The Law Enforcement Agency Survey, which began in 1987, is a first-time survey of State and local law enforcement agencies conducted for the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This survey is intended to give national estimates of administrative and management statistics (including employment and workload measures) in State and local law enforcement agencies. The sample was designed with the major variable of interest being the total number of sworn employees in these agencies. Details of the sample design are given in section 1. Details of the estimation of totals are given in section 2 with details of the variance estimation given in section 3. Issues for future surveys are discussed in section 4.