80 FR 26299 - Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection eComments Requested; Reinstatement, With Change, of a 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)

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 88 (May 7, 2015)

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. This proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register at 80 FR 9749, February 24, 2015, allowing for a 60 day comment period.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 88 (Thursday, May 7, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 26299-26300]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-11005]


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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

[OMB Number 1121-0152]


Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposed eCollection 
eComments Requested; Reinstatement, With Change, of a 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: 30-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. This proposed information collection was 
previously published in the Federal Register at 80 FR 9749, February 
24, 2015, allowing for a 60 day comment period.

DATES: Comments are encouraged and will be accepted for an additional 
30 days until June 8, 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). Written comments and/or suggestions can also 
be directed to the Office of Management and Budget, Office of 
Information and Regulatory Affairs, Attention Department of Justice 
Desk Officer, Washington, DC 20530 or sent to 
[email protected].

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) Title of the Form/Collection: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2015-
2016 (formerly named the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal 
Facilities).
    (3) Agency form number, if any, and the applicable component of the 
Department of Justice sponsoring the collection: The form number of 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 18 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 special populations of prisoners, 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

[[Page 26300]]

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 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.
    In addition to collecting the survey data, in an effort to minimize 
burden on facilities and inmates and to conduct future studies, inmates 
will be asked to provide consent to link their 2015-2016 SPI survey 
data to their criminal history records and any updates made to those 
records over the next 10 years. The administrative records will be used 
to augment the survey data and to conduct prospective recidivism 
studies of the 2015-2016 SPI sample of inmates who are released from 
prison within three to five years of completion of the survey. Inmates 
will also be asked to provide their Social Security number (SSN) to 
link their survey data to records from the Social Security 
Administration (SSA). The goal of this effort is to provide more 
detailed information about the pre-prison earnings and benefits of 
inmates without taking up more of their time during the interview.
    (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 goal of the pretest 
is to test the functionality of the Computer Assisted Personal 
Interviewing (CAPI) instrument prior to fielding it on a national 
scale. The pretest will include one state and one federal correctional 
facility providing a roster of inmates at 0.5 hours per facility for a 
total of 1 hour; prison staff escorting 60 inmates to and 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 hours 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 and from interview 
sites at 0.5 hours per inmate for a total of 16,600 hours; a maximum of 
33,200 inmates will respond to the questionnaire at 1.00 hours per 
interview for a total of 33,200 hours; and a maximum of 50 state 
departments of corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisoners will 
provide post-survey follow-up information at 0.25 hours per 
jurisdiction for a total of 13 hours. The SPI national study will 
result in an expected maximum burden of approximately 50,021 hours.
    (6) An estimate of the total public burden (in hours) associated 
with the collection: The estimated total public burden is 50,112 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: May 4, 2015.
Jerri Murray,
Department Clearance Officer for PRA, U.S. Department of Justice.
[FR Doc. 2015-11005 Filed 5-6-15; 8:45 am]
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