Data Sources on Law Enforcement Safety
The Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project at the University of Illinois Chicago aims to provide information for a comprehensive surveillance system based on existing public health data sources.
Department of Justice Data - Predominately provides data regarding injuries caused by violent means (assault on officers).
Bureau of Labor Statistics and Workers' Compensation Data - Provide data regarding injuries caused by both violent and non-violent means. Research shows that the vast majority of injuries suffered by law enforcement personnel are caused by non-violent means.
ICD-10 Coding Note – Security personnel are also often included in “protective services” group and are often included as “officers” in ICD-10 coding. If your research requires differentiating between private security personnel and sworn officers, you may need to acquire narrative text fields in order to differentiate between these two groups.
When using ICD-10 codes the sixth digit identifies whether the person is a suspect, bystander or law enforcement official. To identify law enforcement suffering injuries, include all cases where the 6th digit is 1 (Y35.XX1). However, an internal record abstraction confirmed that most of the cases coded as “law enforcement official” involved injuries to security guards not sworn officers.
Available Data Sources - Local, State and Federal
Know your way around the data
Law Enforcement Subgroups Defined
Bailiffs, Correctional Officers, and Jailers – jobs are to provide security and control over incarcerated inmates along with searching for contraband such as weapons and drugs, settle disputes between inmates. This line of work puts the correctional officer at an increased probability of physical altercations than say a sheriff whose role does not involve being in constant volatile situations.
Sheriffs’ functions include responding to criminal incidents and calls for service, patrolling neighbors, crime investigation, arrest of criminal suspects, execution of warrants, traffic enforcement, traffic direction and control, accident investigation, drug enforcement, parking enforcement, and crime prevention education. Although sheriffs’ offices may have countywide responsibilities related to jail operation, process serving, and court security, their law enforcement jurisdictions typically exclude county areas served by a local police department. In certain counties, municipalities contract with the sheriffs’ office for law enforcement services.
Local law enforcement includes metropolitan police departments and sheriff offices for which their duties include arresting suspects, routine patrol, investigating crimes, enforcing traffic laws, crowd and traffic control, and issuing special permits. Police are in involved in gunfights, car chases, and acts of violence such as people shooting, stabbing, or beating each other on a daily basis.
State police were created to deal with crime in non-urban settings and the mobility of crime, in order to assist local police with major criminal investigations along with patrolling the state highways.
Other Law Enforcement – transit, special institutional (e.g. Universities), municipal, county, federal, irregular law enforcement, as well as parking enforcement, fish and game wardens.
ICD-10 Coding Note – Security personnel are also often included in “protective services” group and are often included as “officers” in ICD-10 coding. If your research requires differentiating between private security personnel and sworn officers, you may need to acquire narrative text fields in order to differentiate between these two groups.
Occupational Codes Used by Bureau of Labor Statistics
When using Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys – Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII) or the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), we recommend using the following occupational codes to define law enforcement. These codes exclude private non-sworn security personnel.
33-0000 All Protective Services
33-1000 Supervisors of Protective Service Workers
33-1010 First-Line Supervisors of Law Enforcement Workers
33-1011 First-Line Supervisors of Correctional Officers
33-1012 First-Line Supervisors of Police and Detectives
33-3000 Law Enforcement Workers
33-3010 Bailiffs, Correctional Officers, and Jailers
33-3011 Bailiffs
33-3012 Correctional Officers and Jailers
33-3020 Detectives and Criminal Investigators
33-3021 Detectives and Criminal Investigators
33-3030 Fish and Game Wardens
33-3031 Fish and Game Wardens
33-3040 Parking Enforcement Workers
33-3041 Parking Enforcement Workers
33-3050 Police Officers
33-3051 Police and Sheriff’s Patrol Officers
33-3052 Transit and Railroad Police