governments make lump-sum contributions to plans covering all
government employees and cannot report separately for justice
employees.  Neither in governments' basic accounting records
(from which criminal justice expenditure figures are drawn) nor
in the records of their general-coverage employee benefit
systems is there usually any breakdown of amounts contributed
in terms of the various agencies or functions involved.  Nor has
an adequate procedure for calculating the proportion of such
contributions allocable to justice employees been developed
because of the wide variation in the coverage of various plans,
employee status requirements, benefit rates, and so forth. 
Expenditure is divided into major categories by character and
object as follows:

Direct expenditure is all expenditure except that classified as
intergovernmental and is further divided into two categories:
-- Direct current includes salaries, wages, fees, commissions,
and the purchase of supplies, materials, and contractual
services.
-- Capital outlay includes expenditure for the three object
categories of construction, equipment, and purchase of land and
existing structures.

Data are presented separately in the CJEE Extracts program for
State construction of correctional institutions; the "other"
category in those tables includes equipment and the purchase of
land and existing structures.

Construction:  Production of fixed works and structures as well
as additions, replacements, and major alterations thereto
undertaken either on a contract basis by private contractors or
through force account construction by the employees of the
government.  Included are the planning and designing of
specific projects; grading, landscaping, and other site
improvement; and providing equipment and facilities that are
integral parts of the structure.

Equipment:  Purchase and installation of apparatus,
furnishings, office equipment, motor vehicles, and the like
having an expected life of more than 5 years.  This includes
both additional equipment and replacements.  Rentals for
equipment, including rental payments that may be credited on
the purchase price if purchase options are exercised, are
classified as direct current expenditure.  Equipment and
facilities that are integral parts of constructed structures
are classified under construction.

Purchase of land and existing structures:  Purchase of these
assets as such, purchase of rights-of-way, title search, and
similar activities associated with purchase transactions.

Expenditure for interest on general debt, assistance and
subsidies, and insurance benefits are not applied to specific
functions because they are not ordinarily available on a
functional basis from government financial reports.  In
instances where bonded or mortgaged general indebtedness is
identified for specific purposes, the interest payments are
aggregated with other interest expenditures, which makes
reliable and consistent breakouts of such data over a long
period of time impossible.

Intergovernmental expenditure comprises payments from one
government to another, including grants-in-aid, shared
revenues, fiscal assistance, and amounts for services performed
by one government for another on a reimbursable or cost-sharing
basis (for example, payments by one government to another for
boarding prisoners).  It excludes amounts paid to other
governments for purchase of commodities, property, or utility
services; any tax imposed and paid as such; and employer
contributions for social insurance (for example, contributions
to the Federal Government for old-age, survivors', disability,
and health insurance and local government payments to
State-operated retirement systems on behalf of their
employees).

Total expenditure is direct and intergovernmental expenditure
of a government or type of government.  In the expenditure
tables, certain totals have been adjusted to exclude
duplicative intergovernmental expenditure amounts.  For
example, money paid by a State government to a county
government within that State is reported by the State
government as an intergovernmental expenditure and by the
county government as a direct expenditure when the money is
spent (for salaries, wages, equipment, and so forth). 
Therefore, to arrive at a combined State-local government total
that does not duplicate these transactions, intergovernmental
expenditure amounts are deducted from the State-local total
because those amounts also are reflected in the direct
expenditure of the recipient government.  The same treatment is
used for intergovernmental payments between counties and
municipalities within the same State when computing local
totals.  Totals reported for "all governments" also are
adjusted to exclude duplicative intergovernmental expenditure
involving the Federal government.

The column labeled "total direct expenditure" in the CJEE 
Extracts table 3 presents data for all government functions, including 
justice and non justice activities.  The comparable tables for the
1971-79 CJEE Survey reports limited these columns to "general
expenditure," which excluded utility system expenditure, liquor
store expenditure, and insurance trust expenditure.  The change
to the all-inclusive "total expenditure" category was made in
1982 to allow comparison of justice expenditure with all
government spending.  Comparable data for all years can be
found in annual Census Bureau Governmental Finances reports,
Series GF, No. 5.

