[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
OVERSIGHT OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE
INFORMATION SERVICES (CJIS) DIVISION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-104
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
57-832 WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JERROLD NADLER, New York, Ranking
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Member
TOM McCLINTOCK, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
CHIP ROY, Texas Georgia
DAN BISHOP, North Carolina ERIC SWALWELL, California
VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana TED LIEU, California
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon J. LUIS CORREA, California
BEN CLINE, Virginia MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
LANCE GOODEN, Texas LUCY McBATH, Georgia
JEFF VAN DREW, New Jersey MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
TROY NEHLS, Texas VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
BARRY MOORE, Alabama DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming GLENN IVEY, Maryland
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
LAUREL LEE, Florida JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
WESLEY HUNT, Texas ERICA LEE CARTER, Texas
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina
MICHAEL RULLI, Ohio
Vacancy
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona, Chair
TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin LUCY McBATH, Georgia, Ranking
TROY NEHLS, Texas Member
BARRY MOORE, Alabama MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
KEVIN KILEY, California CORI BUSH, Missouri
LAUREL LEE, Florida STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
Vacancy Georgia
JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
AARON HILLER, Minority Staff Director & Chief of Staff
C O N T E N T S
----------
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Andy Biggs, Chair of the Subcommittee on Crime and
Federal Government Surveillance from the State of Arizona...... 1
The Honorable Lucy McBath, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime and Federal Government Surveillance from the State of
Georgia........................................................ 2
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 4
WITNESS
Timothy A. Ferguson, Assistant Director, Criminal Justice
Information Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Oral Testimony................................................. 5
Prepared Testimony............................................. 8
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted for the record by the Subcommittee on
Crime and Federal Government Surveillance are listed below..... 34
A report entitled, ``UCR Summary of Crime in the Nation, 2023,''
Sept. 2024, Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Criminal
Justice Information Services Division, U.S. Department of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, submitted by Jesus G.
``Chuy'' Garcia, a Member of the Subcommittee on Crime and
Federal Government Surveillance from the State of Illinois, for
the record
An article entitled, ``Stealth Edit: FBI Quietly Revises Violent
Crime Stats,'' Oct. 16, 2024, RealClearInvestigations,
submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance from
the State of Arizona, for the record
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance from
the State of Arizona, for the record
A report entitled, ``Criminal Victimization, 2021,'' Sept.
2022, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice
A report entitled, ``Criminal Victimization, 2022,'' Sept.
2023, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice
A report entitled, ``Criminal Victimization, 2023,'' Sept.
2024, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice
Additional information on data collection of crimes from the
agencies, submitted by the Criminal Justice Information
Services Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation
OVERSIGHT OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION SERVICES (CJIS) DIVISION
----------
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:29 a.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Andy Biggs
[Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Biggs, Tiffany, Nehls, Moore,
Kiley, Lee, Fry, McBath, Johnson, and Garcia.
Also present: Representative Lee Carter.
Mr. Biggs. The Subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess at any time.
We welcome everyone to today's hearing on Oversight of the
Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the FBI.
I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore, to
lead us in the pledge of allegiance.
All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Moore.
I now recognize Ms. McBath to introduce us into a moment of
silence.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Gun violence has ripped apart another community and
traumatized more students in their place of learning. Just
yesterday, another teacher and another teenager lost their
lives, and children lost their sense of security to preventable
gun violence. We have the tools, and we have the means to stop
these horrors and help stop this from happening.
With the permission of the Chair, I ask all of you to
please join me in a moment of silence.
Mr. Biggs. All of you please join us in a respectful moment
of silence.
[Moment of silence.]
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
We welcome everyone to today's hearing on Oversight of the
Criminal Justice Information Services Division of the FBI.
The CJIS was created in 1992 with the purpose of serving as
a central operating system and location for Criminal Justice
Information Services. The CJIS Division provides support to law
enforcement, national security partners, and the intelligence
community, while also offering some services to the public.
These functions include the Uniform Crime Reporting system as
well as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System;
so, that's UCR and NICS.
With a 986-acre campus in Clarksburg, West Virginia, with
more than 3,000 employees and contractors, CJIS is the largest
division in the FBI. Since 1930, the FBI has collected and
published crime data through its UCR program. The UCR program
compiles crime data submitted by State and local law
enforcement agencies across the country and publishes the
information in annual reports. More than 18,000 city, county,
State, Tribal, and Federal law enforcement agencies reported
crime data to the FBI in 2023.
However, the submission of crime data to the FBI is
voluntary. According to one estimate, over 30 percent of police
departments nationwide did not report crime data to the FBI.
The crime data published by the FBI's UCR program helps inform
policymakers and the public about the State of crime in the
United States.
The crime data also plays an important role in how Federal
grant dollars are allocated to State and local jurisdictions.
For example, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance
Grant, the JAG program, which is managed by the Bureau of
Justice Assistance at the Department of Justice, allocates
Federal grant dollars to State and local jurisdictions based on
the population of the jurisdiction and the number of violent
crimes reported to the FBI.
In January 2021, the FBI retired the outdated Summary
Reporting System, SRS, and made the National Incident-Based
Reporting System, NIBRS, the only method for law enforcement
agencies to report crime data to the FBI. The NIBRS program
allows law enforcement agencies to report much more detailed
crime data, such as the date and time of the crime, the
relationship between victim and offender, drug types and
quantities, specific property involved in the crime, and many
other data points. The data that gets submitted to NIBRS also
includes assaults on law enforcement officers and hate crimes.
In 2022, there were 19,139 law enforcement agencies
enrolled in the program, but only 12,725 of them reported crime
data. The FBI has been estimating crime data since 1960, but in
2017, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and
the FBI worked together to develop the NIBRS estimation
project. When an agency fails to submit crime data, whether for
a single month or an entire year, the NIBRS estimation
methodology quote, ``approximates what the expected value would
be for that missing data.''
The FBI concedes that the estimates themselves are subject
to levels of uncertainty caused by incomplete NIBRS reporting,
which brings us to one of the topics that we will surely
explore today.
In September 2023, the FBI released UCR data purporting to
show a 2.1 percent decrease in violent crime across the country
from 2021-2022. That was touted in virtually every hearing by
my colleagues across the aisle, that there had been this
remarkable decrease in violent crime under the Biden
Administration. At some point between September-October 2024,
the FBI revised its 2022 data to show that violent crime had
actually increased by 4.5 percent from 2021. The FBI did not
publicize its revision of 2022 violent crime data, and the only
way you could see this change was to download the FBI's updated
crime data and compare it to the previous year. The FBI instead
disclosed the revision in a footnote to its 2023 UCR Crime in
the Nation's survey, which stated the original 2022 numbers had
been updated. This update included thousands of murders, rapes,
and other violent crimes that were originally omitted from the
FBI's crime data. The FBI did not mention the significant data
revision in its September 2024 press release about violent
crime data for 2023.
The FBI's revision of violent crime data confirms what the
Committee's oversight has shown. The Biden-Harris crime
epidemic continues to escalate and far-left State and local
policymakers place the interests of criminals over the needs of
their communities. Radical procriminal policies, including
defunding the police, bail reform, make it harder to put
violent offenders behind bars and keep them out of American
neighborhoods.
While the Biden-Harris Administration claims that crime is
down, a reported 40 percent of Americans said in 2023 that they
are afraid to walk alone at night even within very close
proximity of their home. That's the highest percentage in 30
years.
The initial 2022 data, before it was corrected, was
heralded as historic declines in the crime rate. Despite having
the true data, the FBI never issued a clarification where the
incorrect statistics were used to push a false narrative. Media
even used the incorrect data to fact-check President-elect
Trump's correct assertion at the time that violent crime had
risen during the Biden-Harris Administration.
While there may be an innocent and reasonable explanation
for this revision and lack of reporting the revision, there's
nonetheless an appearance of partisanship in what went on here.
It is not unlike what happened with the Hunter Biden laptop
where 51 people were out there saying it looked like Russian
disinformation, and the FBI remained mute instead of actually
revealing that the Hunter Biden laptop was true, which they
knew over a year before they ever released that.
I hope today's hearing helps us clarify what exactly
happened here, and I hope it doesn't happen again.
With that, I'm going to yield back and recognize the
Ranking Member, Ms. McBath, for an opening statement.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to take a moment of privilege to welcome our
colleague, Congresswoman Erica Lee Carter. It's an honor to
have her with us today to observe and to serve with us, and we
are really very proud of the legacy that you continue to carry
on behalf of our dear colleague Representative Sheila Jackson
Lee. Welcome.
The FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division,
known as CJIS, is an information hub that provides a range of
tools and services to law enforcement, national security
partners, and the general public. It facilitates background
checks on prospective firearms purchasers, compiles criminal
history reports of suspects, and maintains fingerprint
databases, playing an essential role in supporting law
enforcement and helping to keep Americans safe.
I am pleased to welcome CJIS' Acting Director, Timothy
Ferguson, here with us today, and I look forward to hearing
from him about what Congress can do to best assist CJIS with
the services that it provides to law enforcement and the
American public.
To the extent my Republican colleagues want to spend their
time today discussing uniform crime data reporting about the
year 2021, I would urge them to work with us to reconsider
their focus. We are now at the end of 2024. While we know that
data shows that the violent crime rate has been dropping
nationwide for several years, there is more that we must do to
fight violence in this country.
Violent crime is not a partisan issue for me. It is deeply
personal. Gun violence and hatred took my son Jordan from me 12
years ago. I vowed that his death would not be in vain and have
devoted every minute of my life to working to prevent other
parents from joining this ever-growing club of parents who have
lost their children to preventable gun violence. This year,
firearms have been responsible for the loss of nearly 16,000
American lives, and yet another mass shooting at a K-12 school
just yesterday.
That is why I am particularly interested in hearing from
Mr. Ferguson about CJIS' role in maintaining the National
Instant Criminal Background Check System, the NIC System, and
how that system helps to keep firearms out of the hands of
those who are not permitted to have them.
I also hope to hear about how CJIS has and will continue to
implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act--that
legislation was made several months ago.
I am very, very grateful for your presence today. I hope
that this next Congress my colleagues across the aisle will
focus on additional legislation that will help to reduce
violent crime even further, like banning assault weapons,
establishing a Federal extremist protection order system,
investing in community violence intervention programs that have
been shown to actually reduce violence, and giving law
enforcement the funding that they need to keep us and our
officers and our communities safe.
As we close out the 118th Congress, I look forward to
hearing from Mr. Ferguson about CJIS' role in protecting the
safety of all Americans.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. The gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize the Chair of the Full Committee, Mr.
Jordan, for his opening statement.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I don't have an opening statement. We welcome the Director
and look forward to his testimony and thank the Chair for
putting this together.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Chair Jordan.
Without objection, Ms. Lee Carter will be permitted to
participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning
the witness if a Member yields her time for that purpose.
We welcome you. Glad to see you here. We miss your mother,
and she served on this Committee a long time, probably a lot
longer than me, as I reckon it. We're certainly glad to welcome
you here today. Thank you for being here.
Ms. Lee Carter. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. Today is the last hearing that Scott Titus will
be with us. He's been working with the Majority party on
Judiciary for the last year or two--18 months. He's with DHS,
HSI. He's done a great job. He's been invaluable in providing
us with information, and helping us understand that particular
agency.
Scott, you'll be missed, and we wish you and your family
the best as you go--as you leave this bubble and go back to the
reality in Kansas City. Thank you. Thanks for being with us.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
We will now introduce today's witness, who is Mr. Timothy
Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson is the Acting Assistant Director of the
Criminal Justice Information Services Division at the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. He's held that position since April
2024. We welcome him and thank him for appearing today.
We will begin by swearing you in, Mr. Ferguson, and ask
that you please rise and raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the
testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
The record will reflect the witness has answered in the
affirmative.
You may be seated.
Thank you.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you
summarize your testimony. You'll have five minutes to summarize
your testimony. There's a clock in front of you. As it begins
to wind down, it sounds a siren, et cetera--it does not, but
you'll see it coming to the five minutes, and that's when we
ask you to wrap it up. I'll probably tap on this just a little
bit, not too loud, because I don't want to mess up your flow,
but we would like you to wrap at five minutes.
Now, Mr. Ferguson, you're recognized for your opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY A. FERGUSON
Mr. Ferguson. Good morning, Chair Biggs, Ranking Member
McBath, and the Members of the Subcommittee. Today I'm honored
to be here representing the men and women of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation's Criminal Justice Information Services
Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
The CJIS Division is one of the largest divisions in the
FBI and serves a unique role that provides vital services not
only to law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, but also
the public we serve. Our North central West Virginia campus is
home to thousands of employees, who are responsible for many
public-facing programs that keep Americans safe 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. When the public calls 1-800-CALL-FBI or
sends a submission through tips.fbi.gov, the CJIS Division
triages and disseminates those tips to our field offices and
other local, State, and Federal partners. Dissemination of
those tips saves lives.
Our employees are making firearms eligibility
determinations in an accurate and timely manner ensuring
citizens are able to exercise their Second Amendment right
while keeping weapons out of the hands of those prohibited from
possessing them. Last year, we possessed nearly 10 million
firearms background checks.
We manage the National Crime Information Center, or NCIC, a
lifeline for law enforcement, with an average of 10 million
daily transactions. The CJIS Division also houses the Next
Generation Identification System, a fingerprint and criminal
history repository that contains 86 million criminal
fingerprints and processes a daily average of 220,000 prints.
The program celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, and for
more than 90 years, the Uniform Crime Reporting program, or
UCR, has been viewed as an authoritative source for
understanding the scope of crime in the Nation. Our teams now
work with over 19,000 law enforcement agencies to collect,
validate, and publish that data.
We have a no-fail mission, and I cannot be prouder of our
workforce, our ability to manage services and systems 24/7, and
the significant contribution we make to public and officer
safety. Our employees serve with professionalism and integrity.
On their behalf, I would like to express my appreciation for
your time and interest in learning more about the CJIS
Division.
I would like to speak briefly about UCR and our Crime in
the Nation reports. The UCR program collects data on crimes
reported to law enforcement via the Summary Reporting System,
or SRS, and the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or
NIBRS. SRS was created in the 1920s, and NIBRS was initiated in
the 1980s and provides more granularity in reported offenses
than SRS, such as specific circumstances and context for
crimes, like location, time of day, and whether the incident
was cleared.
In 2016, the UCR program began transitioning to a NIBRS-
only collection with a deadline of January 1, 2021. This
transition was recommended by law enforcement partners and
endorsed by the CJIS Advisory Board, which comprises
representatives from criminal justice and national security
agencies and organizations throughout the United States,
including the International Association of Chiefs of Police,
the Major City Chiefs Association, and the Major County
Sheriffs of America. During the period between 2016-2021, many
law enforcement agencies transitioned to submitting crime
through NIBRS while others continued to submit through SRS.
The FBI publishes an annual report entitled ``Crime in the
Nation'' that describes crime data submitted by law enforcement
agencies from around the country. The publication also includes
spreadsheets containing underlying data so users can conduct
their own reviews and analyses.
Each year, some of the more than 19,000 law enforcement
agencies around the country submit incomplete or no data, and
CJIS uses statistical methods to estimate the crime for those
agencies to provide a comprehensive view of crime in the
Nation. Typically, however, the agencies that contribute data
cover more than 80 percent of the population. While a
substantial portion of agencies around the country transitioned
to NIBRS-only reporting by the January 2021 deadline, we
nonetheless had gaps as numerous agencies, including some large
agencies representing significant populations, did not submit
data. When it came time to publish the NIBRS-only Crime in the
Nation 2021 Annual Report in September 2022, only about 65
percent of the population was represented by NIBRS-
participating agencies. The UCR program was unable to apply the
traditional estimation methods, which require a statistically
acceptable level of participation to develop year-to-year
national trends.
To close that gap of missing information, the UCR program
resumed collecting SRS in 2022. In 2023, to produce meaningful
estimates for the two-year trend between 2021-2022, we manually
sourced 2021 data from large agencies that did not submit NIBRS
to supplement what was reported that year for a statistically
acceptable level of participation and a more representative
trend. The trend determined that reported crime decreased an
estimated 1.7 percent from 2021-2022.
Each Crime in the Nation report contains a table showing
crime rates for the previous 20 years. When we released the
Crime in the Nation 2023 report in September of this year, in
one of the many steps we're taking to become more transparent
with the data reporting test, we automated that 20-year table.
This allowed the system to automatically pull data reported to
the FBI to generate trends for all years in the table. The SRS
data manually sourced in 2022 filled in the gaps for 2021 and
demonstrated that the year-to-year trend was not included in
that automation process. This meant the crime estimate for 2021
appeared lower because it did not include the manually sourced
crime data, and as a result, it appeared that the violent crime
rose from 2021-2022.
There are many intricacies when it comes to data. Please
know the CJIS Division is dedicated to being transparent in the
process.
Mr. Biggs. So, if you could wrap up--I let you go for
almost a minute extra, so--
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ferguson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Thanks, Director.
