FOR STATE AND TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS: Section 103 of the Act, regarding implementation assistance to the states, says that the grants "shall be used by the States and Indian tribal governments, in conjunction with units of local government and State and local courts, to establish or upgrade information and identification technologies for firearms eligibility determinations."
The law says that grants to states or American Indian tribes may only be used to—
- create electronic systems, which provide accurate and up-to-date information that is directly related to checks under the NICS, including court disposition and corrections records
- assist states in establishing or enhancing their own capacities to perform NICS background checks
- supply accurate and timely information to the Attorney General concerning final dispositions of criminal records to databases accessed by NICS
- supply accurate and timely information to the Attorney General concerning the identity of persons who have a federally prohibiting mental health adjudication or commitment
- supply accurate and timely court orders and records of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence for inclusion in federal and state law enforcement databases used to conduct NICS background checks
- collect and analyze data needed to demonstrate levels of state compliance with the Act
- maintain the relief from disabilities program in accordance with Section 105, but not less than 3% and no more than 10% of each grant shall be used for this purpose.
FOR STATE COURT SYSTEMS: Section 301 of the Act, regarding grants to state court systems for the improvement of automation and transmittal of disposition records, says that grants be made to each state, consistent with state plans for the integration, automation, and accessibility of criminal history records, for use by the state court system to improve automation and transmittal to federal and state repositories of—
- criminal history dispositions
- records relevant to determining whether a person has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or a prohibiting domestic violence protection order
- prohibiting mental adjudications and commitments.
The law says that the amounts granted will be used by the state court system only —
(1) to carry out, as necessary, assessments of the capabilities of state courts to automate and transmit arrest and conviction records, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to federal and state record repositories; and
(2) to implement policies, systems, and procedures to automate and transmit arrest and" conviction records, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to federal and state record repositories.
In 2023, 24 inmates were executed in the United States. The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) Capital Punishment reports present characteristics of persons under sentence of death and persons executed, and summarize the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status. See Prisoners executed under civil authority in the United States, by year, region, and jurisdiction for additional data on executions.
The ARD program is a national census of persons who die either during the process of arrest or while in the custody of state or local law enforcement personnel. The data collection occurs each year and covers all manner of arrest-related deaths, including—
- deaths due to police use of lethal force or justifiable homicide
- suicides
- accidental deaths
- deaths attributed to intoxication and medical conditions that occur during a civilian interaction with state or local law enforcement.
BJS publications are available to view online for free and are not available in hardcopy.
The average length of basic training for all state and local law enforcement academies in 2022 was 806 hours. Of all state and local academies, 89% reported that field training was mandatory for some or all recruits after they completed basic training. Of academies that oversaw field training, the average length of that training was 503 hours. In 2022, the highest average number of hours of instruction was dedicated to firearms skills (73 hours), followed by defensive tactics (64) and health and fitness (56). Nearly all recruits were instructed in legal subjects in 2022, receiving about 51 hours of instruction in criminal and constitutional law, 26 hours in traffic law, and 10 hours in juvenile justice law.
In 2022, about 84% of training academies had a minimum law enforcement experience requirement for full-time instructors. Among academies with a minimum experience requirement, the average was about 5 years. Overall, 29% of training academies reported that full-time instructors must have a 2-year college degree or higher degree. In addition to law enforcement experience and education requirements, most academies required full-time instructors to have state or POST certification (85%), qualified subject matter expertise (93%), or academy certification (89%).
BJS periodically collects data on pregnancy at admission and maternal health services received since admission in its Survey of Prison Inmates and Survey of Inmates in Local Jails. BJS has released maternal health data from these collections and has also published an annual report based on data collected from the Federal Bureau of Prisons under the First Step Act. BJS conducted a study and released a report on the feasibility of collecting maternal health data at the state, federal, local, and tribal levels. Most recently, BJS released a report on maternal healthcare and pregnancy prevalence and outcomes for persons in custody of state or federal correctional authorities
Organizations eligible to participate in the IPA Mobility Program include—
- state and local governments
- domestic colleges and universities that are accredited
- Indian tribal governments
- federally funded research and development centers
- other eligible organizations
Under the revised IPA Mobility Program regulations (5 CFR part 334), OJP is responsible for certifying the eligibility of “other organizations” for participation in the IPA Mobility Program.
Other eligible organizations include national, regional, state-wide, area-wide, or metropolitan organizations, with a representing member from—
- state or local governments
- associations of state or local public officials
- nonprofit organizations that, as one of their principal functions, provide services, such as professional advisory, research, educational, and developmental to governments or universities concerned with public management
- federally funded research and development centers.
An employee of a nonfederal organization must be employed by that organization in a career position for at least 90 days before entering into an IPA agreement. The Department of Justice requires that participants be U.S. citizens. Individuals excluded from participating include—
- federal, state, or local government employees serving under noncareer, excepted service, noncompetitive, time-limited, temporary, or term appointments
- elected federal, state, or local government officials
- members of the uniformed military services and the Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- students employed in research, graduate or teaching assistant positions, or similar temporary positions.
Interagency Personnel Agreement (IPA) participants are selected by the BJS director or a designee and are based on the employee’s qualifications and interests, BJS needs, and the mutual benefits to BJS and the organization employing the candidate. IPA projects should focus on improving one or more of BJS’s statistical programs. BJS’s statistical programs and data collections are described on the BJS website at https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collections.
Recent BJS efforts to improve its statistical infrastructure have focused on survey design, the use of administrative records for statistical purposes, data quality assessments, and record linkage. There is a wide range of opportunities for an IPA within these general areas. For example, the survey design area includes sampling for continuous administration of establishment surveys and alternative sample designs for the National Crime Victimization Survey that address within-place explicit stratification to increase the number of victims who respond to the survey.
BJS is interested in developing survey instruments for new topical areas and aligning BJS’s surveys with other national survey instruments to facilitate comparisons. Within the area of using administrative records, BJS and the federal statistical system have interests in developing an administrative records analogue to the total survey error model for sample surveys.
Examples of other areas of interest include—
- National Crime Victimization Survey—
- Small area estimation, using both sample data collected directly within states and model-based approaches
- Interviewing juveniles and persons younger than age 12 on sensitive topics related to criminal victimization.
- Law enforcement statistics—
- Demonstrating the utility of incident-based crime statistics (such as the National Incident-Based Reporting System) for statistical, research, and evaluation purposes.
- Recidivism statistics—
- Assessing the quality of criminal history records (also known as records of arrest and prosecution, or RAP sheets) for completeness and operational and statistical uses
- Federal justice statistics—
- Assessing the quality of imputation and using the “dyad link” file in the Federal Justice Statistics Program.
- Indian country statistics—
- Designing and conducting surveys of criminal justice systems in Indian country with assistance from experts on Indian country issues.
- Juvenile justice statistics—
- Using existing BJS statistical program data to develop statistics on juvenile victims and offenders, and on contact of juveniles with adult criminal justice agencies.
Because the range of topics is potentially wide, individuals interested in considering an IPA arrangement should talk with BJS about their ideas.