Our website has been designed to make it easier for you to find the information you need. BJS has embraced a continuous improvement model to optimize your experience. This page will be regularly updated based on your questions, feedback, and planned updates.
Features of the new design
- Improved content readability
- Direct pathways to data and other content
- Mobile-friendly (aka responsive) design
- Rapid update workflows that support continuous improvement
- Enhanced user feedback mechanisms
What we're hearing from you
- Provide access to more recent data - We are steadily improving our process to be able to release data faster. Check out our Data Collection Process to get a better idea of the timelines required for us to produce trustworthy and accurate data.
- Make it easier to find information - We have re-organized our content to ensure that the pathways to information are more intuitive.
Planned improvements
- Key Statistics - We are working on a new approach that will provide rapid access to our broader set of "key statistics." You'll see this content throughout the site and be given access to interactive charts, underlying datasets and related information.
- Data Dashboards - New BJS data dashboards are in development that will make it easy to visualize and access data from some of our most highly sought data collections.
Tutorials
BJS has added new features to make it easier to find information on our website
The navigation across the top of our home page will lead you to a drop-down menu of content by topic.
Finding data
Developer tools
- The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) application programming interface (API) gives developers and researchers access to the NCVS dataset in open, machine-readable formats. The data can automatically feed into mobile applications, websites or other formats that make information more immediately accessible to the public.
- The OJP Developer Resources page provides access to all Office of Justice Programs APIs, including the NCVS API and an API for grant awards data.
We understand that different people search for information in different ways. To support this, the BJS site provides many different ways to navigate. Our content is organized in three distinct ways: by topic; by information type; and by data collection. You can search our content via known key words, release dates, topic, or information type.
Content is organized as content types in the top horizontal navigational menus beneath the BJS banner. Content types include topics; publications; data (including data collections; funding and awards; programs; and resources (FAQs and glossary).
BJS products and data are primarily organized by criminal justice topic. To get started, choose a topic under the Topics menu item. By default, the Topics navigation button is collapsed and will show only primary topics. Second level topics will appear on a topic page. Clicking on a topic label directly will take you to the page for that particular topic. The topic pages provide access to all associated information resources available, including summary findings, latest releases, publications, data tables, FAQs, data collections, and tools for data analysis. These resources are only visible if they exist for a particular topic.
File formats
BJS provides its products on the Internet in a variety of electronic formats to provide access to users with varying electronic capabilities. Some of these formats require interpreting applications you need to install on your computer as plug-ins to web browsers or stand-alone only applications.
Using the portable document format (.pdf), Acrobat documents are full electronic renderings of published documents including the text, page layout and graphics that can be viewed and printed on any platform. A free reader appropriate for your computer is needed to view an Acrobat document. This reader can be used as a stand-alone or as a plug-in within a web browser to view documents as they are downloaded from the Internet. Instructions on using this software as a plug-in should be available with your web browser.
BJS data tables are available in "comma-separated variable" (CSV) format. CSV files are non-proprietary text files that should be readable by any spreadsheet software. Depending on browser configuration and firewall settings, the CSV file may display directly in your browser window. Otherwise, you'll be prompted to save the file locally where it can then be opened.
In many instances, the spreadsheets or other files have been grouped and compressed to speed downloads. These archival files are presented in .zip format that must be expanded for use. Commercial and free expanders are available for most platforms.
We are here to help
If you have any questions about the changes, you can contact us at [email protected].
Interested in Statistics?
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