May 19 -- The Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics invites comments to OMB by June 26, 2023 regarding the Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ) . [Comments due 30 days after submission to OMB on May 25, 2023.]
The ASJ is the only national collection that tracks annual changes in the local jail population in the United States and provides national estimates on the number of persons confined in jails, the number of persons jails supervised in programs outside jail, characteristics of the jail population, counts of admissions and releases, and number of staff employed. Policymakers, correctional administrators, and government officials use the ASJ data to develop new policies and procedures, plan budgets, and maintain critical oversight. The ASJ is fielded every year except in the years when BJS conducts the Census of Jails (OMB Control No. 1121–0100). BJS requests clearance for the 2023 and 2025 ASJ under OMB Control No. 1121–0094. In 2024, BJS plans to conduct the Census of Jails and will not field the ASJ in the same year. In 2023, BJS will introduce a verification module to the web instrument to update (1) the agency's contact information; (2) regional and private jail flags; (3) the name and address of the facilities under the agency's jurisdiction; and (4) eligibility of each facility to be included in the ASJ.
Administered to a sample of approximately 940 local jails nationwide, the ASJ provides national estimates on the number of persons confined in jails, characteristics of the jail population, the number of persons jails supervised in programs outside jail, counts of admissions and releases, and number of staff employed. The ASJ is the only national data collection that tracks jail population size and characteristics from year to year. Policymakers, correctional administrators, and government officials use the ASJ data to develop new policies and procedures, plan budgets, and maintain critical oversight.
Local jails are the entry point to the correctional system, processing more persons per year than prisons and parole/probation agencies combined. Although jails hold about half as many inmates as prisons on any given day, they admit nearly twenty times as many people as prisons. From July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, local jails admitted 6.9 million inmates and managed an average daily population of about 618,600 inmates. At midyear 2021, 29% of the confined jail population were sentenced offenders or convicted offenders awaiting sentencing, and 71% were unconvicted inmates being held for a variety of reasons (including inability to meet bail, awaiting trial, mental health holds, drug or alcohol detoxification, and temporary holds for federal, state, or other local authorities).
As the primary source for criminal justice statistics in the United States, BJS is responsible for collecting, analyzing, publishing, and disseminating statistical information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operations of criminal justice systems at all levels of government. BJS conducts two studies regularly to collect administrative data from local jails. The Census of Jails (COJ) is administered periodically to collect jail population and facility data from the approximately 2,850 jail jurisdictions in the United States. To save cost and reduce respondent burden, BJS conducts the COJ every 5 to 6 years and administers the ASJ to a sample of jails in the years between the censuses to provide national estimates of the size and characteristics of the local jail population. Jails in the ASJ sample are surveyed annually for 4 to 5 years before the next sample refresh. The 2023 ASJ sample was selected in 2020 based on the 2019 COJ data. In 2025, the ASJ sample will be refreshed based on the 2024 COJ data.
The ASJ is the only national jail study that tracks annual changes in the jail population. As with recent iterations of the ASJ, the 2023 and 2025 ASJ will collect data on one-day custody counts by sex, race/ethnicity, and age group, conviction status, and severity of offense (felony vs. misdemeanor), counts of U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens, holds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other state and federal authorities, persons supervised in programs outside a jail facility, average daily population, and admissions and releases. Data on facility characteristics, including rated capacity and staffing, will also be collected. These statistics will be published in BJS’s annual Jail Inmates bulletin. Jail-level data will be archived at the National Archives of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD).
BJS adapts each iteration of the ASJ collection to meet the changing needs and interests of jail administrators, policymakers, and researchers. Recent updates of the ASJ instrument include three new items introduced in 2020: counts by age group, counts of non-U.S. citizens by conviction status, and counts of probation violators and parole violators. The 2020 and 2021 ASJ instruments included a special module to collect data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local jails. All new items were added to the instrument after appropriate OMB approval. The 2023 and 2025 ASJ forms will be the same as the 2022 ASJ form approved under OMB Control No. 1121-0094, but with updated reference days and time periods (see Attachment A. Form CJ-5). In 2023, BJS will introduce a verification module to the web instrument before the survey questions.
ASJ Program:
https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/annual-survey-jails-asj
BJS submission to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202304-1121-004 Click IC List for information collection instrument, View Supporting Statement for technical documentation. Submit comments through this webpage.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-10697
For AEA members wishing to submit comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806