Now, we're going to proceed under the five-minute rule with
questions, and I recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr.
Tiffany.
Mr. Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Director Ferguson, we see there's about 30 percent of
municipalities are not reporting. Is that accurate?
Mr. Ferguson. That is not an accurate statement. So, for
2023 reporting, we had approximately 94 percent population
coverage and 83 percent of agencies either reporting SRS or
NIBRS to the UCR program.
Mr. Tiffany. It wasn't that way in 2021. Is that what
you're saying?
Mr. Ferguson. That's correct.
Mr. Tiffany. So, are there any large municipalities that
are included in those that are not reporting?
Mr. Ferguson. Most of the large in-population cities have
transitioned to NIBRS, or we are collecting that through SRS.
So, we are collecting the most in-population cities.
Mr. Tiffany. Are any of them not included?
Mr. Ferguson. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Tiffany. They're all included?
Mr. Ferguson. They should all be included, the most in-
population cities should all be included within the SRS or
NIBRS reporting.
Mr. Tiffany. Who's responsible within your agency for
notifying the public of the crime data?
Mr. Ferguson. Ultimately, the buck stops with me as the
Acting Assistant Director for the CJIS Division.
Mr. Tiffany. There's this press release October 16, 2023,
``FBI Releases 2022 Crime in the Nation Statistics,'' a very
prominent press release, but there was not a similar press
release put out in regard to the revision that was done just
recently.
Why was there not a press release put out in regard to the
revision?
Mr. Ferguson. Sure, I appreciate the question.
So, to be clear, we did not revise any of the data. When we
received notification from various agencies, including news
agencies and outlets requesting information about the 2021 data
and why it appeared lower, that's when we were notified, what
we understood, that the automation process did not include the
manual data that we had put in there. As a result of that, we
were able to update our Crime Data Explorer, which is where all
the data is housed, and be a little bit more articulate about
what the data shows and how--the fact it's actually missing
data.
Mr. Tiffany. Isn't one of the purposes of what you do to
make sure that the public is aware if crime is going up so
that--just from a public safety standpoint, isn't that one of
the purposes of having this data?
Mr. Ferguson. I would say that the main thing for us in the
CJIS Division is that we want to make sure that we're providing
accurate, unbiased data for individuals to make decisions off
that data. We don't want to--
Mr. Tiffany. If crime is going up, isn't it worthwhile for
the public to know that?
Mr. Ferguson. Absolutely.
Mr. Tiffany. Why didn't you put out a press release? Why
didn't you put out a press release saying we--regardless of the
circumstances, you changing methodologies, stuff that you're
using to measure crime, why wouldn't you tell the American
public that with a prominent press release just as you did when
you said that crime was going down and people across America
knew it was not?
Mr. Ferguson. So, I stand behind the 2022 report, which
shows the information that was published in 2022 for 2021
stats, and it's important to make sure that we're very crystal
clear here, that we did not change any of the crime numbers for
2021-2022. We stand beside those numbers.
Mr. Tiffany. Professor Carl Moody at William and Mary
College has done extensive study in regard to crime. Are you
familiar with Professor Moody?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not familiar with him.
Mr. Tiffany. He said that huge changes in--very small
changes over the last 20 years that he's been studying crime,
he said the huge changes, especially without an explanation,
make it difficult to trust the FBI data.
Is that how the public should view this, that it's very
difficult to trust this data?
Mr. Ferguson. I certainly understand the angst with the
crime data, but I do want to be clear that we have no intention
whatsoever of deceiving the American people with the numbers
that we receive. We want to put the information out there
unbiased for decisionmaking purposes, for legislators,
lawmakers, policymakers, and law enforcement. Our goal is to
make sure that we're providing information that is provided to
us by local law enforcement in an unbiased way.
Mr. Tiffany. Are you planning to stay with the FBI as the
new administration comes in?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tiffany. Do you make a commitment to work with the new
Director or the Director designee Kash Patel?
Mr. Ferguson. I will make a commitment, as an executive of
the FBI, I will work with anyone that is nominated and
confirmed by the Senate for the Director.
Mr. Tiffany. Do you have ideas to help him make the FBI a
better agency? We've detailed in the Judiciary Committee so
many times the failures that have been out there, the 51 in
regard to the Hunter Biden laptop and Catholics in Richmond,
Virginia. It's well detailed. Do you have ideas to help Mr.
Patel as he comes in to be the new FBI Director to make this a
better agency that will now have the trust of the American
people?
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired, but you may
answer the question.
Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, sir.
My scope of employment in the CJIS Division, I certainly
have ideas on how we can continue to improve the background
check process, how we can improve the information shared with
law enforcement partners, and how we can improve biometrics
within the CJIS scope of work. I certainly have ideas on how we
can improve the CJIS Division.
Mr. Tiffany. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman yields.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Georgia, Ms.
McBath.
Ms. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Infrastructure and funding have proven to be hurdles for
the cities attempting to switch to the NIBRS system. How many
cities are still struggling right now to make that switch? How
can Congress help as they make that transition and they make
that switch?
Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, ma'am.
I don't have the numbers here in front of me for the number
of agencies that have not transitioned to NIBRS yet. What I
will say is we do conduct extensive outreach with the agencies
who have not transitioned to NIBRS.
I would also like to highlight very quickly that the law
enforcement agencies want to switch. So, incentivizing them is
not necessary, if that makes sense, because they want to switch
to NIBRS because they understand the value in the NIBRS program
and the NIBRS system, and how it will be useful to the American
public as well as to policymakers and law enforcement.
Ms. McBath. Thank you.
We know that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was very
pivotal legislation for gun violence awareness. Among some of
its functions it included updated language so that domestic
violence offenses, including dating relationships, were
included.
How has NIBRS adjusted to include this additional
information?
Mr. Ferguson. So, with the NIBRS system I don't have
specifically what the question asks with regard to the
incident, but that would be captured within that incident. It's
really important for us to highlight the fact that we do have
to do extensive research and education for our law enforcement
partners because, particularly with things with the dating
relationships, we want to make sure that's documented in those
offense reports, so that we can make determinations down the
road on firearms eligibility should that come to fruition.
Ms. McBath. OK. Thank you so much.
I'd also like to take a point of privilege to express my
gratitude to Jill Ginstling for her contributions to the
Judiciary Committee. This is her last hearing with us, and Jill
has been instrumental in supporting and furthering the work of
the Committee in the 118th Congress both through the
Subcommittee on Crime and her extensive involvement in the
oversight of the Federal Government. We are forever grateful
for the countless hours that she has dedicated to serving the
Committee, our Members, and the country. We know that great
things are ahead for her, and we wish her the best of luck in
her future endeavors.
Thank you, Jill.
I would like to yield the balance of my time to our
colleague, Ms. Lee Carter.
Ms. Lee Carter. Thank you, Ranking Member McBath and Chair
Biggs, for the opportunity to join here today.
Thank you for all the staff who's worked so hard on this
Committee over the years.
It's a privilege to be a Member of the same Judiciary
Committee--I'm the newest one--and to round out the important
work in the 118th Congress. The critical issue of criminal
justice and oversight of Federal agencies within this
jurisdiction are ones my mother, the late Congresswoman Jackson
Lee, held to the highest standards and scrutiny in ensuring
justice, fairness, and dignity for all Americans.
Assistant Director Ferguson, my only question is--and thank
you all for--I really want to thank you for releasing a hate
crime report. It's important that we acknowledge these types of
crimes by race, by gender, and by sexual orientation.
In my local community, Houston, we hear those stories.
We've had a lot of attacks against transgender Black women, and
they deserve to be heard. Their voices deserve to be
acknowledged.
What type of incentives have you offered to local law
enforcement, and what have you seen as successful maybe to
bring them along to participate in data collection?
Mr. Ferguson. So, what I would say again, I think the value
that we provide in the CJIS Division with our State and local
partners is that education. Again, the value they provide to us
is they've already been incentivized because they want this.
The law enforcement partners want to be partners with us in
making sure we're getting accurate crime data out so that it
can be used across all aspects of American life, from the
public safety to the legislative and policymaking to academia.
So, we're constantly working with our local and State
partners to make sure that we're educating them on what we want
to see or what should be seen within the NIBRS report. Again,
it's really important to know that this is something that they
want and that they're asking for as well.
Ms. Lee Carter. I hope we can continue to support data
collection work.
I yield the balance of my time. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. Ms. McBath, do you yield back as well?
Ms. McBath. I yield.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
The gentlelady yields.
The Chair now recognizes the Chair of the entire Judiciary
Committee, Chair Jordan, the gentleman from Ohio.
Chair Jordan. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So, Director, did you lie, or did you guess?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm sorry, sir. Can you--
Chair Jordan. When it came to the numbers, you were off.
