U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Statistics
Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United
States, 2001
May 2004, NCJ 202792
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Lynn Bauer
BJS Statistician
Steven D. Owens
Chief, Public Finance Analysis Branch
U.S. Census Bureau
In 2001 the United States spent a record $167 billion for
police protection, corrections, and judicial and legal
activities. The Nation's expenditure for operations and
outlays for the justice system increased 366% from almost
$36 billion in 1982 (a 165% increase in constant dollars).
Local governments funded nearly half of all direct justice
system expenses. Another 35% of direct justice funding
came from the States. Criminal and civil justice expenditures
comprised approximately 7% of all State and local public
expenditures in 2001.***Footnote 1: For definitions of terms,
see page 8.*** Compared to justice expenditures, State and
local governments in the United States spent almost 4 times
as much on education, almost twice as much on public welfare,
and a roughly equal amount on hospitals and healthcare.
In March of 2001 the Nation's justice system employed nearly
2.3 million persons, with a total March payroll of $8.1 billion.
More than half of all justice employees worked at the local
level (63% of whom worked in police protection). A third were
State employees (64% in corrections). The remaining 9% were
Federal employees, of whom more than half worked in police
protection.
Data presented in this report are derived from the Justice
Expenditure and Employment Extracts, compiled from the U.S.
Census Bureau's Annual Government Finance Survey and Annual
Survey of Public Employment. The extracts present public
expenditure and employment data pertaining to justice
activities in the United States, including police, judicial
and legal services, and correctional activities.
Trends in spending, by level of
government
Since 1982 total justice expenditures more than quadrupled
from nearly $36 billion to over $167 billion, a 366%
increase. The average annual increase for all levels of
government between 1982 and 2001 was 8%.
Between 1982 and 2001, per capita expenditure, including
Federal, State, and local governments across justice
functions, increased from $158 to $586, approximately 271%.
During the same time period, corrections had the largest
increase from $39 to $200 (over 400%) per U.S. resident. Per
capita expenditure for judicial and legal services increased
from $34 to $132 (288%) followed by police protection, $84
to $254 or 202%.
The total justice expenditure reflected the Federal Government's
expanded role as it had a larger average annual increase in
justice spending from 1982 to 2001 (11%) than the State and
local governments (9% and 7%, respectively).
Federal intergovernmental spending on justice activities rose
from $189 million in 1982 to more than $5.2 billion in 2001.
This increase was due to the creation of several large grant
programs in the 1980's and 1990's. (Sources of additional
information about the grant programs are listed on page 10.)
Between 1982 and 2001 the Federal Government increased its
expenditures on police protection by 494%, judicial and legal
services by 636%, and corrections by 861%. The State and local
governments had smaller percent increases in all functions.
The average annual increase was highest for corrections, ranging
from a 9% increase by the local governments to a 13% increase by
the Federal Government.
Police protection experienced the lowest annual increase. Among
State and local governments the average annual increase for
police protection was about 7%. The Federal Government
expenditure for police protection increased about 10% annually.
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Accounting for inflation
The Consumer Price Index (CPI), reported by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, is a commonly used measure of inflation.*** Footnote
1: For more information about the CPI see the Bureau of Labor
Statistics website: , Consumer Price Index
for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) table.*** According to the CPI,
the average price level for all urban consumers increased 177.1%
between the base years 1982-84 and 2001; the annual average
increase was 3%.
To maintain consistency in reporting, the expenditure data
discussed in this Bulletin are not adjusted for inflation.
However, expenditure on all justice functions and among all
levels of government increased at a rate greater than
inflation. For example, if increases in total justice
expenditure were limited to the rate of inflation (177.1%)
after 1982, expenditure in 2001 would have been approximately
$63.5 billion ($35.8B x 177.1%), as opposed to the actual
$167.1 billion.
Justice expenditure relative to the Gross Domestic Product(GDP)
A common way to express the size and growth of government
functions is the ratio of expenditure to the GDP or "percent
GDP."***Footnote 2: For more information about the GDP see the
Bureau of Economic Analysis website: .***
In 2001 the ratio of justice expenditure to GDP was $167.1
billion/ $10,082.2 billion (1.66%). In 1982 the percent GDP
was 1.10%.
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Distribution of direct expenditure by level
of government and activity
Within each category of justice activity, the distribution
of expenditure by level of government reflects the different
responsibilities of each level:
* Overall, local police spending represented 30% of the
Nation's total justice expenditure, and State corrections
accounted for the second largest portion, 23%.
