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About the Bureau of Justice Statistics
On this page:
Statistical
programs | Grant programs | Dissemination
programs
| Publications | Related Sites
The Bureau of Justice Statistics
(BJS) -
the United States'
primary source for criminal justice statistics
- BJS mission:
- To collect, analyze,
publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims
of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.
These data are critical to Federal, State, and local policymakers in
combating crime and ensuring that justice is both efficient and evenhanded.
- Authorizing legislation:
- The Bureau of Justice Statistics was first established on December 27,
1979 under the Justice Systems Improvement Act of 1979, Public Law 96-157
(the 1979 Amendment to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act
of 1968, Public Law 90-351).
- The Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS) is a component of the Office
of Justice Programs in the U.S.
Department of Justice.
BJS Statistical Principles and Practices
- Bureau of Justice Statistics Strategic Plan
- FY 2005-2008: Acrobat file (781K) | ASCII file (81K)
- FY 2003-2004: Acrobat file (781K) | ASCII file (81K)
Help for using BJS products
BJS organization chart
Forthcoming Publications
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BJS statistical
programs
This year BJS will:
- Interview almost
76,000 citizens in nearly 42,000 households about any experiences they
may have had as crime victims.
- Describe characteristics and consequences of over 24 million criminal
victimizations.
- Analyze operations
of some 50,000 agencies, offices, courts, and institutions that together
comprise the justice system.
- Count populations and conduct sample surveys among the 6.9 million
adults who during an average day are subject to the care, custody, or
control of criminal justice authorities.
- Maintain more than three dozen major data collection series from which
it publishes and distributes reports nationwide.
- Undertake special data collections and analyses to respond to programmatic,
policy, and legislative needs of the Department, the Administration,
Congress, and the criminal justice community.
- Maintain a website and data archive that has up to 20,000 visitors
a day, including scholars, students, policy-makers, the media, and others
around the world.
- Provide assistance to users in identifying sources of BJS information,
interpreting statistical data from BJS series and data collections,
and in understanding the methodologies of BJS surveys.
Data are published annually
on:
- Criminal victimization
- Populations under
correctional supervision
- Federal criminal
offenders and case processing
Periodic data series
include:
- Administration
of law enforcement agencies and correctional facilities
- Prosecutorial
practices and polices
- State court case
processing
- Felony convictions
- Characteristics
of correctional populations
- Criminal justice
expenditure and employment
- Civil case processing
in State courts
- Special studies
on other criminal justice topics
BJS
publishes information from its statistical series in documents which follow
the provisions of the BJS Style Guide
(203K Acrobat file).
BJS data collection activities
-
-
U.S. Bureau of the Census
collects data for most BJS statistical series
- BJS
coordinates with other Department of Justice statistical programs, such
as the FBI's Uniform
Crime Reporting program and National Incident-Based Reporting System
-
the BJS Federal Justice Statistics Program
includes data from other Federal agencies, including the Executive Office
for U.S. Attorneys, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the
U.S. Sentencing Commission, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons
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BJS grant programs
BJS supports several funding programs including -
- Criminal justice statistics programs
- Data collection and processing
- Statistical and methodological research
- Assistance to State, local, and tribal governments
- National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP
- State Justice Statistics (SJS) Program for Statistical Analysis Centers
- Tribal Justice Statistics Assistance Center (TJSAC)
For more information about these programs and how to apply, see Funding.
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Dissemination programs
In this section:
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS)
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS),
provides --
- Copies of BJS
reports and BJS mailing list information
- Criminal justice statistics and data assistance from information specialists
at NCJRS
- Referrals to other sources of crime data
Toll-free access
to BJS statistical information and reports - 800-851-3420
For information about ordering publications, see Publications on How
to Find BJS products.
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BJS archives data
files, documents them, and makes them available through the National
Archive of Criminal Justice Data.
Data files that are
maintained by NACJD are available for downloading from the Internet at
no charge. For information about contacting NACJD, see Datasets
and Codebooks on How to Find BJS products.
The central mission
of NACJD is to facilitate and encourage research in the field of criminal
justice through the sharing of data resources. NACJD provides--
- Computer-readable
data for the quantitative study of crime and the criminal justice system
- Technical assistance
in selecting data collections and the computer hardware and software
for analyzing data efficiently and effectively
- Training in quantitative
methods of social science research to facilitate secondary analysis
of criminal justice data
NACJD routinely receives
statistical data from four U.S. Department of Justice agencies:
- BJS
- National Institute
of Justice,
- Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention
- Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
Individual scholars
and researchers in the criminal justice field may also deposit data with
NACJD, and interested individuals should contact staff for more information
on this process.
Established in 1978,
NACJD headquarters are located, along with the central staff of Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), in the Institute
for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
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The Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center maintains the Bureau
of Justice Statistics Federal Justice Statistics Program database, which
contains information about suspects and defendants processed in the Federal
criminal justice system.
Currently,
data are obtained from the -
- U.S. Marshals Service
- U.S. Attorneys
- Federal Judiciary
- U.S. Sentencing Commission
- Federal Bureau of Prisons
At the FJSRC website, you can:
- find out more about the BJS Federal Justice Statistics Program
- Access
a data dictionary that describes each element in the FJSP database
-
Query/search the FJSP database to quickly obtain customized
statistics describing Federal offenses and offenders such as the number
of defendants prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced in a given year
-
Download
Federal criminal justice data sets for more in-depth analysis
CD-ROMs containing
all of the data archived at the FJSRC and the online data dictionary can
be purchased from the NCJRS Clearinghouse.
The FJSRC and the
web site are maintained by the Urban Institute through a cooperative agreement
with the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
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The ISAR database, maintained by the
Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA), contains
current information about the research, activities, and publications of
the State Statistical Analysis Centers (SACs) which conduct research and
analyze statistics concerning criminal justice issues of State interest.
ISAR is searchable
by State, keyword, and date and includes over 4,000 research projects,
publications, and other activities.
Publications
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