Census of Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies, 2018 (ICPSR 38938)

Version Date: Jan 30, 2024

Cite this study |

Principal Investigator(s):
United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38938.v1

Version V1

Slide tabs to view more

Summary

The Census of Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies (CTLEA) is the first complete enumeration of tribal law enforcement agencies authorized to issue citations and make arrests for crime committed in Indian country. The CTLEA gathers administrative and operational information from tribally operated police departments, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, and the Alaska Village Public Safety Officer's (VPSO) program operating in the United States during 2018. The CTLEA helps fulfill the Bureau of Justice Statistics' legislative mandate under the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 (TLOA; P.L. 111-211, 124 Stat. 2258 Section 251(b)) to establish and implement a tribal crime data collection system.

Data for the CTLEA were collected by NORC, at the University of Chicago, in collaboration with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Indian Country section. The CTLEA consists of two surveys specific to tribally operated law enforcement agencies and the BIA police departments. The Alaska VPSO program is sponsored and funded by the Alaska State Troopers, which completed the tribally operated law enforcement agency questionnaire on behalf of all the VPSOs. Due to the unique territorial and criminal jurisdiction in Alaska Native Villages, only two tribally operated law enforcement agencies (the Chickaloon and Metlakatla Indian Community) met the eligibility criteria to be included in the CTLEA. Data for the 2019 CTLEA were collected through mail, email, and telephone nonresponse follow-up. Data on the number and type of tribally operated law enforcement and BIA agencies were obtained from all eligible federally recognized tribes. The final universe of eligible respondents included 234 tribally operated law enforcement agencies and the Alaska VPSO program, of which 215 (91.9%) participated in the survey. The 23 BIA police departments operating in the United States completed the survey.

Citation

United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Census of Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies, 2018. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-01-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38938.v1

Export Citation:

  • RIS (generic format for RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)
  • EndNote

Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

City

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
Hide

Time Period(s)

2018-01-01 -- 2018-12-31

Date of Collection

2019-08-01 -- 2019-12-31

Data Collection Notes

  1. For the CTLEA 2018 data collection, the data reference year is 2018. However, data collection was fielded in 2019, so the questionnaires are titled the "2019 Census of Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies" and the "2019 Census of Bureau of Indian Affairs Law Enforcement Agencies".

Hide

Study Design

The CTLEA questionnaire was mailed to 305 tribal law enforcement agencies responsible for policing in Indian country and Alaska Native villages during 2018. This master list was created by compiling information from the following sources:

  • the 2018 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) tribal respondents
  • the 2002 Census of Tribal Justice Agencies (CTJA) respondents
  • the International Association of Chiefs of Police's Indian Country Law Enforcement Section membership list
  • a list of tribal agencies received from the FBI's Indian Crime Unit, and
  • the Alaska State Troopers Village Public Safety Officers Program.
Responses were received through mail, fax, and email from August to December 2019. Responding agencies were screened for eligibility to be included in the final CTLEA database. The universe excluded 19 tribal police departments found to be out of scope for 2018 and 28 agencies found to be ineligible.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

Tribally operated law enforcement agencies in the United States, Bureau of Indian Affairs police departments, and the Alaska Village Public Safety Officers program.

Unit(s) of Observation

Organization

Data Source

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2018

U.S. Census Bureau, TIGER/Line Shapefiles, 2018

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Response Rates

The universe of eligible respondents included 234 tribally operated law enforcement agencies and the Alaska VPSO program, of which 215 (91.9%) participated in the survey. All 23 (100%) BIA police departments operating in the United States completed the survey.

Hide

Original Release Date

2024-01-30

Version History

2024-01-30 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Hide

Weight

A weight variable with two implied decimal places has been included in the Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies data file and must be used in any analysis.

Hide

Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.