Bureau of Justice Statistics grants

This program focuses on enhancing the technical capacity and efficiency of the NIBRS Estimation System, improving the timeliness of crime and arrest estimates, refining measurement methodologies and supporting state UCR program work.

The ASPP collection is BJS’s most comprehensive source of information on persons under community supervision, which accounts for the largest segment of the adult correctional population in the United States. At yearend 2023, more than two-thirds of persons under correctional supervision were supervised in the community on probation or parole (3,772,000), while almost one-third (1,852,900) were incarcerated in state or federal prisons or local jails. The ASPP collection fills a valuable role by measuring the number of persons under community supervision each year, the change in this number and factors associated with the change (such as movements onto and off community supervision), the characteristics of this population, and outcomes of supervision. Because these surveys measure the vast majority of the U.S. correctional population, the ASPP—and the Annual Probation Survey in particular—are the most complex and difficult of BJS’s annual correctional surveys. The goal of the ASPP is to accurately report on the number of individuals who are involved with correctional supervision in the community. Data are collected as a census from the known universe of probation and parole supervising agencies, using central reporters wherever possible to minimize burden on the public. The Annual Surveys of Probation and Parole collect data through the Annual Survey of Parole (CJ-7) sent to 52 agencies, the Annual Survey of Probation (CJ-8) sent to 229 central reporting agencies and those supervising at least one person on felony probation, and the Annual Survey of Probation-Misdemeanor Supervision (CJ-8M) sent to about 548 agencies supervising people on misdemeanor probation only. BJS collects data from state-level respondents in an effort to reduce burden whenever possible. The nature of the data collection presents a number of challenges, which BJS is continually working to address. These surveys collect information from both large and small agencies, which are located at various levels and branches of government and have highly diverse data record systems and resources. One challenge facing the collection is determining the quality of data when some respondents report the population as a count of supervised individuals and others report the number of cases probation or parole officers handle. BJS continuously seeks to improve the Annual Probation Survey in response to different populations. BJS anticipates making one award to cover the data collection, processing, and analysis activities for five reference years of ASPP data, 2026–2030. It is likely that this will be one award covering all five years. The project will begin October 1, 2026, and end September 30, 2031.