FOR STATE AND TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS: Section 103 of the Act, regarding implementation assistance to the states, provides that the grants "shall be used by the States and Indian tribal governments, in conjunction with units of local government and State and local courts, to establish or upgrade information and identification technologies for firearms eligibility determinations."
The law provides that grant to states or Indian tribes may only be used to—
- create electronic systems, which provide accurate and up-to-date information that is directly related to checks under the NICS, including court disposition and corrections records
- assist states in establishing or enhancing their own capacities to perform NICS background checks
- supply accurate and timely information to the Attorney General concerning final dispositions of criminal records to databases accessed by NICS
- supply accurate and timely information to the Attorney General concerning the identity of persons who have a federally a prohibiting mental health adjudication or commitment
- supply accurate and timely court orders and records of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence for inclusion in federal and state law enforcement databases used to conduct NICS background checks
- collect and analyze data needed to demonstrate levels of state compliance with the Act
- maintain the relief from disabilities program in accordance with section 105, but not less than 3% and no more than 10% of each grant shall be used for this purpose.
FOR STATE COURT SYSTEMS: Section 301 of the Act, regarding grants to state court systems for the improvement of automation and transmittal of disposition records, provides that grants shall be made to each state, consistent with state plans for the integration, automation, and accessibility of criminal history records, for use by the state court system to improve automation and transmittal to federal and state repositories of—
- criminal history dispositions
- records relevant to determining whether a person has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or is the subject of a prohibiting domestic violence protection order
- prohibiting mental adjudications and commitments.
The law provides that the amounts granted shall be used by the state court system only to—
- carry out, as necessary, assessments of the capabilities of state courts to automate and transmit arrest and conviction records, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to federal and state record repositories
- implement policies, systems, and procedures to automate and transmit arrest and conviction records, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to federal and state record repositories.
Recognizing the need to automate state record systems that contribute most of the relevant information to the FBI record systems that would be checked by the NICS, the Brady Act established NCHIP, a program of grants to be used by the states to create or improve computerized criminal history record systems, assist in the transmittal of criminal records for use by the NICS, and improve access to the NICS. NCHIP is administered by the Department's Office of Justice Programs through the Bureau of Justice Statistics. At the state level, NCHIP grants are administered by state agencies designated by the Governor for this purpose. Since 1995, NCHIP has provided over $699 million in grants to the states to improve the automation of their record systems that contribute to the FBI information used in NICS checks.
Notwithstanding these efforts under NCHIP and the tremendous progress the state and federal criminal justice information repositories have made in record automation since 1995, the databases checked by the FBI are still missing significant percentages of relevant data that originate in the states, including final dispositions of records of arrests for prohibiting offenses, records of convictions for domestic violence misdemeanor offenses, and information identifying persons with prohibiting domestic violence protection orders or with disqualifying mental health adjudications and commitments.
The NICS Improvement Act grant programs do not supplant NCHIP. Rather, the NICS Improvement Act grants are to be made in a manner "consistent with" and "in accordance with" NCHIP. The major difference from NCHIP is that the NICS Improvement Act grants may only be used for specified purposes that are related to achieving the completeness goals for the records directly related to NICS checks. In addition, the NICS Improvement Act authorizes a separate grant program for funding that is dedicated to be used by state courts systems, where most of the disposition information missing from the national repositories originates.
Fifteen states received NICS Improvement Amendments Act funding in FY 2017, totaling $11.2 million.
For more information on state-specific projects go to State-by-State Information.
Staffing and budget increases experienced by state court prosecutors' offices in the 1990s generally leveled off by 2001. Resources available to state court prosecutors' offices in 2005 were similar to those in 2001. In 2005 state court prosecutors' offices employed approximately 78,000 attorneys, investigators and support staff, had a median annual budget of $355,000, and closed about 250 or more felony cases.
According to the 2019 BJS Survey of Law Enforcement Personnel in Schools (SLEPS), there was a total of about 24,900 sworn SROs employed by about 5,500 local police departments, sheriffs’ offices, and school district police departments.
In 2022, 18 inmates were executed in the United States. The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) Capital Punishment reports present characteristics of persons under sentence of death and persons executed, and summarize the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status. See Prisoners executed under civil authority in the United States, by year, region, and jurisdiction for additional data on executions.
FOR STATE AND TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS: Section 103 of the Act, regarding implementation assistance to the states, says that the grants "shall be used by the States and Indian tribal governments, in conjunction with units of local government and State and local courts, to establish or upgrade information and identification technologies for firearms eligibility determinations."