You said violent crime went down, and it actually went up. I
want to know, were you lying to the country, or were you just
guessing?
Mr. Ferguson. So, if you're referring to the 2021 data, I
want to be clear that the information that we have--our most
complete data set from the information we collected shows that
the crime went down. So, I think when there is a question
about--
Chair Jordan. Oh, so you're saying you weren't lying or you
weren't guessing; you just got it wrong?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm sorry. I don't understand.
Chair Jordan. Well, my understanding is you reported
violent crime went down 2.1 percent for the year that you were
reporting on, when in actual fact it went up 4.5 percent. You
were off by a pretty large margin. I want to know what was the
reason for you being off, and having to adjust that figure and
say, ``No, no, no.'' We said--I think you even said in the
press release it was a historic decline when in actual fact, it
had increased.
I want to know again what was the reason for you getting it
wrong? Guessing, lying, or you just screwed up?
Mr. Ferguson. I want to be clear that the report that we
issued in 2022 that showed the decline from 2021-2022 is, in
fact, true and accurate. What is being misinterpreted right now
is that our automation numbers that are shown in the system now
do not show that manually sourced data. The team really wanted
to make sure they got it right. We only had 65 percent of the
law enforcement agency population coverage when we got the 2021
numbers.
Chair Jordan. Let me ask you a simple question. Did it go
up or down?
Mr. Ferguson. It went down, according to the data set that
we have.
Chair Jordan. Then what was the number you reported that
went up? What was that number?
Mr. Ferguson. We did not report a number that went up.
Chair Jordan. The footnote that said it increased 4.5
percent; that's wrong? Something has got to be wrong because,
on one hand, you say it went up. On the other hand, previously
you said it went down. I mean, which one is right?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not familiar with the footnote that said
that crime went up by 4.5 percent.
Chair Jordan. The 4.5 percent increase in violent crime.
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not familiar with that. I'll have to look
into it.
Chairman Jordan. You're not familiar with that? That's the
whole reason you're here.
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not familiar with a footnote in our
system that says that crime--violent crime went up 4.5 percent
in 2021-2022.
Chair Jordan. You had to--you submitted that report. You
said it went up 4.5 percent, and you're saying that's not true?
Mr. Ferguson. According to the data that we have for 2021-
2022, violent crime went down.
Chair Jordan. Violent crime went down. Then what was the
4.5 percent that said it went up? Where did that come from?
Were you just making it up? The Chair talked about it in his
opening statement. This whole Committee, the stuff we put
together that we looked at for our preparation for the
Committee all said it went up. You're saying, ``Nope, that's
not true.''
Mr. Ferguson. I believe that the 4.5 percent number came
from outside sources that are looking at the data as it sits
today, that is incomplete. It only has the 65 percent of law
enforcement population coverage in 2021--
Chair Jordan. So, you stand by the number you reported
earlier this fall, the 2.1 percent decline in violent crime?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. Really?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. Oh, I think that would be a surprise to most
people. Most people we talked to feel like violent crime has
increased. It certainly seems that way. You're saying it
didn't, it didn't at all.
So, how was the interpretation made that said it went up
4.5 percent?
Mr. Ferguson. So, if you look at the system as it sits
today, if you go into the Crime Data Explorer and look at the
2021 numbers--it's an automated system because we're trying to
go to monthly releases. So, as a result of that, it's an
automated system that pulled only what was reported to the FBI
in the NIBRS program in 2021, which was only 65 percent of the
population.
To try and get it right, our team went out and manually
sourced data from agencies that did not submit NIBRS, like New
York City, Phoenix, Chicago, and used those numbers to
supplement the NIBRS reporting in 2021 to be able to have a
more true and accurate depiction of Crime in the Nation.
Chair Jordan. What was that number? When you put it all
together, what was that number?
Mr. Ferguson. For the number of coverage was at about 78
percent of the--78.5 percent.
Chair Jordan. No. Did it go up or down?
Mr. Ferguson. It went down.
Chair Jordan. Went down.
OK. That's still not all of it? That's 78 percent?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Chair Jordan. OK. You stand by that?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Chair Jordan. OK. So, that's where we're at.
All right. This has been the whole concern is that, on one
hand, you said one thing; on the other hand, we had something
reported that people analyzed and said, ``No, no, no. It
actually went up.''
We would like to get the accurate information.
Yes, I yield to the Chair.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Director, I want to ask a question because this probably
gets to the nub of it, right? So, you said 78 percent--you
based your data on 78 percent participation rate ultimately,
right? Because whoever didn't participate, you went and looked
at whatever the public reporting was, right?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir. In addition to that, the extra 22
percent, we used traditional NIBRS estimation methods to look
at likely--
Mr. Biggs. So, let's leave the estimation methods off for a
second, because I don't have time to get into that.
I want to ask this question: If I understand what you're
saying today, if you looked at the automated responses--that's
what these people who are independent researchers look at, and
that's where they would have derived 4.5 percent growth in the
crime rate. Is that fair?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's fair.
Mr. Biggs. OK. Time has expired.
Now, let me recognize Mr. Garcia from Illinois.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the witness.
I seek unanimous to enter into the record the UCR Summary
Crime Report to the Nation of 2023, which shows that, on page 3
of the report that the FBI submitted in this division of CJIS,
shows that crime went down.
Mr. Biggs. Without objection.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to switch over to an extremely important topic
under CJIS purview, the National Instant Criminal Background
Check System, or NICS.
I represent a district that includes a part of Chicago and
its western burbs, and in my district, like in many across the
country, reducing gun violence is a primary concern. We've got
a lot of work to do on this topic, and a lot of it is beyond
the scope of this hearing, but I believe in a fundamental
reinvestment in communities disproportionately harmed by gun
violence.
That being said, there are many commonsense steps that we
can take to reduce gun violence, and NICS is a vital frontline
tool to keep guns away from dangerous individuals. I'm proud to
have supported the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which,
among other things, are overdue changes that strengthen the
background checks done by NICS.
Director Ferguson, can you briefly address how NICS has
changed over time to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of
background checks, including through improvements made by the
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the
opportunity to talk about the great men and women in the NICS
section and the work that they're doing over there.
With the implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities
Act, we implemented that as soon as it was passed. Since the
implementation of that act, we have done approximately 359,000
under 21 gun background checks. So, as you're familiar with the
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, under 21 requires us to do
multiple things. One is to check with the State repositories
for criminal history, as well as mental health for juveniles,
as well as to contact local law enforcement in the jurisdiction
where the individual resides.
So, as a result of these three enhanced background checks,
again, we have conducted over 359,000 under 21 checks. In
addition to that, we've hit just over 960 denials based on that
and the rest of them proceeds. It has been a little bit of a
difficult effort to explain to our law enforcement partners why
we're contacting them, but we have made some significant
strides.
We started off in the single digits with the number of
responses we were getting from the State criminal history and
mental health repositories, as well as law enforcement
agencies, but now we're at an average of over 70 percent
responses from all those agencies to our inquiries. We still
have some work to do. There are still some agencies--or excuse
me. There's still some States out there that do prohibit the
sharing of juvenile mental health and criminal history
information even if it's to the NICS background check system.
We still have some more work to do, but we're working through
that process, and the amazing men and women in the NICS section
are doing a phenomenal job of implementing that, as well as the
provisions of the Brady Handgun Act.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you. Please keep working on that because
the increase in participation is critical.
Can you provide some examples on how these improvements
have helped individuals with, say, mental health concerns or a
criminal record from getting a gun?
Mr. Ferguson. So, in my position here, I'm very lucky that
I get to see pockets of excellence across the entire division.
On a daily basis, we're seeing the denials--if there is a
denial that comes in on an under 21 check, those are reported
to me on a daily basis. I am seeing that individuals who have
some mental health issues or have been adjudicated as mental
defective have been denied, as well as a myriad of other
different offenses in which people happen to be denied for
that.
I want to highlight specifically again what I mentioned
before, that we're just over 960 denials with over 359,000--or
354,000 checks that have come in for under 21.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
Let me switch gears to a data security topic. It's of
primary importance for a government agency like CJIS that
handles sensitive personal information. What measures does your
division take to ensure that data confidentiality is protected
within the NICS system? You've got about 15 seconds.
Mr. Ferguson. That's a great question.
I would say that we are obviously implementing the
Executive Order that was passed here recently with regard to
cybersecurity, so we're implementing those processes as well as
the implementation of the NIST standards for cybersecurity
excellence. We're, also, implementing those procedures as well.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson.
I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman yields.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Nehls.
Mr. Nehls. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Ferguson, thank you for being here.