* Police protection is primarily a local responsibility;
accordingly, local governments spent 70% of the total
police protection expenditure in the country in 2001.
* Corrections is primarily a State responsibility, and
the State governments accounted for 63% of the Nation's
corrections expenditure.
* Judicial and legal services in the United States were
funded primarily by local (42%)and State (36%) governments.
The Federal Government spent the most on intergovernmental
grants-in-aid, shared revenues, and amounts paid to other
governments for services performed. About half of the Federal
intergovernmental expenditure was for police protection, much
of which were law enforcement grants. About half of the State
and local intergovernmental expenditures were for corrections.
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The justice share of State and local expenditure
Seven cents of every dollar spent by State and local governments
in 2001 was for justice activities. Among all State and local
expenditures, 3% was for police protection, nearly 3% for
corrections, and 2% for judicial and legal services.
By comparison, 30% of State and local government spending went
to education, 14% to public welfare, 7% to health and hospitals,
and over 4% to interest on debt.
From 1977 to 2001 total State and local expenditures for all
functions increased 485%.
* police protection rose 470%
* corrections rose 1101%
* judicial and legal rose 1766%.
Among some other government functions during the same period --
* education increased 448%
* hospitals and healthcare increased 482%
* interest on debt increased 543%
* public welfare increased 617%.
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Distribution of employment by level of
government and activity
In March 2001 the Nation's civil and criminal justice system
employed nearly 2.3 million persons, with a total March payroll
of $8.1 billion. Relative to the entire employed population
in 2001, approximately 2% of the Nation's labor force worked
in the justice system. (For more detailed information on the
national labor force, see .)
Local governments accounted for more justice employment than
the Federal and State governments combined. Of all the Nation's
justice employees, 59% were engaged in local justice activities.
The State and local governments employed over 91% of all justice
system workers. The Federal Government employed almost 9% of all
justice system employees.
The distribution of corrections employees reflects State
government dominance in that sector approximately 63% of
corrections employees worked for State governments, followed
by 32% at the local level and 4% at the Federal level.
As law enforcement is primarily the responsibility of local
governments, 80% of the Nation's police employees were
working at the local level. State governments employed 10%
of police protection workers; the Federal Government, 10%.
Throughout the justice system, approximately 59% of expenditures
were for payrolls (not shown in table).
The Federal Government spent less on payrolls relative to total
expenditure ($12 billion out of $30 billion, or 41%) than did
the State and local governments (47% and 66% respectively).
Police protection was the activity with the highest percentage
of expenditure going to payrolls (66%). The local governments in
particular spent 71% of their expenditures for police protection
on salaries.
The activity with the lowest percentage of expenditure for
payrolls was corrections nearly (50% for all governments).
Employment by State
In total, 13% of State and local public employees worked in the
justice system. Nevada had the highest percentage of justice
employees relative to employees for other government functions
(17%), followed by Florida. The States with the lowest percentage
of justice employees were West Virginia and Vermont (less than
8% of all employees).
California had the most State and local employees (1.7 million)
and the most employees in the justice system (over 233,600).
Vermont was the State with the fewest employees in State and
local government for justice (fewer than 3,000) and for all
functions (approximately 37,000).
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Expansion of Nation's justice system, 1982-2001
The increase in justice expenditures over nearly 20 years
reflects the expansion of the Nation's justice system. For
example, in 1982 the justice system employed approximately
1.27 million persons; in 2001 it reached over 2.2 million.
Police protection
One indicator of police workload, the FBI's arrest estimates
for State and local police agencies, grew from 12 million in
1982 to an estimated 13.7 million in 2001.***Footnote 1: Crime
in the United States, 1982 (FBI, 1983) and 2001 (FBI, 2002).***
The number of employees in police protection increased from
approximately 724,000 to over 1 million.
Judicial and legal
The judicial and legal workload, including civil and criminal
cases, prosecutor functions, and public defender services,
also expanded during this period. Cases of all kinds (criminal,
civil, domestic, juvenile, and traffic) filed in the nearly
16,000 general and limited jurisdiction State courts went from
about 86 million to 92.8 million in the 18-year period, 1984-
2001.***Footnote 2: Examining the Work of State Courts, 2002:
A National Perspective from the Court Statistics Project,
National Center for State Courts.*** The juvenile court
workload also expanded from 1 million delinquency cases in 1982
to nearly 1.7 million in 2000.***Footnote 3: OJJDP Statistical
Briefing Book, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, 2000 .*** The total of judicial and legal employees grew about
97% to over 488,000 persons in 2001.