Character and object are two standard governmental accounting
classifications of expenditure data used by the Census Bureau
as a single entity in the presentation of expenditure data.
Character refers to the period of time the expenditure is
presumed to benefit.  The four character groupings are: (1)
current operating expenses, presumed to benefit the current
fiscal period; (2) capital outlays, presumed to benefit the
current and future periods, (3) intergovernmental, when one
government transfers resources to another; and (4) debt
service, presumed to benefit prior fiscal periods as well as
current and future periods. Debt service is not applicable to
available justice expenditure data.  Object applies to the
article purchased or the service obtained, for example,
personal services, contractual services, equipment, and
construction.  (Definitions adapted from Government Finance
Officers Association, "Government Accounting, Auditing, and
Financial Reporting," pages 319 and 343, Chicago: 1994, as
provided by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.) 

Variable pass-through expenditure data were collected through
the CJEE Surveys.  Those data were developed to comply with the
Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended,
which required that block grants made by the Law Enforcement
Assistance Administration (LEAA), and later by the Bureau of
Justice Assistance (BJA), to each State be allocated between
the State and local governments on the basis of the ratio of
State-to-local law enforcement expenditure from their "own
revenue sources."  The Justice System Improvement Act of 1979
changed the distribution formula and based the new one on
expenditure from "general purpose revenue sources." The Justice
Assistance Act of 1984 returned to the variable pass-through
formula.  Justice expenditure data cannot be produced on either
basis from this limited CJEE Extracts program.


GOVERNMENTAL EMPLOYMENT

Employment and employees refer to all persons gainfully
employed by and performing services for a government. 
Employees include all persons paid for personal services
performed, including persons paid from federally funded
programs, paid elected officials, persons in a paid-leave
status, and persons paid on a "per meeting," annual,
semiannual, or quarterly basis.  Unpaid officials, pensioners,
persons whose work is performed on a fee basis, and contractors
and their employees are excluded from the count of employees.

Under this definition are two classes:

Full-time employees include those persons whose hours of work
represent full-time employment in their employer government
during the pay period including October 12 of the year
specified in the table for 1980 to 1997.  Generally, it includes 
full-time temporary or seasonal workers employed during that pay 
period.  October is used because public employment is relatively
stable in that month and free from seasonal employment 
fluctuations. In 1997 the reference month changed to March of 
each year.  

Part-time employees are those persons who work less than the
standard number of hours for full-time work in their employer
government during the pay period including October 12 of the
year specified in the table and persons paid by more than one
government.

Full-time equivalent employment is a statistical measure that
estimates the total workforce accounting for the less than
full-time employment of part-time employees.  Prior to 1986,
the formula for computing full-time equivalent employment was
payroll-based; specifically, it was calculated by dividing the
total payroll amount (full-time plus part-time) by the
full-time payroll amount and multiplying the resultant quotient
by the number of full-time employees.  Beginning in 1986, it is
computed by dividing the part-time hours paid by the standard
number of hours for full-time employees in the particular
government and then adding the resulting quotient to the number
of full-time employees.  In both formulae, the calculation is
performed separately at the individual function type for each
respondent government.  Consequently, summaries by State, type
of government, and function are aggregates of individual
calculations. 

The formula was changed because the previously used
payroll-based formula necessarily assumed that there is little
or no difference between average wage rates for full-time and
part-time workers -- however, this is seldom the case. 
Part-time pay scales are generally below those for full-time
workers, thus resulting in an understatement of full-time
equivalent employment.  The understatement was estimated at
between 2.8% and 3.8% at the national level.  The previously
used payroll-based methodology may also produce a "trend bias"
if the rate of change in part-time employment is different from
that in full-time employment.  Users should keep in mind the
expected understatement of FTE in years prior to 1986 when
making trend comparisons.