With 19,000 law enforcement agencies reporting--are there
19,000 agencies reporting? Is it required to report their
crime?
Mr. Ferguson. No, sir, it's not required.
Mr. Nehls. Do you believe there should be some law that
would require a law enforcement agency to report their crimes,
so their communities--if I was going to move into some place,
I'd want to be able to go to a website to see how many index
crimes, the robbery rate, murders, all that.
Mr. Ferguson. What I can tell you is that with my
experience, the law enforcement agencies we work with, they
want to do this.
Mr. Nehls. They do?
Mr. Ferguson. They do want to report this stuff to us, yes.
Mr. Nehls. Most of them?
Mr. Ferguson. All the 19,000 that are in the program right
now want to.
Mr. Nehls. OK. All right. If I was the mayor of Chicago or
New York over the past couple of years, do you think I would
really be willing to release all that information to the FBI,
so the American people can see an increase in crime?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not certain of the process that would be
followed by the mayor to stop the reporting of Uniform Crime
Reporting to the FBI.
Mr. Nehls. Well, if there's no teeth behind it. If New York
City, Chicago, and L.A., big cities--you talk about, what is
the 78 percent participation rate--when you have those three
big cities with the millions of people in it, they didn't
report in 2021. How in the hell would anybody, even on the city
council or anybody in that community even know, do we have
enough police?
Also, in the UCR and NIBRS, I'm a little experienced with
this because I was a sheriff, but it also shows the solve rates
of the crimes; what is the average solve rate? Explain to
people, what's the average solve rate on a burglary in the
United States of America?
Mr. Ferguson. I don't have the numbers in front of me.
Mr. Nehls. Oh, it's less than 10 percent. We don't solve
too many of them.
The point I'm making, this is good information for the
American people to have at their disposal as it relates to
whether they want to move into a certain community within a
certain State. Why would New York--I'll tell you why. Why would
Chicago, L.A., and New York City not want to report their
crime? Because it's bad. It's bad news. Politics gets involved.
If you don't have to report it, why should I? I wouldn't report
it.
I think this Committee should look at it and say maybe we
should require it because, if you don't report it, you're
hiding something, because I loved reporting my crime in the UCR
because we solved more crime than anybody. It was something for
me to motivate my personnel with. Being an elected sheriff, I
was sharing with people: ``We solve more crime and have less
crime than all the surrounding counties.'' It was good news to
share. If you're one of those municipalities where crime is out
of control--and we've seen it in these large cities, Chicago,
L.A., and New York--you're not going to want to report it.
Do you believe that we should withhold any type of grant
funding? You are asking for grant funding, all of it, for
municipalities that refuse to report.
Mr. Ferguson. So, while it would be improper for me to talk
about withholding funding, what I can say is that the law
enforcement agencies that report, we're at almost 85 percent of
law enforcement agencies that are reporting, covering 94
percent of the population.
Mr. Nehls. Have you ever changed the report? Has a large
agency or any one of the agencies ever called you up one day
and said, ``Hey, buddy, you reported this, but we sent you
that?''
Mr. Ferguson. Not to my knowledge, no.
Mr. Nehls. OK. Here's one, here's one. Baltimore reported--
now you would think the city of Baltimore would know how many
homicides they have. Come on, pretty simple index crime. They
reported 262 murders in 2023, and you reported they only had
225. How does that happen?
Mr. Ferguson. I'll have to look into that one.
Mr. Nehls. That's a problem. You wonder why your agency is
not trusted, why the FBI needs to have a complete overhaul.
The Milwaukee Police Department reported a seven percent
increase in robberies, but the FBI showed a 13 percent
decrease.
Who's manipulating this data?
Mr. Ferguson. What I can tell you is that the law
enforcement agencies have the ability to change their data at
any given time. We don't stop them from doing that. We produce
a static report that's static for that time period. At any
given time, they can change their crime status, but we have no
desire to do anything but get it right.
Mr. Nehls. The Washington Examiner had a report back on
April 5, 2024, that exposes your inaccurate information in the
reporting that we've seen out of the FBI. It needs to be
addressed, and I'm hoping this Committee can look at holding
large agencies accountable.
I know the UCR is a little different from NIBRS. It's a
little bit more complex, a little bit more complicated, but I
think we should require agencies to provide that information,
whether it's good or bad, because I think the American people
have a right to know.
Mr. Garcia. Would the gentleman yield for--
Mr. Nehls. Sure. Time is out.
Mr. Chair?
Mr. Garcia. Does Chicago report, Mr. Ferguson, its data to
the FBI--
Mr. Nehls. They didn't report in 2021, that's clear.
Mr. Biggs. Sorry, Mr. Garcia. Time has expired. For every
gentlemen up here, both of you guys, it's expired.
The Chair recognizes now the gentleman from Alabama, Mr.
Moore.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Ferguson, thank you for being here.
What criteria does NICS use to determine whether an
individual is prohibited from purchasing a firearm?
Mr. Ferguson. The National Instant Background Check System
searches three databases. We search Triple I, NCIC, and the
NICS indices to determine if a person is prohibited from
purchasing a firearm.
Mr. Moore. So, what is Triple I?
Mr. Ferguson. Triple I is the InterState Identification
Index. I apologize, that is the criminal history index that is
maintained within the Next Generation Identification System.
Mr. Moore. I got you. How often are denials reviewed to
ensure accuracy and fairness?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm sorry, sir?
Mr. Moore. How often are the denials reviewed to ensure
accuracy and fairness?
Mr. Ferguson. How can the--
Mr. Moore. How often are the denials reviewed? Sorry, maybe
I said it wrong. I don't know.
Mr. Ferguson. How often? Over the course of Fiscal Year
2024, we had approximately 10,000 requests for review of
denials--or excuse me. Let me make sure I have the numbers
right on that.
Eighteen thousand was the number, 18,500 requests for
review on denials. Out of those, 10,000 were sustained and
approximately 3,000 were overturned.
Mr. Moore. OK. Of the 116,578 denials in 2023, how many
denials involved confirmed criminal activity versus
administrative or technical errors?
Mr. Ferguson. For the 2023 numbers, I don't have that in
front of me, but I can get a report for you, sir.
Mr. Moore. Do you have any idea what the percentage maybe
were technical errors or possible administrative issues?
Mr. Ferguson. Across the board for the years past, we've
had a very small percentage of those because, as you're aware,
the background check is a biographic search. There are
occasions where there will be matching numbers or somewhat
close numbers for Social Security numbers or names that will be
a match, and there will be a denial based on that process.
Mr. Moore. So, what steps are taken to address the wrongful
denials and to clear individuals that may be unjustly flagged?
Mr. Ferguson. So, we're very adamant that we need to make
sure that we are working with providing that customer service
and that value to those individuals who have been denied. We
work every single day, generally speaking, with individuals who
contact us. We have a tip line that they can call and talk to
us about a denial. Then we'll walk them through the process to
where we give them what we call the voluntary appeals file.
We'll give them a PIN. So, in the event that this ever
happens in the future, they'll have a PIN so they can give the
PIN to the Federal firearms licensee so that they will not be
denied anymore, unless there's, obviously, another issue down
the road.
Mr. Moore. How do you ensure that law-abiding citizens are
not improperly denied their Second Amendment rights?
Mr. Ferguson. We continue to--we have a quality assurance
program that we use within the NICS section to make sure that
we're getting it right. We take a sampling of all of the
transactions that come in, and we have a pretty robust QA
program that looks at that. What we do is, if we find
discrepancies, we'll work with the individuals who attempted to
purchase the firearm to get them through that discrepancy.
We also learn from that. We use that for our training to
train our people to make sure that we're getting it right. I'm
very proud of the fact that, over the last 35 months, actually,
we have hit our immediate determination rate of 90 percent or
better over the last 35 months. What that means is, within the
first 15-30 minutes of a person standing at a gun counter, over
90 percent of the time, we're able to make an adjudication
right there at that moment and allow them to either purchase if
they're not prohibited or deny it if it's a prohibited person.
Mr. Moore. What happens if you don't make the adjudication
within 30 minutes while they're waiting there at their Ace
Hardware, or whatever it is, to buy shotgun? What happens?
Mr. Ferguson. So, generally speaking, what happens is that
the remainder of those will be transferred over to the NICS
section where we have legal instrument examiners who are
looking at those as they're coming in. We adjudicate the
majority of those within 30 minutes of receiving those if we
can, and then the remainder of those may be delayed because we
have to try to get some more records.
One of the issues we're having in a lot of different States
is we'll have dispositions that aren't entered into the system,
so we'll see a person that's been arrested for a particular
crime that may be prohibiting, but there's no disposition. So,
we're not really sure if that person is prohibited or not.