Corrections
The total number of State and Federal inmates grew from 488,000
in 1985 to over 1.3 million in 2001.***Footnote 4: Sourcebook of
Criminal Justice Statistics, 2001 (table 6.12),
.*** The number of local jail
inmates tripled from approximately 207,000 in 1982 to over
631,000 in 2001.***Footnote 5: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice
Statistics, 2001 (6.1), .***
Adults on probation increased from over 1.3 to about 4 million
persons.***Footnote 5: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics,
2001 (table 6.1), .*** Overall,
corrections employment more than doubled from nearly 300,000 to
over 747,000 during this period.
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Per capita justice employment of all State and local governments
was about 70 per 10,000 resident population in 2001. Per capita
employment was lowest in West Virginia, with 42 full-time
equivalent justice employees per 10,000 residents, and highest
in the District of Columbia, with nearly 119 employees per
10,000 residents.
Vermont had the fewest State and local sworn police per capita,
with approximately 15 per 10,000 residents. The District of
Columbia employed about 62 officers per 10,000 residents. The
District of Columbia also had the highest per capita rate of
employment of corrections employees (35) followed by Texas
and New York (nearly 33 State and local officers per 10,000
residents). Maine had the fewest State and local employees
in judicial and legal services (7) while New Jersey had the
most (25 per 10,000 residents).
Definition of terms
Expenditure includes only external cash payments made from any
source of funds, including any payments financed from borrowing,
fund balances, intergovernmental revenue, and other current
revenue. It excludes any intragovernmental transfers and
noncash transactions, such as the provision of meals or housing
of employees. It also excludes retirement of debt, investment
in securities, extensions of loans, or agency transactions.
Total expenditures for all government functions do include
interest payments on debt, but the justice expenditure data
do not.
Expenditure's two major categories:
* Direct expenditure is all expenditure except that classified
as intergovernmental. It includes "direct current expenditure"
(salaries, wages, fees, and commissions and purchases of
supplies, materials, and contractual services) and "capital
outlays" (construction and purchase of equipment, land, and
existing structures). Capital outlays are included for the year
when the direct expenditure is made, regardless of how the
funds are raised (for example, by bond issue) or when they are
paid back.
* Intergovernmental expenditure is the sum of payments from
one government to another, including grants-in-aid, shared
revenues, payments in lieu of taxes, and amounts for services
performed by one government for another on a reimbursable or
cost-sharing basis (for example, payments by one government to
another for boarding prisoners). It excludes amounts paid to
other governments for purchase of commodities, property, or
utility services.
Employees are all persons on government payrolls during the
pay period including March 15, 2001. They include all paid
officials and persons on paid leave, but exclude unpaid
officials, persons on unpaid leave, pensioners, and
contractors.
Full-time employees are all persons employed on a full-time
basis, including all full-time temporary or seasonal workers
who were employed during this pay period.
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Components of total expenditure
The expenditure data discussed in this Bulletin include direct
expenditure and intergovernmental expenditure. Intergovernmental
expenditure is the sum of payments from one government to another,
including grants-in-aid, shared revenues, and amounts for
services performed by one government for another on a
reimbursable or cost-sharing basis.
The three levels of government in the United States (Federal,
State, and local)have varying responsibilities for justice
activities, and funds are often passed between governments to
reflect these responsibilities. For example, Federal
intergovernmental expenditures include grants to States, and
State direct expenditures will include those grants.
Therefore, to avoid double counting the sum of Federal, State,
and local intergovernmental expenditures, the direct expenditure
is used to calculate total expenditure for all governments.
For 2001, the total direct expenditure for all governments was
over $167 billion.
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Full-time equivalent employment (FTE)is a statistical measure
that estimates the number of full-time employees that could
have been employed if the reported number of hours worked by
part-time employees had been worked by full-time employees.
This statistic is calculated separately for each function of
a government by dividing the "part-time hours paid" by the
standard number of hours for full-time employees in the
particular government and then adding the resulting quotient
to the number of full-time employees.
Payroll is the gross 1-month payroll before deductions and
includes salaries, wages, fees, and commissions paid to
employees as defined above for March 2001.
Police protection is the function of enforcing the law,
preserving order, and apprehending those who violate the
law, whether these activities are performed by a city police
department, sheriff's department, State police, or Federal
law enforcement agency such as the FBI or the Drug Enforcement
Administration. Private security police are outside the scope
of the survey.
