NCJ Number
239502
Date Published
September 2012
Length
48 pages
Annotation
This report presents findings from the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ's) Office of the Inspector General's (OIG's) follow-up audit in order to determine whether DOJ's components took appropriate actions to implement the recommendations from OIG's 2007 audit, as well as whether corrective actions implemented improved the components' ability to collect, track, classify, verify, and report accurate terrorism-related statistics.
Abstract
Although the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD) revised its procedures for collecting, classifying, and reporting terrorism-related statistics based on the recommendations from the 2007 audit, the NSD's revised procedures were ineffective in ensuring that terrorism-related statistics were accurately reported. In the current audit, the OIG identified nine unique terrorism-related statistics reported by the NSD in budget submissions or other documents for fiscal years 2009 through 2012; the audit selected five of the nine statistics to test for accuracy. The OIG determined that the NSD did not accurately report four of the five statistics reviewed. Such inaccurate reporting indicates the NSD must further strengthen its application of controls for collecting, verifying, and reporting its terrorism-related statistics. After documenting the reasons for the inaccurate reporting, this audit report offers three recommendations to help the NSD improve the accuracy and documentary support for the terrorism-related statistics it reports. Such documentation should support the individuals, cases, or other applicable data necessary to support the overall number or percentage reported for each statistics. Accurate statistics are critical, since they are used by DOJ's management and Congress to make budgetary and operational decisions. Appended audit objectives, scope, and methodology; other prior audits and inspections that reviewed or touched upon the accuracy of terrorism-related statistics reported by the DOJ; the NSD's response to the draft audit report; and OIG's analysis and summary of actions necessary to close the report