What we're having to do--that's an example. What we're
having to do at that point is we have to delay, and we have to
contact that law enforcement agency or court system and request
those records to make sure the person is lawfully able to
purchase a firearm.
Mr. Moore. My understanding is, if you don't get an answer
within three days, they're required to sell you the firearm. Is
that correct?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's correct, according to the
provisions of the Brady Handgun Act.
Mr. Moore. OK.
Mr. Ferguson. They're authorized to; the FFLs are allowed
to, yes.
Mr. Moore. Got you. OK.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'll yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Kiley.
Mr. Kiley. Good morning, Director.
There's been some confusion about the methodology behind
the calculation of the crime rate and the reporting statistics.
I want to try and clear a few things up.
So, typically, I believe you testified that the
jurisdictions that report sort of voluntarily make up 80
percent of jurisdictions reported. Is that right?
Mr. Ferguson. For the law enforcement agencies that cover.
For this year, 83 percent of the law enforcement agencies,
covering 94 percent of the population.
Mr. Kiley. OK. Your usual methodology to fill in the gaps
is you use the existing data to identify comparable
jurisdictions to the missing jurisdictions, and then use that
to come up with an overall holistic estimate. Is that right?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes. I apologize; I'm not a statistician,
but, yes, that's--at a high level, yes, that's what we're
doing.
Mr. Kiley. The problem, in 2021-2022, you said you only had
65 percent of jurisdictions report, and from a statistical
point of view, that wasn't sufficient to then use your typical
methodology to fill in the gaps with the like jurisdiction
comparison?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kiley. Is that right?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Mr. Kiley. Then, to reach that threshold, you went out and
manually collected statistics from jurisdictions that hadn't
voluntarily reported. Is that right?
Mr. Ferguson. We collected data from the agencies that had
not transitioned to NIBRS yet.
Mr. Kiley. Right. So, then you kept doing that until you
had enough data overall to use your typical jurisdiction
estimation method to come up with a nationwide estimate. Is
that right?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kiley. OK. What did the--and you're claiming that then
that number, based on (A) those reported voluntarily; (B) those
you manually collected; and (C) the estimates you came up with
from the jurisdictions that were still missing, that this
comprised the 1.2 percent decline or whatever it was. Is that
right?
Mr. Ferguson. That is correct.
Mr. Kiley. What does this manual collection process look
like? I guess that's what I'm curious about.
Mr. Ferguson. Essentially, what we're doing is we're going
to the, for lack of a better term, the CompStats; for instance,
Chicago as an example has a CompStat that's available, publicly
available information that shows their crime data. We would go
to there and collect that data for that time period from those
jurisdictions.
Mr. Kiley. Do you know what percent that hadn't initially
reported then reported in response to those inquiries?
Mr. Ferguson. What percentage we used, the manual
percentage?
Mr. Kiley. Yes. How much was still missing is what I'm
asking?
Mr. Ferguson. We collected an additional, approximately, 14
percent, so that got us up to about 78-79 percent of data that
we had collected from the law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Kiley. OK, did you contact everyone of all the missing
jurisdictions, or how do you go back deciding who to manually
collect?
Mr. Ferguson. We definitely wanted to make sure that we hit
the most in-population cities. As I mentioned before, the
cities like Phoenix, Chicago--not Chicago--Phoenix, New York, I
think Chicago is one of them, so we went to the most in-
population cities to gather that data.
Mr. Kiley. When you did that, did they all say, ``Oh,
sorry, we forgot; here's the data,'' or did some still not
provide it? How did that go?
Mr. Ferguson. No, we didn't have any issues collecting that
data. It was manually sourced, and it was publicly available.
Mr. Kiley. It was manually sourced and publicly--so what
does that mean?
Mr. Ferguson. That just means we went out and got it. We
didn't ingest it into the system. We went out physically, got
it manually--or we went out and got it from the agencies, and
then it was publicly available.
Mr. Kiley. The agencies had already published the data;
they just hadn't bothered to send it to the FBI?
Mr. Ferguson. The issue with 2021 was that it was a NIBRS-
only collection. So, those cities were the ones that were still
using the old SRS process and had not transitioned to NIBRS
yet.
Mr. Kiley. It seems to me like there's a lot of
opportunities for statistical bias to creep in here based on
who you decided to ask for it, based on who decided to hand it
over. Then, not only is that manually collected data then going
into the numbers, but it's being used as the basis to
extrapolate the numbers for other jurisdictions. So, you had
never done this before. Have the statisticians assured you this
was statistically sound? Do you understand why we have
questions?
Mr. Ferguson. That is correct. We have some tremendous
professional data scientists and statisticians that work in the
UCR program that do phenomenal work.
Mr. Kiley. Uh-huh.
Mr. Ferguson. I would absolutely say that this got us to a
statistically significant level of response to be able to show
that crime trend.
Mr. Kiley. Because it seems odd that you had the automatic
update that actually shows crime went up, but then when you
manually corrected it, it shows it went down. Actually, some of
the missing jurisdictions were L.A. and San Francisco, some
very high-crime areas. Why do you think there was that change
in the directionality of the crime rate?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not sure that I understand your question.
Just to reiterate, what is being shown now, what you can see
now in this system does not contain that manually sourced data,
which is the reason why it appears they're too low, because the
jurisdictions that did not provide NIBRS data and is not
included in that dataset right here.
Mr. Kiley. So, when President Joe Biden came out and said
there was a record decline in crime, do you think that was
correct?
Mr. Ferguson. I would have to go back and take a look at
the crime trends from the previous several years as to whether
or not that would--that our report was reporting historically
low crimes. I'm not certain about that. I would have to go back
and look at the report.
Mr. Kiley. At the very least, the report only talks about
reported crimes, right?
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Kiley. So, it wouldn't account for in areas like--well,
throughout my State of California, where a lot of crime is
unreported, that wouldn't be baked into your report, correct?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Mr. Kiley. My time has expired.
I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina,
Mr. Fry.
Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Great to be here.
I'm going to follow in the same vein. I think that
methodology is really important here. Americans want and expect
to have accurate data to make sure that it's accurate, and the
concern that we've seen up here today is that the data was
publicly heralded by the Biden Administration as a drop in
violent crime nationwide. Of course, when you revised it, it
turned out to be not so true, but it was only because of
sourcing it or finding it yourself. There wasn't a press
release about it. I just think accuracy is important, and I
worry about the methodology.
I wanted to drill down into some of the methodologies. When
you compile this data on a particular jurisdiction, you look at
either publicly sourced information or reporting. Is that
right?
Mr. Ferguson. Are you referring to the 2021 data?
Mr. Fry. Any set of data, when you're compiling a yearly
assessment of crime, violent crime, you look at your publicly
sourced information about violent crime in that jurisdiction or
a self-reporting from that jurisdiction, correct?
Mr. Ferguson. We do not use publicly sourced, manually
sourced data during the typical Crime in the Nation reporting.
We use what is reported to us from the law enforcement
agencies.
Mr. Fry. OK. When you are compiling the statistics about
it, not just the raw data, you look at the population of the
jurisdiction too?
Mr. Ferguson. We do, correct.
Mr. Fry. OK. So, if there's one violent crime and there's a
thousand people that live in that jurisdiction, how is that
rectified in your report?
Mr. Ferguson. I would have to go back and take a look at
the report. I apologize. Again, I'm not a statistician.
Mr. Fry. Correct.
Mr. Ferguson. I can tell you the report does show the
offense compared to the number of people within that
population.
Mr. Fry. All right. So, hypothetically--I'm going to give
you a hypothetical just because I want to understand how this
is compiled.
If there's a town of a thousand people and they have a
giant music festival and there's crimes that are committed at
that music festival, it would be logged in as a crime in that
jurisdiction. Is that correct?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Mr. Fry. Despite the fact that it was maybe--and, again,
it's totally hypothetical. There's no town to this. If a
thousand people said they have 20,000 people for a music
concert once a year, if there were crimes that were committed
in that jurisdiction, that would be reported?
Mr. Ferguson. That's correct.
Mr. Fry. That necessarily wouldn't be accurate, correct?
That's not the town violent crime overall. It's just this one
isolated event. Is that fair to say?
Mr. Ferguson. I think that's a great point, and we try to
take a look for if we notice any anomalies based on previous
years reporting, as an example, that would be 9/11, we would
have reported that the almost 3,000 individuals who were--that
was basically a homicide in the city of New York.
Mr. Fry. Right.
Mr. Ferguson. We would have separated those from the crime
reporting to make sure that we didn't unnecessarily skew
numbers based on anomalies such as that. Those are rare, but on
occasion, I will say, yes, we have seen some anomalies in the
past based on that.
