Learn more about BJS’s activities in September 2024! Click on the headings below for details.
New BJS report: Jails in Indian Country, 2023
A new BJS report, Jails in Indian Country, 2023, provides statistics from BJS’s Annual Survey of Jails in Indian Country on the demographic characteristics, most serious offense, and conviction status of persons held in Indian country jails. It also describes facility characteristics, including capacity and staffing. This report, the 21st in a series that began in 1998, supports the mandate established by the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 that requires BJS to establish and implement a tribal data collection system, to support tribal participation in national records and information systems, and to annually report to Congress the data collected and analyzed in accordance with the act.
BJS releases Criminal Victimization, 2023
BJS released Criminal Victimization, 2023. Its findings are based on data from BJS’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and include statistics on nonfatal violent crimes (rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault) and property crimes (burglary or trespassing, motor vehicle theft, and other types of household theft) reported and not reported to police. The report also describes the characteristics of crimes and victims. This report is the 51st in a series that began in 1973.
Read about federal offenses involving RICO violations
BJS released the report, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Cases in Federal Courts, 2012–2022. This report uses data from BJS’s Federal Justice Statistics Program to describe persons investigated, convicted, and sentenced for federal offenses involving RICO violations. It provides statistics on the number of RICO investigations concluded and persons investigated by U.S. attorneys from fiscal year (FY) 2012 to FY 2022. It also presents statistics from FY 2018 to FY 2022 on investigations concluded by U.S. attorneys with multiple persons investigated and persons prosecuted, adjudicated, and sentenced with a RICO violation as the most serious offense.
Access BJS-funded report on state criminal history files
BJS-funded third-party report released: Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems, 2022. This report summarizes results from the 17th survey of criminal history information systems conducted among the administrators of state criminal history record repositories from May to July 2023. SEARCH, The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics, surveyed 56 jurisdictions, including the 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, the Territory of Guam, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam submitted survey responses. The report presents a snapshot as of December 31, 2022.
New third-party report on background checks for firearm applications
BJS released Trends for Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 1999–2018: The First 20 Years of the Permanent Brady Act Period. This third-party report summarizes statistics at the FBI, state, and local levels on background checks that were conducted on over 237 million applications for firearm transfers or permits. It also details statistics on denials that resulted from background checks, rates of denial, reasons for denial, and other statistics from the first 20 years of the permanent Brady Act period, from 1999 through 2018. Additionally, the report summarizes changes in federal and state laws related to firearm transfers.
BJS began the Firearm Inquiry Statistics program in 1995 to provide national estimates of the total number of firearm applications received and denied pursuant to the Brady Act and similar state laws.
Correction to Probation and Parole in the United States, 2022
Correction made to the Probation and Parole in the United States, 2022 report. BJS was made aware of errors in the rates in the last column of appendix table 10. For states from Maryland through Wyoming, the number of persons on parole per 100,000 adult U.S. residents, December 31, 2022, was updated. BJS has posted a revised report and CSV file with these changes.
LEARCAT updated with 2023 data
BJS updated its Law Enforcement Agency Reported Crime Analysis Tool (LEARCAT) with recently released 2023 crime data. LEARCAT provides access to incident-based data on crimes recorded by law enforcement using data from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), as well as contextual information from other federal data sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau. The tool includes crime incident and victimization information at the state, county, and local law enforcement agency levels.
NCVS Dashboard updated with 2023 data
Concurrent with release of the Criminal Victimization, 2023 bulletin, BJS has updated estimates of criminal victimization with 2023 data in its NCVS Dashboard (N-DASH), an interactive, online data visualization tool. This dynamic analysis tool allows users to examine NCVS data on both personal and property victimization by select victim, household, and incident characteristics. It provides direct and user-friendly access to the nation’s primary source of data on annual criminal victimization, beginning with 1993. The quick graphics and custom graphics pages allow users to view or create and download charts and tables.
2023 data added to the NCVS API tool
BJS updated the NCVS Application Programming Interface (API) with 2023 data. The API allows users to access select NCVS datasets and commonly used variables for analysis. This innovative tool provides researchers and developers with more user-friendly datasets containing commonly used variables in multiple formats along with related codebooks, methodology, and metadata.
Datasets now available: 2023 and 1992–2023 National Crime Victimization Survey
BJS released the 2023 and 1992–2023 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) public-use datasets through the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. The NCVS is the nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. It collects annual data on:
- nonfatal personal crimes (rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and personal larceny)
- household property crimes (burglary or trespassing, motor vehicle theft, and other types of household theft)
- whether crimes were reported to police and victim experiences with the criminal justice system.
Submit comments on the Census of Public Defender Offices collection
BJS seeks comments on the reinstatement, with change, of a previously approved collection, Census of Public Defender Offices (CPDO). This census is the only national data collection identifying and surveying all public defender offices in the United States and U.S. territories since the first iteration of the CPDO in 2007. It collects data from all state- and county-funded public defender offices, including offices that are publicly funded but privately operated and offices that handle capital cases only. The data elements collected include office expenditures, number and types of cases handled, staff sizes and roles, salary ranges, demographic characteristics, and case management system capacities. The CPDO serves as an important source of information on the overall conditions of public defender offices and the changes that have occurred in these offices since the late 1990s.
Submit your comments to the Office of Management and Budget through the Federal Register by November 12, 2024.
BJS participated in the following events:
- Stakeholder Convening on Disability Data Needs
- 2024 Tribal Healing to Wellness Court Implementation and Enhancement Training
- National Institute of Justice 2024 Research Conference
- Community Oriented Police Services 30th Anniversary
- International Population Data Linkage Network Conference
- Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDCs) Annual Business Meeting and Research Conference
- Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) 30th Anniversary
- Southern Criminal Justice Association (SCJA) Conference
- Integrated Justice Information Systems (IJIS) Institute Leadership Council
- Integrated Justice Information Systems (IJIS) Institute Justice and Public Safety Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit
- 2024 Consumer Risk Workshop: Identifying and Preventing Fraud in Consumer Payments
Access previous Months in Review and view BJS's 2023 Year in Review. Subscribe to JUSTSTATS to receive real-time updates from BJS.