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The BJS National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of about 240,000 persons in about 150,000 households. Persons are interviewed on the frequency, characteristics, and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. The NCVS collects information on nonfatal personal crimes (i.e., rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and...

The Firearm Inquiry Statistics (FIST) program collects information on firearm applications and denials and combines this information with the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) transaction data to produce an estimated number of background checks for firearm transfers or permits since the effective date of the Brady Act in 1994. Reports describe trends in background check activities and the number of firearm transaction...

The Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (DCRA) requires the head of each federal law enforcement agency to submit to the U.S. Attorney General, information about the death of any person who is—

• detained, under arrest, or in the process of being arrested by a federal law enforcement officer (or by a state or local law enforcement officer while participating in a federal law...

The FJSP provides annual data on workload, activities, and outcomes associated with federal criminal cases. BJS acquires information on all aspects of processing in the federal justice system, including—

• the number of persons investigated, prosecuted, convicted, incarcerated, sentenced to probation, released pretrial, and under parole or other supervision
• initial prosecution decisions, referrals to magistrates, court dispositions, sentencing outcomes, sentence length, and time served.

The program...

​​​​​​The legal institutions in Indian country revolve around four main entities: indigenous or traditional courts, general jurisdiction courts, appellate courts, and the Bureau of Indian Affair’s Code of Federal Regulation courts. The National Survey of Tribal Court Systems (NSTCS) is the first complete enumeration of tribal court systems operating in the United States and gathers administrative and operational information from tribal court systems, prosecutors’...

Provides data on all tribal law enforcement agencies operating in the United States, including tribally operated agencies, Bureau of Indian Affairs police, and the Alaska Village Public Safety Officers program. Data collected include the number of agencies, full-time sworn personnel, annual calls for services and arrests, jurisdiction, and functions or duties performed by each agency.

Collects detailed information on confinement facilities, detention centers, jails, and other facilities operated by tribal authorities or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Information is gathered on inmate counts, movements, facility operations, and staff. In selected years (1998, 2004, 2007, and 2011), additional information was collected on facility programs and services, such as medical assessments and mental health screening procedures, inmate work assignments, counseling, and educational...

This collection yields annual data on national and state-level yearend counts of persons sentenced to death and executed. Data collected include offender demographic characteristics, prior criminal histories, criminal justice system status at the time of the capital offense, date of death sentence, and date and type of sentence disposition. The collection also includes summary information on the status of and changes to death penalty statutes.

Collect administrative data from probation and parole agencies in the United States. Data collected include the total number of adults on state and federal probation and parole on January 1 and December 31 of each year, the number of adults entering and exiting probation and parole supervision each year, and the characteristics of adults under the supervision of probation and parole agencies. Published data include...

The Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI) is a periodic, cross-sectional survey of the state and sentenced federal prison populations. Its primary objective is to produce national estimates on the state and sentenced federal prison populations across a variety of domains, including but not limited to demographic characteristics, current offense and sentence, incident characteristics, firearm possession and sources, criminal history, socioeconomic characteristics, family background, drug and...

Produces annual national- and state-level data on the number of prisoners in state and federal prison facilities. Aggregate data are collected on race and sex of prison inmates, inmates held in private facilities and local jails, system capacity, noncitizens, and persons age 17 or younger. Findings are released in the Prisoners series and the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) - Prisoners. Data are from...

The CLETA gathers information on recruits, staff, training curricula, equipment, and facilities from training academies that are responsible for administering mandatory basic training to newly appointed or elected law enforcement officers. These academies are operated by state, county, and municipal agencies and by universities, colleges, and technical schools. Academies that provided only in-service training were excluded from CLETA.

Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, Trials on Appeal (CJSSCTA) provided detailed statistical information on civil cases adjudicated at the appellate level in state courts. CJSSCTA collected information from court records on individual civil trials that were appealed to a state intermediate appellate court and/or court of last resort. The types of information collected included the types of civil cases appealed after trial to an...

The one-time survey provided national estimates of the recidivism rate of felons sentenced to probation in selected years. In the survey, samples of convicted felons placed on probation were tracked for three years, and data were compiled on the percentage of them who were are rearrested, reconvicted, or reimprisoned for new crimes within the three-year follow-up period. The various recidivism measures were based on official...

Annual collection of estimated available state and local records, and other information pursuant to the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 (Pub. L. 110- 180). Estimates are collected of records pertaining to persons prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm under the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968, as amended, 18 U.S.C. 921 et. seq.

Collects data on intentional injuries, such as domestic violence, rape, and child abuse, from a national sample of hospital emergency rooms. Through the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), information is obtained on characteristics of the victim and offender, victim- offender relationship, alcohol/drug involvement in the incident, and circumstances of the injury.

This direct survey of governments collects detailed justice expenditure data. These data are the basis for calculating variable pass-through estimates needed to distribute the formula funds of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) Program administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. Less detailed annual expenditure and employment data are available in the Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts series, which produces similar but...

The Bureau Justice Statistics in a joint effort with the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), conducted victimization surveys in 12 selected cities. The standard National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) instrument was used with questions about citizen perceptions of community policing and neighborhood issues.

This collection serves as the primary source for detailed information on the structure and framework of state courts. The series collects information on the overall number of courts and judges in the nation's state courts; the selection and service requirements of judges; the governance, funding and administration of the judicial branch; the jurisdiction, staffing, and procedures associated with the nation's appellate courts; the administration, procedures...

Conducted approximately every 5 to 7 years, the Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (CCF) collects facility-level data on the operations of facilities and the conditions of confinement, including facility capacity and crowding, court orders, safety and security within prisons, security-staff workload, overall facility function, programming, work assignments, and special housing. The CCF furnishes the sampling frame for the nationwide Survey of Prison...

Provides data on the personnel, budgets, and workload of medical examiner and coroner offices by type of office and size of jurisdiction. The census gathers information on the number of unidentified human decedents handled by these offices, record-keeping practices, and use of national databases for unidentified remains.

Provides a comprehensive look at the forensic services provided by federal, state, and local crime labs across the nation and the resources devoted to completing the work. The Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories collects data on staff, budgets, and workloads within publicly operated labs. The census also provides information on lab accreditations, proficiency tests, and other quality assurances.

Collects inmate death records from each of the nation's 50 state prison systems and approximately 2,800 local jail jurisdictions. Between 2003 and 2014, BJS also collected data on persons who died while in the process of arrest.

Death records include information on decedent personal characteristics (age, race or Hispanic origin, and sex), decedent criminal background (legal status, offense type, and time served), and the death...

The Census of Public Defender Offices (CPDO) involves the collection of data from all state- and county-funded public defender offices across the country, including offices that are publicly funded but privately operated and offices that handle capital cases only. These public defender offices handle the largest proportion of indigent defense cases of the three major indigent defense delivery systems: public defender offices, assigned counsel systems...

Background on the collection of reported crime data

Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program has collected information about crimes reported and arrests made by law enforcement. The UCR Summary Reporting System (SRS) collected monthly counts of the number of crimes known to law enforcement from thousands of agencies throughout the United States. Information on the number of crimes known was...