U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Bureau of Justice Statistics

TECHNICAL REPORT

Celebrating

 35 years

October 2015, NCJ 249099

Assessment of Coverage in the 

Arrest-Related Deaths Program

Duren Banks, Ph.D. and Lance Couzens, RTI International 

Michael Planty, Ph.D., Bureau of Justice Statistics

Executive summary

After the passage of the Death in Custody Reporting Act 

(DICRA) of 2000 (P.L. 106-297), the Bureau of Justice 

Statistics (BJS) began collecting data on deaths that occurred 

in the process of arrest. Provisions in the 2000 DICRA 

called for collecting all deaths occurring within the process 

of arrest in any state, county, or local law enforcement 

agency nationwide. From 2003 through 2009, BJS obtained 

reports on 4,813 such deaths through its Arrest-Related 

Deaths (ARD) program. About 3 in 5 of these deaths 

(2,931) were classified as homicides by law enforcement 

personnel. The remaining 2 in 5 deaths were attributed to 

other manners, including suicide (11%), intoxication deaths 

(11%), accidental injury (6%), and natural causes (5%).1

In three-quarters (75%) of homicides by law enforcement 

personnel, the underlying offense of arrest was a violent 

offense. No criminal charges were intended in less than 2% 

of these incidents.

To assess the completeness of the ARD data that BJS 

received, in 2013 BJS undertook a technical review of the 

ARD program’s methodology and an assessment of the 

program’s coverage of all arrest-related deaths in the United 

States. The methodology review examined the variation 

in states’ approaches to identifying and confirming arrestrelated deaths. The assessment of coverage focused on 

determining whether BJS received all arrest-related deaths 

that occurred or only a portion of them. The primary focus 

of the assessment of coverage was on homicides by law 

enforcement officers.

The analysis showed that the ARD program obtained fewer 

law enforcement homicide deaths than expected, based on 

the methodology used to estimate the expected number of 

1Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003–2009 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 235385, BJS 

web, November 2011).

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

Number of homicides reported

Reported to 

either ARD or SHR

Reported 

to SHR

Reported 

to ARD

Estimated 

universe

51% 54% 28%

5,324

(72%)

3,385

(46%)

3,620

(49%)

7,427

(100%)

Percent of expected deaths not reported to the ARD or SHR

Figure 1

Estimated number of law enforcement homicides 

and percent not reported, by data source, 2003–2009 

and 2011

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program, 

2003–2009 and 2011; and FBI, Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), 

2003–2009 and 2011.

law enforcement homicides. It also showed that the data BJS 

used for comparison purposes—the FBI’s Supplementary 

Homicide Reports (SHR)—also reported fewer justifiable 

homicides than expected.2 In total, the BJS ARD program 

data and the SHR data each identified about half of the 

expected number of homicides by law enforcement officers 

during the period from 2003 through 2009 and 2011 

(figure 1). The ARD program captured approximately 49% 

of these homicides, while the SHR captured 46%. More than 

a quarter (28%) of law enforcement homicides in the United 

States were not captured by either system. The analysis 

2Arrest-related Deaths Program Assessment: Technical Report (NCJ 248543, 

BJS web, March 2015). 
Assessment of Coverage in the Arrest-Related Deaths Program | October 2015 2

also showed that the ARD program obtained more arrestrelated deaths in 2009 and 2011, when BJS began to use open 

source methods (e.g., Google searches to identify potential 

cases), compared with prior years when BJS did not use open 

source methods.3

Drawing from the results of this study, BJS has begun a pilot 

study that explores multiple methods of identifying and 

confirming deaths occurring in the process of arrest. The study 

will inform BJS efforts to implement the requirements of the 

reauthorized 2013 DICRA (P.L. 113-242). 

Arrest-Related Deaths program assessment

BJS designed the ARD program to be a census of all deaths 

that occurred in the process of arrest or during an attempt 

to obtain custody by a state or local law enforcement agency. 

BJS collected ARD data from 2003 through 2013, covering 

deaths occurring in calendar years 2003 through 2012.4

BJS implemented the ARD program as part of its Deaths in 

Custody Reporting Program (DCRP), which it developed in 

response to the 2000 DICRA and includes collections that 

measure deaths occurring in jails and state prisons, in addition 

to deaths occurring during the process of arrest.5, 6

The ARD program identified the manner of arrest-related 

death, including law enforcement homicides, other homicides, 

accidents, suicides, and deaths due to natural causes. Law 

enforcement homicides included all deaths attributed 

to weapons or restraint tactics used by state or local law 

enforcement officers. From 2003 through 2009, about 61% of 

all deaths reported to the ARD program were law enforcement 

homicides.7

3ARD program data for 2010 were unavailable due to a shift in data 

collection methodology between 2009 and 2011. 

4BJS only published statistics from calendar years 2003 through 2009.

