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The data obtained from the National Survey of Prosecutors (NSP) provided data on prosecutorial activities nationwide as well as a variety of administrative and legal issues facing prosecutors who handle felony cases in state courts. The 2020 NSP surveyed 750 of the 2.347 state prosecutor offices in the U.S. Prior to the 2020 NSP, the most recent iteration of NSP was a census conducted in...

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.

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 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 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...

Provides data describing campus law enforcement agencies serving U.S. 4-year institutions with 1,000 or more students. Also surveyed were 2-year institutions with 1,000 or more students. Data were collected on agency staffing, operations, budget, policies, responsibilities, training, and equipment. The survey includes campus law enforcement agencies serving institutions funded both publicly and privately.

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 known to 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...

The National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) collects offender-level administrative data annually on prison admissions and releases, and year-end custody populations, and on parole entries and discharges in participating jurisdictions. Demographic information, conviction offenses, sentence length, minimum time to be served, credited jail time, type of admission, type of release, and time served are collected from individual prisoner records. The collection began in 1983 and is...

The Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV) is part of BJS's National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which gathers mandated data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual victimization in adult correctional and juvenile justice facilities, under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108-79). This is an administrative data collection based on allegations of sexual victimization by other inmates/youth or staff that are reported...

From 1988 through 2009, the National Pretrial Reporting Program (NPRP) and State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) collected and reported on court processing data for felony cases in a sample of the 75 most populous counties. The program prospectively tracked felony defendants from charging by the prosecutor until disposition of their cases (a maximum of 12 months for nonmurder cases and 24 months for murder cases)...

The Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS) provides detailed information on the characteristics of persons who had some type of contact with police during the past year, including those who contacted the police to report a crime or were pulled over in a traffic stop. The PPCS interviews a nationally representative sample of residents age 16 or older as a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey...

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...

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...

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...

BJS uses criminal history records to study the number and types of crimes committed by state prisoners both prior to and following their release. The first study tracked a sample of state prisoners released in 11 states in 1983, and the second study followed a sample of state prisoners released in 15 states in 1994. Both studies had a 3-year follow-up period. The latest study...

Provides national data on publicly operated forensic crime laboratories that perform DNA analyses. Data are collected on personnel, budgets, workloads, equipment, procedures, policies, and data processing. BJS first surveyed forensic crime laboratories in 1998, focusing solely on agencies that performed DNA analysis. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded the 1998 study as part of a DNA Laboratory Improvement Program.

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.

Cosponsored by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is typically administered every 2 years. This supplement asks respondents ages 12 through 18 about crimes that occurred at school and other characteristics of school crime. It is the longest-running, active NCVS supplement.

This page features SCS survey methodology, questionnaires...

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...

The 2019 Census of Jails (COJ) is part of a series of data collections that studies the nation's local jails and the 12 Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) detention facilities that function as jails. The 2019 COJ collected data necessary for producing estimates on local jail populations, including one-day custody counts by sex, race and Hispanic origin, conviction status, and severity of offense (felony and...

Administered to a sample of approximately 950 local jails (city, county, regional, and private) nationwide, the Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ) provides national estimates on the number of inmates confined in jails, demographic characteristics and criminal justice status of the jail population, holds for federal and state prison authorities, counts of admissions and releases, number of jail employees, and rated capacity.

The National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC) is part of BJS's National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which gathers mandated data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault in juvenile facilities under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 as specified in PREA; P.L. 108-79. PREA requires a 10% sample of juvenile facilities to be listed by incidence of sexual assault. Data are collected...

The National Inmate Survey (NIS) is part of BJS's National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which gathers mandated data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault in correctional facilities under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108-79). PREA requires a 10% sample of correctional facilities to be listed by incidence of sexual assault, with a minimum of one prison and one jail...

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...

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...