October and March payrolls represent gross payrolls for the 1-month
period of October or March and comprise the gross payroll before
deductions.  It includes all salaries, wages, fees, or
commissions paid to employees during the pay period including
October 12 or March 12 of the year cited in the table.  Payroll amounts
reported for a period other than 1 month were converted to
represent an amount for the month of October or March.

Average monthly salaries are for full-time employees only and
are calculated by dividing full-time employee payrolls by the
number of full-time employees for October of the year indicated
in the table.

GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS

General government functions include all activities other than
those classed as public utilities (water supply, electric
power, gas supply, and transit systems), liquor stores
(dispensaries operated by 17 State governments and by local
governments of 5 States, as of 2008), and insurance trust
systems (no employment data are associated with insurance
trusts).  All government functions include the latter.

Justice is the combined functions of police protection,
judicial and legal services, and corrections as defined in
detail below.  As noted below, it consistently includes civil
justice functions as well as criminal justice functions where
criminal functions cannot be segregated in available source
documents.

Police protection is the function of enforcing the law, and
preserving order and traffic safety and apprehending those who
violate the law, whether these activities are performed by a
police department, a sheriff's department, or a special police
force maintained by an agency whose primary responsibility is
outside the justice system but that has a police force to
perform these activities in its specialized area (geographic or
functional).  However, see the "Differences in operational
definitions" section of CJEECOMP.TXT  ("Comparability Issues
Between the CJEE Survey and the CJEE Extracts Programs") on
this zip archive for areas where this definition is difficult
to apply in the CJEE Extracts series. 

This category includes:
-- regular police services
-- police patrols and communications
-- crime prevention activities
-- temporary lockups and "holding tanks"
-- traffic safety and engineering (but not highway planning and
engineering)
-- vehicular inspection and licensing
-- buildings used exclusively for police purposes
-- the maintenance of buildings used for police purposes
-- medical examiners and coroners
-- law enforcement activities of sheriffs' offices 
-- unsworn school crossing guards, parking meter readers, and
animal wardens, if employed by a police agency.

Private security police are outside the scope of the survey.

The special police forces included in the data are only those
that are part of a general purpose government.  Those special
police forces that are part of independent school districts or
special districts are not included in the data, inasmuch as
these districts are not general purpose governments.

Police protection employment data are further divided between:
-- sworn employees, which represent persons with the power of
arrest
-- nonsworn employees, which are all others.

In most States, sheriff's departments are multifunctional
agencies providing police protection, judicial, and/or
correctional services.  In order to allocate expenditure and
employment data to the proper activity, the data for sheriff
departments are prorated, resulting in differences in other
police reporting programs such as the BJS Law Enforcement,
Management, and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) program and
the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program, which report
the numbers of employees in law enforcement agencies regardless
of functions performed. 

Short-term custody and detention are considered part of the
police protection function.  Data for lockups or "tanks"
holding prisoners less than 48 hours are included in the police
protection category.  Data for institutions with authority to
hold prisoners 48 hours or more are included in the corrections
category.

Judicial and legal services covers all civil and criminal
activities associated with courts, including prosecution and
public defense.  However, see the "Differences in operational
definitions" section of CJEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues
Between the CJEE Survey and the CJEE Extracts Programs") on
this zip archive for areas where this definition is difficult
to apply in the CJEE Extracts series. 

The "judicial and legal services" category in the CJEE Extracts
series includes the following court functions covered as a
separate category in the periodic CJEE Survey: 
-- civil and criminal functions of courts at all levels of
legal jurisdiction: appellate (last resort and intermediate),
general jurisdiction, and limited jurisdiction
-- activities associated with courts, such as law libraries,
grand juries, petit juries, and medical and social service
activities (except probation, which is classified as
corrections where separately identifiable)
-- court reporters, judicial councils, bailiffs, and "register
of wills" and similar probate functions, court ("civil")
activities of sheriff offices in some jurisdictions.