5The 2000 DICRA expired in 2006, although BJS continued to maintain 

its DCRP data collections. The 2013 DICRA was passed by Congress 

and became law in December 2014. The 2013 DICRA requires any state 

receiving funds from the Department of Justice to report on a quarterly 

basis information regarding the death of any person who is detained, 

under arrest, or in the process of being arrested; is en route to be 

incarcerated; or is incarcerated.

6For more information on the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program, see 

the BJS website. 

7See Arrest-Related Deaths, 2003–2009 - Statistical Tables (NCJ 235385, BJS 

web, November 2011). 

As part of its ongoing efforts to evaluate the quality of its 

statistical programs, BJS began to assess the quality of ARD 

program data in 2013. This assessment focused on the 

methodology used to obtain the data and on the completeness 

of the arrest-related deaths reported to the program. In part, 

BJS began this assessment in response to an unexpected 

increase in the number of law enforcement homicides reported 

to the ARD program in 2009 and 2011. In these years, BJS 

began to use open sources (e.g., web searches and Google 

Alerts) and other methods to independently identify potential 

cases of deaths in the process of arrest. These cases were 

then sent to BJS’s state data collection agents for review and 

verification. The implementation of this new methodology led 

to an increase in the number of homicides by law enforcement 

reported to the ARD that was more than the average number 

(406) for previous years. For example, BJS obtained 689 reports 

of law enforcement homicides in 2011, which represented a 

39% increase from the 496 reported in 2009 (figure 2).

Given the increase in the number of deaths identified by the 

ARD program after changes in methodology, along with 

concerns about overall program coverage, BJS temporarily 

suspended ARD data collection while it undertook the ARD 

program assessment and technical review. A primary focus 

of this BJS study was to estimate the coverage error (i.e., the 

percentage of the expected number of ARD deaths that the 

program missed).

Year

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010* 2011 0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Number of law enforcement 

homicides reported to ARD

Estimated percent of the number of deaths reported to ARD

69%

41%

51%

39% 42% 43%

689

496

404

447 455

377 375 377

47%

55%

Figure 2

Number of law enforcement homicides reported to the 

ARD program and estimated, lower bound, 2003–2009 

and 2011

*2010 data not released.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program, 

2003–2009 and 2011.
Assessment of Coverage in the Arrest-Related Deaths Program | October 2015 3

Methodology review and coverage assessment

The ARD program had methodological limitations that 

prevented BJS from obtaining a full enumeration of all arrestrelated deaths in the United States. The program relied on 

voluntary reporting from state and local agencies to compile 

information about arrest-related deaths, including law 

enforcement homicides. It also relied on centralized reporting 

mechanisms to compile and submit information about these 

deaths. These state reporting coordinators (SRC) in each of 

the 50 states and the District of Columbia were responsible for 

understanding the scope and definition of the ARD program, 

identifying eligible cases in their respective states, and working 

with available resources to collect and report information 

about those cases. Not all states had an SRC. In those states, 

BJS relied on its contractor to take on the SRC role. As of 2009, 

several jurisdictions (i.e., Arkansas, the District of Columbia, 

Georgia, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin, and 

Wyoming) had yet to participate in the program.

BJS studied the completeness of all law enforcement homicides 

reported to the ARD program by using both ARD data and a 

separate source of data on law enforcement homicides—the 

FBI’s SHR data.8 BJS compared the number of law enforcement 

homicides reported by the ARD program from 2003 through 

2009 and 2011, representing all of the ARD program years 

for which data were available, with the number of justifiable 

homicides captured by the SHR over the same period.9

Applying a commonly used technique known as capturerecapture to estimate the size of populations, the BJS 

assessment produced an estimate of the expected number of 

law enforcement homicides in the United States. This estimate 

was based on the extent to which the ARD and SHR data on 

law enforcement homicides overlapped (i.e., reported on the 

same cases).10 As the amount of overlap between the data 

sources increased, the estimated underlying population size got 

closer to the number of cases in the data sources.

8SHR data are voluntarily provided by law enforcement agencies to the 

FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Program. For more information 

about the UCR program, see https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr.

9The UCR Program handbook defines justifiable homicides as (1) the 

killing of a felon by a police officer in the line of duty or (2) the killing of a 

felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen.

10See Palusci, V.J., Wirtz, S.J. & Convington, T.M. (2010). Using capturerecapture methods to better ascertain the incidence of fatal child 

maltreatment. Child Abuse & Neglect, 24, 396–402. See also Wolter, 

K.M. (1986). Some coverage error models for census data. Journal of the 

American Statistical Association, 81, 338–346.

Capture-recapture analysis relies on a number of assumptions, 

including that cases can be matched across lists, that the lists 

are limited to cases that meet the definition of law enforcement 

homicides, and that inclusion on one list is independent from 

inclusion on the other. Many of these assumptions were met, 

but the nature of the ARD program and SHR necessitated 

the violation of other assumptions (including independence 

across lists, as some ARD SRCs relied on the same reporting 

mechanisms as those that inform the SHR). RTI International 

implemented a number of adjustments to account for these 

violations.11

In the assessment, BJS generated estimates based on differing 

assumptions about missing data. This resulted in an upperand a lower-bound estimate of the expected number of law 

enforcement homicides that should have been reported to the 

ARD program, if the ARD data were 100% complete.

