Annual Survey of Jails in Indian Country, 2020-2023

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) issued a solicitation for an agent to conduct data collection and related activities for the Annual Survey of Jails in Indian Country (SJIC). This award covers the four collection cycles for reporting years 2020 through 2023. The project period is January 1, 2020, through June 30, 2024. The SJIC is the most comprehensive data collection of tribal jails in the United States. Started in 2008, the SJIC describes changes in the inmate population of jails in Indian country and how these facilities are staffed and operated. The data are analyzed by government officials, correctional administrators, and researchers to understand trends in the tribal jail population and inform the practices and policies of tribal jails nationwide. BJS asked applicants to address the project plan for performing the following tasks: (1) develop and maintain a data management plan; (2) efficiently manage data collection in coordination with BJS staff and key stakeholders; (3) provide analytic support to BJS; (4) present at conferences or meetings of tribal officials; (5) meet BJS data security requirements and data collection too development standards; (6) deliver all project materials, including data and source code to BJS for archival at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD); (7) update and maintain an accurate contact list of the SJIC universe and respondents; (8) develop the annual SJIC survey instrument; (9) develop and implement a real-time tracking system for survey administration; (10) develop and field four annual iterations of the SJIC and all supporting materials; (11) deliver an analytic file and documentation one month after each data collection cycle ends; and (12) deliver a post-collection report one month after each data file delivery.

The awardee will (1) field four annual surveys in 2020 through 2023 and an addendum in 2023; (2) perform data quality follow up, as necessary, to obtain the high response rates that have been a hallmark of this collection; (3) implement data entry, verification, and editing procedures to complete an analytic dataset that will be used to prepare tables for release in BJS’s annual bulletins on “Jails in Indian Country;” (4) deliver a final analytic data set and documentation in a timely manner to BJS; and (5) recommend ways to enhance the survey and cognitively test the enhancements.

Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements - 2 CFR 200.210(a)(14).

CA/NCF