Mr. Fry. What would you say--so, for me, the interesting
thing, does this data count in any which way for events such as
that or maybe even transient populations?
Mr. Ferguson. To the best that we're able to do so, we do.
The reason that we stop the collection, or we say April 1st is
our deadline because we want to have that entire time between
April 1st and when we publish the report in September/October
timeframe to work with those jurisdictions and those agencies
to make sure, if there's anomalies, that we can have those
conversations, but again, those are generally pretty rare.
Mr. Fry. How do you account for jurisdictions--tourism-
related jurisdictions in Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia,
who have maybe 20,000-30,000 full-time residents, but, in the
summertime, you're swelling to 100,000 a week?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes. That's a great question, and I think
that goes back to the work that we do collaborating with those
local law enforcement agencies and the State agencies to make
sure that we're trying to get it right, as right as we can.
Mr. Fry. Well, I would hope that in the future that this
happens, because that does actually happen, that
jurisdictions--if you look at tourism-related jurisdictions, a
lot of them, the numbers seem very disproportionate to the rest
of the country. You take a city of 20,000 or 30,000 people,
full-time residents, but you swell them to a half a million on
any given week in the summertime or whenever their peak season
is, it doesn't tell the full truth; does it?
Mr. Ferguson. I would say that there would probably be some
anomalies in there, yes.
Mr. Fry. OK. Well, I would hope that, in the future, the
FBI would look at that, and it's just a critique of how these
things are computed, because I don't think that it tells the
full story when you're looking at the jurisdictions that have
seasonal destination populations.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Biggs. The gentleman yields.
I now recognize myself for five minutes. So, the NIBRS
estimation methodology approximates what the expected value
would be for missing data. Is that right?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Mr. Biggs. The FBI concedes that the estimates themselves
are subject to levels of uncertainty caused by incomplete NIBRS
reporting, right?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Biggs. You've mentioned anomalies here. So, if an
agency only reports partial data to the FBI, the methodology
will, quote,
Identify an agency that matches an agency characteristics and
has the closest number of total incidents among agencies with
matching characteristics.
So, essentially you're forcing a regression to the mean, right?
Mr. Ferguson. So, in the event that--what I would say,
first, what we would try to do is to work through the local law
enforcement agency that did not submit data.
Mr. Biggs. You're regressing to the mean. That's just the
way that you're estimating. You are regressing to the mean.
That's what a statistician would tell you. You're trying to
regress to the mean, which means that you're boxing out the
anomalies that you just talked about, which means that, if you
have a jurisdiction that has a no-arrest policy and literally
does not make an arrest, or they make an arrest, hold them in
jail overnight, and discharge the person without further
prosecution, you have anomalies. Is that not true?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm not sure how the local jurisdiction would
report that, but yes, sir, that could be--that could possibly
be true.
Mr. Biggs. So, the reason I mention that is because,
originally, when you guys did this and you didn't get the
reporting from L.A., for instance, and L.A. was having massive
amounts of people come in, and they raised the amount of money
you could actually steal from a store before they would
actually even arrest or investigate, those are anomalies
because those are crimes. They're not prosecuted, and they're
not charged. Right?
Mr. Ferguson. So, it would be hard for me to--it would be
hard for me to answer a hypothetical on that, but what I
would--
Mr. Biggs. That's not hypothetical. We all saw it on the
news. I know, Mr. Ferguson, you saw it on the news just like I
did. I know, in my own State, we have a city of about a half a
million people that says, ``Look, you know, you can--unless
it's a shoplift of over $2,500, we're not coming.'' That's a
crime, right? It then becomes an unreported crime. So, what I'm
trying to get at here is the data that you are putting
together, because it is voluntary and because it remains open
to the providers of the information--not you guys because
you're taking whatever information you have, and you're making
a static determination: OK, they reported this; this is what's
in there, or they didn't report it and we're going to do one of
two things. We're going to go on the internet and see if
they've put something publicly like Phoenix does. Phoenix puts
its crime data publicly. You guys are going to take that and
incorporate that into your--I can't remember what you called,
like, the hand sorting or where you guys go out, right? That's
a fair statement, right?
Mr. Ferguson. That was the only one time that we did that
was in--
Mr. Biggs. So, you've never done that since then.
Mr. Ferguson. That's correct.
Mr. Biggs. So, if they don't actually respond, now you
just--
Mr. Ferguson. We will do one of two things. We will work
with the law enforcement agency, reach out to the law
enforcement agency to try to attempt to get that information if
there's missing data, or we'll apply the traditional NIBRS
estimation.
Mr. Biggs. Which is where you're saying,
Well, Phoenix is a little bit bigger than Houston maybe, and
Houston's numbers are this, similarly situated. They both have
high illegal migrant populations rolling through them, so we're
going to say that maybe Phoenix would have roughly the same
amount.
Is that fair?
Mr. Ferguson. That sounds to be a fair statement.
Mr. Biggs. So, this is the problem that we may be having on
our side is that this doesn't sound like something I would rely
on, because Phoenix is very different than Houston. Phoenix
has, like Houston, literally thousands of drop houses for
illegal aliens coming through, thousands, and they commit
crimes, but they're not reported necessarily. That vacuum
leaves a hole in the statistical data where the statistical
data set that you guys are relaying on a data set that's
reported to you. I get that. What happens is it may not be
accurately reflecting that municipality, that jurisdiction's
crime rate.
Mr. Ferguson. I probably should do a little bit of
clarification there. To your point, I understand--completely
understand the angst with regard to these numbers. They're not
perfect. They probably never will be, but I will say--I would
like to highlight the fact that we did have 94 percent of the
population covered this year, but I would say that--
Mr. Biggs. Yes, but you had 94 percent of the population
self-reporting. As the Disraeli said, ``There are three kinds
of lies. There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.''
If you were self-reporting, I can self-report that I'm
6,4", weigh 180 pounds, and I'm chiseled stone, but that's
garbage in. When you put garbage in, you get garbage out.
That's the issue that I think that we're having here. Not to
say that you guys are committing garbage, but you get
information that you're relying on people who are incentivized,
quite frankly, to skew the data they are providing to you and
to the public. We have found that out as we've looked at other
jurisdictions.
The Chair recognizes now Ms. Lee from Florida for five
minutes.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here
today.
I would like to discuss some of the broader crime trends
that we have been seeing over the last few years. I was
reviewing the website of the Bureau and the Crime Data
Explorer, and it specifically references 2023 numbers and
suggests that, in all categories except for one, that in
categories of murder, rape, burglary, and other things, that
violent crime is down really in all respects except for motor
vehicle theft.
What I was interested in discussing today was a little bit
of a broader timeline, specifically going back to look at the
time period of 2020 to the present. It's correct, is it not,
that the rate of many of these violent crimes, if examined from
2020 to present, is actually going up.
Mr. Ferguson. I apologize; I don't have the report here in
front of me, and I don't want to testify to the fact that I
haven't seen it--or I don't have it in front of me here, and I
can testify to that, but we do provide those rates for that
time period, for that report; that's correct.
Ms. Lee. OK. So, it wouldn't be something that you were
prepared to testify about here today if I were to tell you
that, over that span of time, the incidents of rape have
actually gone up. Is that right?
Mr. Ferguson. I think that there was a time period within
the definition of ``rape'' that might have changed within the
UCR program, and I'd have to go back, and I can certainly get
you an answer on that. I'm not sure if some of those were
double counted by the agencies based on the definition of
``rape,'' but I can certainly get that information for you.
Ms. Lee. Well, that actually touches on another question
that I wanted to ask you. In these materials there that are
providing for the public information about the increases or
decreases in crimes, I see that there is a ``rape'' referred to
as revised definition and ``rape'' legacy definition. Are you
familiar with the distinction between the revised definition
and the legacy definition?
Mr. Ferguson. I am familiar that there was a change in the
``rape'' definition. I would have to go back and take a look at
exactly what that definition is. When the change came about, it
was publicized to all our law enforcement agencies so that,
whenever it was captured in the statistics, that it would
capture accurately.
Ms. Lee. Now, and it's also true, is it not, that, in
compiling these statistics and preparing these reports and
sharing with the public, you rely on accurate reporting from
State and local law enforcement agencies about incidents of
these types of crimes and their areas.
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Lee. So, if you were not getting full and complete
information from State and local law enforcement agencies, then
it would be impossible for you to accurately prepare a
compilation number of violent crime trends across the United
States of America.
Mr. Ferguson. If they did not report that, that would be
correct. We would not be able to provide that national trend
for accuracy.
