Estimates of Law Enforcement Agencies and Officers In the United States

• In Event: Counting Cops: Measuring and Defining Law Enforcement "Officer" and "Agency"

Abstract

This paper compares the purposes, methods and products of the national statistical programs at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the Department of Labor that are currently used to produce estimates of the number and types of law enforcement agencies and law enforcement officers in the United States. The paper compares and contrast the sampling, definitions and products of the existing programs and uses the available public use data files to assess the extent to which the current efforts meet their stated purposes.

Author

• Joel H. Garner, Joint Centers for Justice Studies