Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (CSFACF)

The Census of State Adult Correctional Facilities (CSACF) was first conducted in 1974 by the Office of Justice Assistance, Research and Statistics of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. BJS repeated the state prison census collection in 1979 and 1984. In 1990, facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) were added to the census, and it was renamed the Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (CSFACF). The CSFACF collects data at the facility level and has been conducted in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2012. While the collection has historically been conducted about every five years, the CSFACF was not administered in 2010 due to resource constraints at BJS. As 2012 approached, there was a need for a frame for the upcoming BJS Survey of Prison Inmates. BJS decided to meet the immediate need with a scaled back version of the traditional CSFACF and collecting only a very limited set of items required for frame development.

Traditionally, facility-level data obtained through the CSFACF were intended to describe the conditions of state and federal confinement and community-based facilities operated by public correctional authorities and private contractors; however, this level of data has not been collected since 2005 and its absence has been noted by researchers and policymakers. The information collected in the CSFACF informs BJS and the public on issues such as capacity and crowding, staff workload, facility function, safety and security, and programs within correctional facilities. The 2019 CSFACF will return to the pre-2012 model of a broader collection of information on facilities, and will continue to be a part of the larger BJS portfolio of establishment surveys that provide information on the characteristics of adult correctional facilities and persons sentenced to state and federal prisons in the United States.

This award will support project tasks that fall under 7 project objectives: 1) develop and implement a plan to ensure an accurate and complete roster of prison facilities to administer the CSFACF; 2) finalize and test the 2019 CSFACF instrument and conduct activities in preparation for administration of the survey; 3) develop strategies to identify the appropriate respondents and jurisdiction-specific data collection protocols that will ensure collection and delivery of high-quality data; 4) plan and produce marketing materials to inform practitioners and researchers of the data collection, and solicit buy-in from government officials and correctional administrators for the data collection; 5) conduct data collection and data quality follow-up; 6) produce accurate and reliable national- and state-level statistics that describe the characteristics of adult prison confinement facilities for BJS to disseminate; and 7) plan and implement strategies to ensure good project management and communication with the BJS project manager.

This award covers the 36-month period from October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2020.

(CA/NCF)

Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.