NCJ Number
201508
Date Published
October 2002
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This document sets forth guidelines to ensure the integrity of information disseminated by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
Abstract
Government-wide information quality guidelines have been issued under section 515 of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2001. These guidelines direct each Federal agency to issue its own guidelines to ensure and maximize the quality, utility, objectivity, and integrity of information disseminated by Federal agencies. BJS is the statistical agency of the Department of Justice and is responsible for the collection, analysis, publication, and dissemination of statistical information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operations of justice systems at all levels of government. The resources of BJS are primarily devoted to three functions: (1) maintaining statistical programs and data collection, (2) administering grant programs, and (3) ensuring the prompt and efficient dissemination of BJS statistics. The following performance standards explain the commitment to ensuring and maximizing the quality, utility, objectivity, and integrity of its publicly available statistics. BJS is dedicated to developing, maintaining, and disseminating all of its statistics in accordance with the highest professional and statistical standards. BJS is committed to maximizing the utility of its statistics to all users of BJS data, and to ensuring objectivity in the presentation of its statistics and in the procedures used to generate them. BJS is committed to protecting the integrity of its statistics from unauthorized access or revision to ensure that the data are not compromised through corruption or falsification. BJS maintains professional affiliations or working partnerships with several of the leading professional statistical associations in the Nation and around the world. The Federal legislation, rules, and regulations governing BJS statistics are described. There is an overview of the BJS data quality guidelines. The guidelines for privacy and maintaining confidentiality of data; initiating surveys, censuses, and other data collections; survey design and data collections; data transparency, analysis, and processing; and dissemination are discussed. The procedures to seek correction of BJS statistics are outlined. 2 appendices