Also, included in the "judicial and legal" category are all
civil and criminal justice activities of prosecution and legal
service agencies.  It includes the following prosecution and
legal service activities covered as a separate category in the
periodic CJEE Survey: 
-- attorneys general, district attorneys, State's attorneys,
and their variously named equivalents
-- corporation counsels, solicitors, and legal departments with
various names including those providing legal advice to the
chief executives and subordinate departmental officers,
representation of the government in law suits, and the
prosecution of accused violators of criminal law
-- various investigative agencies having full arrest powers and
attached to offices of attorneys general, district attorneys,
or their variously named equivalents.

These activities are included whether performed by one office
or several because in some jurisdictions a single office
provides all legal services, whereas in others a prosecutor's
office handles only criminal matters and a separate attorney's
office performs all civil legal services. 

Also included in the "judicial and legal" category are the
civil and criminal justice activities of public defenders,
other agencies that provide legal counsel and representation in
either criminal or civil proceedings, and other government
programs that pay the fees of court-appointed counsel.  It
includes the following public defense activities covered as a
separate category in the periodic CJEE Survey: 
-- court-paid fees to individually retained counsel
-- fees paid by the court to court-appointed counsel
-- government contributions to private legal aid societies and
bar association-sponsored programs
-- activities of an established public defender office or
program.

This category excludes:
-- monetary judgments and claims or other payments of a
government as a defendant in judicial or administrative
proceedings
-- legal units of noncriminal justice agencies, whose functions
may be performed by a legal service department in other
jurisdictions (such as a county counsel).

Corrections is that function of government involving the
confinement and rehabilitation of adults and juveniles
convicted of offenses against the law and the confinement of
persons suspected of a crime and awaiting adjudication.
However, see the "Differences in operational definitions"
section of CJEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the
CJEE Survey and the CJEE Extracts Programs") on this zip
archive for areas where this definition is difficult to apply
in the CJEE Extracts series. 

Corrections direct expenditure for State governments is further
divided into two subcategories:
-- correctional institutions
-- other corrections.

Correctional institutions are any facilities for the
confinement and correction of convicted adults or juveniles
adjudicated delinquent or in need of supervision and for the
detention of those adults and juveniles accused of a crime and
awaiting trial or hearing.  (Data for lockups or "tanks"
holding prisoners less than 48 hours are included in the police
protection category.)

 Correctional institutions include:
-- prisons and penitentiaries
-- reformatories
-- jails
-- houses of correction
-- other variously named correctional institutions, such as
correctional farms, workhouses, industrial schools, and
training schools
-- institutions and facilities exclusively for the confinement
of the criminally insane
-- institutions and facilities for the examination, evaluation,
classification, and assignment of inmates 
-- facilities for the confinement, treatment, and
rehabilitation of drug addicts and alcoholics, if the
institution is administered by a correctional agency.

When an institution maintains a prison industry or agricultural
program, data on the cost of production or the value of prison
labor used by agencies of the same government, if identifiable,
are excluded (and classed as expenditure for the function using
the product or services).  Expenditure for the manufacture,
production, sale, and distribution of goods produced for sale
or use outside the government is included under this heading. 
It excludes the cost of maintaining prisoners in institutions
of other governments, which are classified as an
intergovernmental expenditure for which the "institutions" vs.
"other corrections" distinctions are not applied.

Other corrections consists of all noninstitutional correctional
activities, including--
-- parole boards and programs
-- pardon boards
-- nonresidential resettlement or halfway houses for those not
in need of institutionalization
-- probation activities and programs, even if administered by a
court (but see the "Differences in operational definitions"
section of CJEECOMP.TXT ("Comparability Issues Between the
CJEE Survey and the CJEE Extracts Programs") on this zip
archive for areas where this definition is difficult to apply
in the CJEE Extracts series.
-- correctional administration not directly connectable to
institutions
-- payments to another government for boarding prisoners are
classified as "intergovernmental expenditure" for which the
"institutions" and "other corrections" distinctions discussed
above are not applied.  In practice, intergovernmental payments
of this type are difficult to detect for insignificant amounts
between local governments.
-- miscellaneous items that cannot be directly related to
institutional care.  
