FAQ Listing

The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Virtual Library Abstracts Database houses materials and resources produced and/or sponsored by the Office of Justice Programs (OJP). Prior to October 2014, the Library collected resources from a wide variety of sources (i.e., research organizations, journal publishers, etc.). These materials remain available through the NCJRS collection.

The collection covers the broad subject areas of criminal and juvenile justice, as well as related fields of study. Topics including corrections, law enforcement, drugs and crime, juvenile justice, and crime victims are comprehensively covered. Similarly, more focused subjects within these broad topics are also covered, such as technology in law enforcement, domestic violence, drug policy, and youth violence.

More detailed information about the collection can be located in the Library Collection Statement and Tutorial.

You can receive weekly notifications of NCJRS Virtual Library additions by subscribing to the NCJRS Weekly Accessions List (WAL).

Items may be ordered via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) through your local or University library using the standard American Library Association ILL form. Please work with your local librarian to complete the form and submit the request. The completed form, along with pre-payment, should be submitted to NCJRS by mail or email:

Mail
NCJRS Library
P.O. Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849-6000

Email
[email protected]

Payment ($15 per item in the U.S.; $16.50 per item for loans to Canada) is accepted by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover or U.S./Canadian government purchase order. Note that all purchase order invoices must be paid by a credit card.

Additionally, many publications in the Virtual Library are available at local libraries. Use the "Find in a Library" service to search these collections and discover if the document you are interested in is available at a local library. To learn more about this, visit the Virtual Library Services page.

BJS included an opioid addendum in the 2019 Census of Jails and released a report on this topic.

The Census Bureau has regulations to protect confidentiality of data, which prevents the public release of any information from small areas that might make it possible to identify individuals who participated in the survey. Geographically identified data from the NCVS can be made available to researchers on a restricted basis by applying for access through the Standard Application Process. For more information see: https://bjs.ojp.gov/standard-application-process. 

Though the NCVS was originally designed to provide national level estimates of criminal victimization, BJS has recognized an increasing need for victimization data at the state and local level and has developed multiple approaches for obtaining subnational NCVS estimates. (See NCVS Subnational Estimates for additional information about these approaches.) However, caution should be used when working with the restricted use files since sample at the local level may be limited and is not necessarily representative of the area as a whole.

Data collections vary in scope, burden, and frequency of collection (see individual data collection descriptions for more information). Generally, BJS collects data both from administrative records and from interviews with prison and jail inmates. All data collections must be approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) prior to fielding, which takes several months. Collections must be resubmitted for approval every 3 years (sooner if there are changes in the data collection). For data that are collected through inmate interviews, there must also be an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to protect human subjects (prior to OMB submission), and individual jurisdictions may require additional reviews prior to participation.

All data collection is voluntary. Without a specific mandate by Congress, no jurisdiction is compelled to participate in our data collections; individual surveys are conducted only with persons granting formal consent to participate. Most jurisdictions choose to participate because the information is helpful for policy and practice and may be used to allocate funding. It takes time to achieve a complete enumeration, particularly in times of staff shortages and budget cuts in many levels of government.

Administrative collections are sent out close to the reference date in the survey and are due to BJS 2 to 3 months later. Most respondents submit the data on time, but for various reasons, other jurisdictions take longer to submit the data. BJS staff or contractor staff work with jurisdictions to obtain the necessary information, which can take an additional 3 months.

After data are collected, they must then be cleaned, weighted (in the case of sample populations), and analyzed. BJS staff has several methods of release, including a formal report, statistical/electronic tables, or a summary brief. All data are fully verified prior to release. Keeping in mind that each data collection is different and the times may vary significantly depending on the collection of interest, provided below is an average data collection and processing timetable:

Collection, 5–6 months (from reference date) for administrative surveys; 8–12 for interview surveys

Cleaning/weighting, 1–2 months for administrative surveys; 3–6 for interview surveys

Analysis/verification, 2–12 months, depending on survey type and complexity of analysis

Preparation to disseminate, 2–3 months

A victim service provider is a public or private organization that provides assistance to victims of crime.

Victim services are any efforts to assist victims; to promote their safety, security, or recovery; to help them participate in the criminal justice system; or to meet other victim needs.

NIBRS stands for National Incident-Based Reporting System.   

As of fiscal year 2020, BJS estimated about 137,000 full-time federal law enforcement officers. The largest federal law enforcement agency is the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which employed almost 47,000 full-time officers in 2020.