National Sources of Law Enforcement Employment Data

• NCJ Number: 249681
• Date Published: April 2016
• Author(s): Duren Banks; Joshua Hendrix; Matthew Hickman; Tracey Kyckelhahn
• Length: 17 pages
• Agencies: BJS
• Publication Type: Survey; Statistics; Report (Technical Assistance); Issue Overview; Instructional Material

Annotation

This report describes the similarities and differences among the three national data resources that collect law enforcement employment statistics and discusses when the use of one may be preferred over the others.

Abstract

This report describes and compares three law enforcement employment data sources: 1) the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, 2) the Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll (ASPEP), and 3) the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA). The three sources provide information about the nature and scope of law enforcement employment in the United States. The sources use different definitions and vary in their periodicity and levels of coverage. This report provides recommended uses for the data sources.