The law says that grants to states or American Indian tribes may only be used to—
- create electronic systems, which provide accurate and up-to-date information that is directly related to checks under the NICS, including court disposition and corrections records
- assist states in establishing or enhancing their own capacities to perform NICS background checks
- supply accurate and timely information to the Attorney General concerning final dispositions of criminal records to databases accessed by NICS
- supply accurate and timely information to the Attorney General concerning the identity of persons who have a federally prohibiting mental health adjudication or commitment
- supply accurate and timely court orders and records of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence for inclusion in federal and state law enforcement databases used to conduct NICS background checks
- collect and analyze data needed to demonstrate levels of state compliance with the Act
- maintain the relief from disabilities program in accordance with Section 105, but not less than 3% and no more than 10% of each grant shall be used for this purpose.
FOR STATE COURT SYSTEMS: Section 301 of the Act, regarding grants to state court systems for the improvement of automation and transmittal of disposition records, says that grants be made to each state, consistent with state plans for the integration, automation, and accessibility of criminal history records, for use by the state court system to improve automation and transmittal to federal and state repositories of—
- criminal history dispositions
- records relevant to determining whether a person has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or a prohibiting domestic violence protection order
- prohibiting mental adjudications and commitments.
The law says that the amounts granted will be used by the state court system only to—
"carry out, as necessary, assessments of the capabilities of state courts to automate and transmit arrest and conviction records, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to federal and state record repositories; and
implement policies, systems, and procedures to automate and transmit arrest and" conviction records, court orders, and mental health adjudications or commitments to federal and state record repositories.
In addition to felony criminal matters, prosecutors’ offices handled a variety of other case types. A greater number of prosecutors’ offices reported computer-based offenses and taking on homeland security responsibilities. In 2005, 60% of all state court prosecutors reported prosecuting crimes under the state’s computer crime statute, compared to 42% in 2001. About 80% of all offices reported handling credit card fraud, bankcard fraud (71%), identity theft (70%), and transmitting child pornography in 2005.
Full-time prosecutors’ offices were more likely to report prosecuting cases related to terrorism or participating in terrorism related investigations, compared to small full-time offices or part-time offices. In 2005, 2% of all prosecutor offices reported prosecuting cases related to terrorism; 7% actively participated in terrorism related investigations; and a third had members of the staff attend training on homeland security issues. Nearly a quarter of all offices participated in state or local task forces for homeland security.
The Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) captures person-level information on identity theft against persons age 16 or older.
BJS has several reports that present statistics on race and crime. The Race/Ethnicity page contains more information on how race and ethnicity are measured and a listing of our most recent reports on this topic.
The Data Collections section of the BJS website provides information about and links to the different surveys developed and used by BJS. To locate those that specifically focus on corrections, see the Data Collections - Corrections section of the BJS site.
The NCJRS Virtual Library/Abstracts Database is not compatible with the program EndNote.
Many of the publications from NCJRS sponsor agencies and those housed in the NCJRS Virtual Library Abstracts Database collection are available at local libraries. NCJRS provides the "Find in a Library" service for you to search these collections. At times, it may be faster, cheaper, and/or more convenient to access documents found within the NCJRS Virtual Library at a local library.
From an abstract detail page, when you click on the Find in a Library link, NCJRS will send a formatted search to WorldCat, a consortium of over 10,000 libraries worldwide. On the WorldCat site, you can discover if the document you are interested in is available in a local library.
To learn more, view the Obtain Materials section of the Virtual Library Tutorial.
Yes, there are fees for interlibrary loans (ILL). ILLs within the United States have a fee of $15.00 per item while loans to Canada have a fee of $16.50 (USD) per item loaned. ILLs are only available to patrons in the United States and Canada. See the Interlibrary Loan section of our site for additional information about this service and how to request an ILL.
Resources may be borrowed from the NCJRS Library via interlibrary loan for a period of 6 weeks. An additional 6-week extension is available by request. See the Interlibrary Loan section of our site for additional information about this service.
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.
Jails are locally operated short-term facilities that hold inmates awaiting trial or sentencing or both, and inmates sentenced to a term of less than 1 year, typically misdemeanants. Prisons are longer-term facilities run by the state or the federal government that typically hold felons and persons with sentences of more than 1 year. Definitions may vary by state.
During 2020, an estimated 53.8 million U.S. residents age 16 or older, or 21% of the population, had one or more contacts with police. This includes contacts initiated by the police, contacts initiated by residents, and traffic accidents. See Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2020.