Ms. Lee. So, tell us what you are doing to ensure. Do you
have any sort of audit, any sort of review, or any sort of
verification process to develop a comfort level for yourself
that you're getting full and complete information from
municipalities and States to prepare this data?
Mr. Ferguson. That's a great question. Thank you for that.
So, we are obviously relying on the municipalities to provide
that information to us. What I can say is a couple of things.
One is that we use technology to see if there's any anomalies.
If something is significantly off, it will alert one of the
statisticians to take a look at that, to contact that local
jurisdiction to say,
Hey, either your numbers for hate crime look like they're way
up; they look like they're way down, and you didn't report
anything in June, July, and August. Is this right? Do we want
to work through that process?
In addition to that, we also have a quality assurance
program within our statisticians and, again, relying on the
data that we received from our law enforcement partners. So, we
do the QA internally. In addition to that, we have a two-week
time period where we notify the law enforcement agencies that,
``This is the numbers that we have for you; please go in and QA
and verify.''
Ms. Lee. Verify that it's right. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson.
I yield the balance of my time to the Chair.
Mr. Biggs. I yield that time, if possible, to Chair Jordan.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to go back to this manual collection. Did the manual
collection that you've talked about a lot, did that change the
violent crime statistics? Did that change the number you had?
Mr. Ferguson. That would have changed the numbers because
it would have obviously added an additional 18 percent of the
population.
Chair Jordan. Did it change it--how did it change it? Did
it make the violent crime numbers go down or go up?
Mr. Ferguson. It would have made the violent crime numbers
go down, because what you're seeing in the report now, if you
looked at the report, which is where the issue comes in with
the 4.5 percent increase, if we didn't use that manual inner
data that we went out and got from those law enforcement
agencies, then you would see that percentage of increase. So,
because we went out and manually sourced that crime data--
Chair Jordan. Do you always go out and do this manual
collection? Does that happen every single year?
Mr. Ferguson. No, sir. That is the only time we've ever
done that.
Chair Jordan. So, the only time you ever have done it
resulted in what was reported as violent crime going up;
actually, you reported it as violent crime going down.
Mr. Ferguson. With the numbers that we had, the data set
that we had, it reported that violent crime was going down.
Chair Jordan. You've never done that before.
Mr. Ferguson. No, sir.
Chair Jordan. I find that interesting. Right? You've never
done it before, but this time, oh, violent crime went up. We
are going to go do something we have never done before, and as
a result of that, violent crime went down. Shazam, we can
report that, and that gets you in the political context during
the debate and everything else. You find that interesting?
Mr. Ferguson. What I will say is that we--our desire in the
CJIS Division is to get it right and get the information out
there to the public for whatever use they need and our desire
to try to make sure that we had a statistically significant
number to create those trends. Unfortunately, no good deed goes
unpunished, and we're trying to--
Chair Jordan. Well, in years prior, when you didn't go do
the manual, what was the reporting percent coming in? Was it
much higher, or was it relatively the same as it was in this
particular year?
Mr. Ferguson. I would have to go back and look. I would say
it is relatively the same when we had the--because we had 78
percent of the population covered, I believe it was 78 percent
of the population covered with a 2021 data set, I would say
relatively the same.
Chair Jordan. So, if it was the same, why did you do it?
Why did you do it this for this particular year when you
reported it four weeks before the election?
Mr. Ferguson. I'm sorry, let me clarify. Had we not
manually sourced that data to get up to 70 percent of the
population covered, we would have only had 65 percent or less
of the population covered, and when we looked at that, we said
we wanted to make sure that we're providing the most
information that we can, and we recognize these agencies did
not submit data. So, we want to go out and get this--
Chair Jordan. What's the lowest number you've ever went
with in other years? Was it close to the 60-some percent?
Mr. Ferguson. I apologize. I do not know the answer to that
question, but I would say 65 percent in my estimation is not
statistically significant.
Mr. Chair Jordan. I appreciate the Chair. I just think it's
interesting hat the one-year that they go do something that
they've never done before happens to be the year that it's
going to get reported four weeks before an election, and it
changes the outcome. That's sort of the whole point.
I yield back.
Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Johnson, for his five minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Acting Assistant Director Tim Ferguson, thank you for
coming to talk to us today. You lead a large and important
workforce of more than 3,000 employees and contractors, and you
have a distinguished career in which you served in various
capacities with the FBI for more than 22 years, including Chief
of the Digital Forensics and Analytics Section and Chief of the
Field Operation Section. Thank you for your service, sir.
Mr. Ferguson. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson. We should be commending you for all the work
that your division does to keep Americans safe 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, including managing the FBI's tip lines,
conducting background checks for firearm purchases, and
maintaining robust databases for information sharing.
Instead, regrettably, MAGA Republicans called you here to
drag you through the mud over a conspiracy theory because
manually input data was pulled into one data table, but not
another. They are ignoring the bottom line that your most
complete data set shows that reported crime decreased from
2021-2022, and this is why I want to spend the rest of my time
talking about the excellent work that your division does and
how your division helped bring crime levels down.
Acting Assistant Director Ferguson, can you discuss any
recent initiatives or projects undertaken by the Criminal
Justice Information Services Division that had a significant
impact on the law enforcement community?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir. Thank you very much for that
question. Beginning of February of this year, in an effort to
continue the increase in information sharing from the CJIS
division and the tips that we receive to our law enforcement
partners, we began a new initiative where we are sharing tips
that we received directly with State and local law enforcement
agencies. This is something that's new and innovative within
the CJIS division, and it's actually thanks to the work that
the NICS section did with regard to ZIP code mapping for the
implementation of the NICS Denial Notification Act. We were
able to use that and with our National Threat Operations
Section and use that ZIP code mapping to be able to send tips
directly to State and local partners. So, we don't have to rely
on sending it to the field office and the field office sending
it to the local law enforcement partners. We can send it
directly to our law enforcement partners.
Mr. Johnson. That's great. The National Crime Information
Center is a vital crime data system available to law
enforcement agencies at all hours of the day and night, and it
contains over 18.4 million records. Assistant Director
Ferguson, how does the NCIC support information sharing and
communication between law enforcement agencies at the national
level?
Mr. Ferguson. What a phenomenal system that that is, the
National Crime Information Center and the work that the CJIS
Division staff does on implementing the processes within NCIC,
updating NCIC. It contains 22 separate files. We have over 10
million hits per day. In other words, 10 million inquiries per
day from law enforcement, and it is absolutely a lifeline,
especially when it comes to officer safety, because within NCIC
is the Wants and Warrants file. So, if an individual is pulled
over or is encountered by law enforcement and that person has a
warrant, or has violent tendencies, that officer is made aware
of that, and it makes those officers safe. Right now, we're
probably going to hit one of our historic highs for the number
of officers that have been killed in the line of duty this
year, and NCIC saves lives of those officers on the street.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. Reducing gun violence is very
important. Just yesterday, another community was shaken by gun
violence when a student killed two people and injured six
others at her Wisconsin school. In Philadelphia, last weekend,
dozens of people were shot, and four died. We combat this
scourge in part by conducting thorough background checks before
allowing people to purchase firearms. Acting Assistant Director
Ferguson, how does the NCIS collaborate with Federal, State,
and local agencies to ensure the completeness and accuracy of
firearm background check information, and how has the NCIS
evolved over time to enhance the efficiency and accuracy of
background checks?
Mr. Ferguson. That's a great question, and I don't think I
have time to answer it completely, but what I will say is that
the NICS section, I'm appreciative of the legislative body here
for the support that they provided to the NICS section for the
resources that we have. As a result of that, we are able to
automate quite a bit of the services that we provide. As I
mentioned before, we have a 90 percent immediate determination
rate for the last 35 months, 90 plus percent for the last 35
months to be able to make that determination within the first
15-30 minutes of a person being at the gun counter being able
to provide that service, that value to the community. Again,
the automation methods that we're working through, we just have
an amazing team of folks over in NICS that are committed to
protecting the Second Amendment and protecting the American
people.
Mr. Biggs. Gentleman's time is expired. Thank you.
I have an article I want to admit to the record by
unanimous consent: ``FBI Quietly Revises Violent Crime Stats,''
dated October 16, 2024.
Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Biggs. That concludes today's hearing. Thank you
Assistant--excuse me, Assistant Director Ferguson. Are you
Assistant Director?
Mr. Ferguson. Acting--
Mr. Biggs. Acting Director.
Mr. Ferguson. Acting Assistant Director, yes, sir.
Mr. Biggs. OK. Well. Thank you for being here today, Mr.
Ferguson.
With that, we're going to adjourn.
[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Sub-
committee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance can
be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent
.aspx?EventID=117762.
[all]