Across the 8 years of data used in the analysis from 2003 

through 2009 and 2011, the lower-bound estimate of the 

expected number of law enforcement homicides that should 

have been reported to the ARD program was 7,427, or an 

average of 928 per year (table 1). The ARD program captured 

approximately half (49%) or 3,620 of these homicides (an 

average of 453 a year), whereas the SHR captured 46% or 

3,385 of these homicides (423 per year). More than a quarter 

(28%) or 2,103 of the estimated homicides in the United States 

during those 8 years were not captured by either system. The 

lower-bound estimate assumed that any agencies that did not 

report to the ARD or SHR programs did not have an arrestrelated death during the study period. The upper-bound 

estimate assumed the number of arrest-related deaths in law 

enforcement agencies that did not report to the ARD or the 

SHR were comparable to those of the agencies that did report. 

This yielded an estimated 9,937 law enforcement homicides 

in the United States, an average of 1,242 per year, of which the 

ARD program captured more than a third (36%).

11For descriptions of the violations, see Arrest-Related Deaths Program 

Assessment: Technical Report (NCJ 248543, BJS web, March 2015). 

Table 1

Number and percent of law enforcement homicides 

captured, by source and estimation approach, 

2003–2009 and 2011

Law enforcement homicides

Lower-bound estimate Upper-bound estimate

Number

Percent of 

universe Number

Percent of 

universe 

Estimated universe 7,427 100% 9,937 100%

Observed deaths 5,324 72% 5,324 54%

ARD 3,620 49 3,620 36

SHR 3,385 46 3,385 34

Unobserved deaths 2,103 28% 4,613 46%

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program, 

2003–2009 and 2011; and FBI, Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), 2003–2009 

and 2011.
Assessment of Coverage in the Arrest-Related Deaths Program | October 2015 4

As BJS implemented changes to improve the ARD collection 

methodology, the program’s coverage of arrest-related deaths 

improved. Analysis indicated that the ARD program included a 

greater proportion of the estimated law enforcement homicides 

in 2009 and 2011 than it did from 2003 through 2008. In 2011, 

the ARD program captured 69% of the estimated 1,000 law 

enforcement homicides in the United States (figure 3).

Conclusions 

BJS’s analysis of the ARD program’s coverage found that for the 

study period from 2003 through 2009 and 2011, both the ARD 

program and the SHR obtained reports for only about half 

of the expected number of law enforcement homicides in the 

United States. Examining the data on deaths that were reported 

to either or both systems, BJS found that, combined, the 

systems obtained reports on at best 72% of all law enforcement 

homicides in the United States across all years observed. 

The ARD program showed improvements in coverage in the 

most recent years studied (i.e., 2009 and 2011), and these 

improvements coincided with the increased use of open-source 

data to identify potential cases of arrest-related deaths. Despite 

demonstrated improvements over time, the ARD program 

missed reports for more than a quarter of the expected number 

of law enforcement homicides in 2011.

The ARD program coverage may be improved by providing a 

more centralized method for identifying arrest-related deaths 

and providing incentives for law enforcement agencies to 

confirm or identify deaths that occur during the process of 

arrest and to provide information about them. Therefore, BJS 

has begun to explore the use of open-source data to identify 

arrest-related deaths in conjunction with a direct survey of law 

enforcement and other agencies responsible for investigating 

deaths in the process of arrest. The study will inform BJS 

efforts to implement the requirements of the reauthorized 

DICRA of 2013 (P.L. 113-242).

0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

Estimated number of law enforcement homicides

Reported number of 

law enforcement homicides

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010* 2011

Year

Figure 3

Number of law enforcement homicides reported to the 

ARD program and estimated, unadjusted coverage, 

2003–2009 and 2011

*2010 data not released.

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD) program, 

2003–2009 and 2011.
Celebrating

 35 years

Office of Justice Programs

Innovation • Partnerships • Safer Neighborhoods

www.ojp.usdoj.gov

The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the 

principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal 

victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime, correlates of crime, 

and the operation of criminal and civil justice systems at the federal, state, 

tribal, and local levels. BJS collects, analyzes, and disseminates reliable and 

valid statistics on crime and justice systems in the United States, supports 

improvements to state and local criminal justice information systems, 

and participates with national and international organizations to develop 

and recommend national standards for justice statistics. William J. Sabol 

is director.

This report was written by Duren Banks and Lance Couzens, RTI 

International, and Michael Planty, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Lynn Langton 

provided verification of the report.

Morgan Young and Jill Thomas edited the report. Tina Dorsey and Barbara 

Quinn produced the report.

October 2015, NCJ 249099

NCJ249099