A higher percentage of males (11%) than females (9%) experienced police-initiated contact in 2020.
White persons (22%) were more likely than black (18%), Hispanic (17%), or Asian (16%) persons to experience police contact.
White persons (10%) were more likely than black (9%), Hispanic (8%), or Asian persons (8%) to experience police-initiated contact.
White persons (13%) were more likely than black (9%), Hispanic (9%), or Asian persons (7%) to initiate contact with police.
Among all age groups measured, persons ages 18 to 24 were most likely to experience police-initiated contact (17%) or contact as the result of a traffic accident (5%).
The percentage of males (21%) experiencing contact with police was higher than the percentage of females (20%) in 2020. White residents (22%) experienced a higher rate of contact with police than black (18%) and Hispanic (17%) residents in 2020.
In 2020, about 53.8 million persons age 16 or older had one or more contacts with police during the prior 12 months. An estimated 25.5 million experienced contact initiated by police, nearly 30.0 million initiated contact with police, and 7.8 million reported police contact as the result of a traffic accident. About 16.7 million persons reported being pulled over as the driver in a traffic stop, compared to about 16.2 million persons reporting a crime, disturbance, or suspicious activity to police. See Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2020.
One difference between a sheriff's office and police department is the jurisdiction that each type of agency covers. While both sheriffs' offices and police departments are law enforcement agencies, sheriffs' offices have countywide jurisdiction and police departments' authority is limited to specific cities, municipalities, towns, or villages. In addition, sheriffs' offices are generally empowered by the state to serve counties and independent cities, while police departments are established under municipal regulations. The head of a sheriff's office is a sheriff who is usually an elected official. The head of a police department is usually the chief, who is typically appointed by a government entity, such as mayor, city manager, or a commissioner.
In 2020, about 14% of full-time sworn officers employed by local police departments and sheriffs’ offices were female. As of 2020, 4% of local police chiefs and 1% of sheriffs were female. About 9% of intermediate supervisors (those between chiefs and sergeants or first-line supervisors) in local police departments and 10% in sheriffs’ offices were female. About 10% of first-line supervisors (sergeants) in local police departments and 12% in sheriffs’ offices were female.
According to the 2020 BJS Law Enforcement and Management Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey, departments serving 100,000 to 249,999 and 50,000 to 99,999 residents had the lowest average ratio (1.6 officers per 1,000 residents). Departments serving populations of 1 million or more had 3.0 officers per 1,000 residents.
State and local general-purpose law enforcement agencies employed about 708,200 full-time sworn officers as of December 31, 2020. Approximately 11,800 local police departments employed 473,100 (67%) of these offices, sheriffs’ offices about 173,900 (25%), and state law enforcement agencies about 61,200 (9%).
No, some sheriff's office personnel are not sworn officers. While sheriffs' offices employed about 174,000 full-time sworn officers in 2020, some personnel had limited or no arrest authority. Sheriffs' deputies who work in jails, courtrooms, and the civil process department often do not attend police academies and do not have general arrest authority. These personnel may be civilian employees or deputies who attend specialized training for their duties. In 2020, the nation's sheriffs' offices employed about 191,000 full-time civilian employees.
Results from the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 2005, show that 61% of civil cases concluded by trial involved a tort claim in which plaintiffs alleged injury, loss, or damage from the negligent or intentional acts of defendants. Cases dealing with allegations of breach of contract (contract cases) accounted for 33% of trials, and real property cases accounted for about 6%. The most frequent kinds of civil cases disposed of by trial were motor vehicle accident (35%), seller plaintiff (11%), buyer plaintiff (10%), and medical malpractice (9%).
This is a question the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) frequently receives and, unfortunately, cannot completely answer. BJS can provide an estimate of the number of living persons in the United States who have ever been to state or federal prison. At yearend 2001, more than 5.6 million U.S. adult residents, or about 1 in 37 U.S. adults, had served time in state or federal prison. See Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001.
BJS publishes reports in the Felony Sentences in State Courts series every two years, providing the number of persons convicted of a felony in state courts in a particular year.
BJS counts generated by the Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) are more inclusive than those from the UCR because they include all agencies and all officers employed with these agencies who have general arrest powers. The counts from the UCR are limited to participating agencies and to officers paid out of police funds (as opposed to jail or court funds).
According to the 2018 BJS Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies (CSLLEA) survey, state and local agencies employed about 788,000 full-time sworn officers as of June 30, 2018. Local police departments employed 466,000 of these officers, sheriffs' offices, 192,000, and the 49 primary state law enforcement agencies, 60,000.