[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 36 (Tuesday, February 24, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Page 9749]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-03708]



[[Page 9749]]

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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[OMB Number 1121-0152]


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection 
eComments Requested; Proposed Collection: Reinstatement With Changes of 
Previously Approved Collection for Which Approval Has Expired; Survey: 
Survey of Prison Inmates (Formerly Named the Survey of Inmates in State 
and Federal Correctional Facilities)

AGENCY: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice.

ACTION: 60-Day notice.

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SUMMARY:  The Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs, 
Bureau of Justice Statistics, will be submitting the following 
information collection request to the Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act of 1995.

DATES:  Comments are encouraged and will be accepted for 60 days until 
April 27, 2015.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  If you have additional comments 
especially on the estimated public burden or associated response time, 
suggestions, or need a copy of the proposed information collection 
instrument with instructions or additional information, please contact 
Lauren Glaze, Statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 810 Seventh 
Street NW., Washington, DC 20531 (email: [email protected]; 
telephone: 202-305-9628).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:  Written comments and suggestions from the 
public and affected agencies concerning the proposed collection of 
information are encouraged. Your comments should address one or more of 
the following four points:

--Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary 
for the proper performance of the functions of the Bureau of Justice 
Statistics, including whether the information will have practical 
utility;
--Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used;
--Evaluate whether and if so how the quality, utility, and clarity of 
the information to be collected can be enhanced; and
--Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are 
to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, 
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic 
submission of responses.

Overview of This Information Collection

    (1) Type of Information Collection: Reinstatement, with change, of 
a previously approved collection for which approval has expired.
    (2) The Title of the Form/Collection: Survey of Prison Inmates, 
2015-2016 (formerly named the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal 
Facilities).
    (3) The agency form number, if any, and the applicable component of 
the Department sponsoring the collection: The form number for the 
questionnaire is NPS-25. The applicable component within the Department 
of Justice is the Bureau of Justice Statistics (Corrections Unit), in 
the Office of Justice Programs.
    (4) Affected public who will be asked or required to respond, as 
well as a brief abstract: Primary: Individuals. Others: State 
government and Federal government. Affected public are prison inmates 
age 15 or older held in adult state or federal correctional facilities 
and the adult state and federal correctional facilities. The purposes 
of this omnibus survey are to generate reliable, nationally-
representative estimates of the characteristics of prisoners in the 
United States, track changes in the characteristics of prisoners over 
time, conduct studies of prisoners on special topics, and identify 
policy-relevant changes in the prison population. The survey will also 
be used to produce subnational estimates of prisoners within 
jurisdictions that have the largest prison populations (i.e. 100,000 or 
more) in the nation. The 2015-2016 SPI survey builds upon prior surveys 
and is organized around the concepts of harm, risk, and reentry. 
Specifically, the harms that prisoners have perpetrated on society as 
measured by the severity of the offense, the incident characteristics 
of the offense and criminal history; the risk they pose for recidivism 
as measured by harm elements and additional risk factors such as ties 
to the community and mainstream institutions of social integration, 
such as pre-prison employment within the labor market; their challenges 
and expectations for reentry back into the community as measured by the 
SPI through the extent of substance abuse, mental health, and medical 
problems of prisoners, treatment they may have received for problems, 
programs in which they participated while in prison, and their 
motivation (i.e., intrinsic or extrinsic) to participate in programs. 
The data will be collected through face-to-face interviews with the 
inmates using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) 
technology. BJS has used the data from previous iterations of SPI to 
publish a variety of statistical products that profile prisoner 
characteristics over time and address important substantive and policy-
relevant issues related to crime and corrections. The data are also 
used by a variety of stakeholders for these same purposes, including 
the U.S. Congress, Executive Office of the President, practitioners, 
researchers, students, the media, and others interested in criminal 
justice statistics. No other collection series provides these data on 
the variety of topics that SPI covers.
    (5) An estimate of the total number of respondents and the amount 
of time estimated for an average respondent to respond: The 2015-2016 
SPI consists of a pretest and a national study. The pretest will 
include 2 state correctional facilities providing a roster of inmates 
at 0.5 hours per facility for a total of 1 hour; prison staff escorting 
60 inmates to/from interview sites at 0.5 hours per inmate for a total 
of 30 hours; and 60 inmates responding to the questionnaire at 1.00 
hour per interview for a total of 60 hours. The pretest will result in 
a total expected burden of approximately 91 hours. For the SPI national 
study, a maximum of 416 state and federal correctional facilities will 
provide a roster of inmates at 0.5 hours per facility for a total of 
208 hours; prison staff will escort a maximum of 33,200 inmates to/from 
interview sites at 0.5 hours per inmate for a total of 16,600 hours; 
and a maximum of 33,200 inmates will respond to the questionnaire at 
1.00 hours per interview for a total of 33,200 hours. The SPI national 
study will result in an expected maximum burden of approximately 50,008 
hours.
    (6) An estimate of the total public burden (in hours) associated 
with the collection: The estimated total public burden is 50,099 annual 
hours.
    If additional information is required contact: Jerri Murray, 
Department Clearance Officer, United States Department of Justice, 
Justice Management Division, Policy and Planning Staff, Two 
Constitution Square, 145 N Street NE., 3E.405B, Washington, DC 20530.

    Dated: February 19, 2015.
Jerri Murray,
Department Clearance Officer for PRA, U.S. Department of Justice.
[FR Doc. 2015-03708 Filed 2-23-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-18-P