Judicial and legal services includes all civil and criminal
courts and activities associated with courts such as law
libraries, grand juries, petit juries, medical and social
service activities, court reporters, judicial councils,
bailiffs, and probate functions. It also includes the civil
and criminal justice activities of the attorneys general,
district attorneys, State's attorneys, and their variously
named equivalents and corporation counsels, solicitors, and
legal departments with various names. It excludes legal units
of noncriminal justice agencies, whose functions may be
performed by a legal services department in other
jurisdictions (such as a county counsel).
Corrections involves the community supervision, confinement,
and rehabilitation of adults and juveniles convicted of offenses
against the law and the confinement of persons suspected of a
crime awaiting trial or adjudication. It includes the costs of
operation and employment for jails, prisons, probation, parole,
pardon, and correctional administration. Data for institutions
with authority to hold prisoners beyond arraignment (usually 48
hours or more) are included in this sector. Data for lockups or
"tanks" holding prisoners less than 48 hours are included in
"police protection."
Methodology
The justice data in this report include the expenditures and
employment of the Federal Government, the State governments,
and a sample of county, municipal, and township governments.
Unless otherwise noted, data for total governmental functions
and non-justice governmental functions also include the
expenditures of special districts and school districts, which
generally do not have justice functions.
This report is based on a compilation of data from the U.S.
Census Bureau's annual surveys of governmental finances and
employment. The survey sample was selected from the 1997
Census of Local Governments and consists of large units of
government (including all 50 States) sampled with certainty
and smaller units selected with a probability proportional
to the unit's expenditure. The total number of local
governments in the finance sample was 7,002, and the number
of local governments in the employment sample was 10,574.
Certain limitations reflect the fact that the surveys from
which this Bulletin was extracted are not designed to obtain
data on specific justice functions. The sampling variability,
or "standard error," for each of the justice activities is
likely to be larger than for the major categories that the
surveys were designed to estimate. Similarly, the standard
error is likely to be greater for local governments than for
State-local aggregates which are sampled in part with
certainty. Specific standard errors can be found on the
Census Bureau's website ().
Differences in functional responsibilities from State to State
and government to government can affect the comparability of
expenditure and employment data. Readers should be generally
cautious in comparing governmental expenditures because of
this variation in the division of responsibilities.
The data in this report differ in some cases from those
previously published in the Census Bureau's finance and
employment survey reports because of definitional
differences and the more intensive review procedures and
data refinements used for this compilation.
Data on State and local justice system per capita expenditure
by State and activity were not collected in 2001. These data
will be available in 2002.
The data here differ from other BJS series which collect
agency-based employment and expenditure data because of
collection methods, units of analysis, and data collection
purposes.
These include --
Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics,
Prosecutors in State Courts and various court statistics
series, The Census of Local Jails, The Census of State and
Federal Correctional Facilities, and the report State Prison
Expenditures, 1996.
Financial data for the Federal Government were extracted from
The Budget of the United States Government, FY 2003, Appendix.
The historical finance data may differ slightly from the
justice expenditure data found in the Expenditure and
Employment Extracts because of definitional differences.
Federal Government civilian employment data were obtained from
the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Statistics for State
and local governments were obtained by a mail survey including
all State departments, agencies, and institutions, and a local
central reporting office supplemented by special mailings.
Trend comparisons between the data in this report and reports
covering data for 1971-79, 1985, 1988, 1990, and 1997 from the
Justice Assistance Data Survey (JADS) are complicated by
differences in methodology. These differences are described in
the BJS reports for these years, and on the BJS website. In
making trend comparisons, users should limit their analysis to
one of the two sources:
* long-term trends for 1971-79, 1985,
1988,1990, and 1997 from the JADS
* recent year-to-year trends from the
1980-2001 Justice Expenditure and
Employment Extracts data.
A more detailed description of the survey methodology (including
sample design and sampling errors) can be found in the Justice
Expenditure and Employment Extracts at .
Intergovernmental spending on justice activities through grant
programs Grant programs affecting expenditure for justice, as
discussed on page 2, include the following:
* Administration for Children and Families within the
Department of Health and Human Services, which gives
grants to States for non-custodial child support
enforcement (See .)
* Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program
(See .)
* Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement
Assistance Programs (See .)
* Local Law Enforcement Block Grant program.
(See .)
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This report and others from the Bureau
of Justice Statistics are available
through the Internet --
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/
The data from the Justice Expenditure
and Employment Extracts are available
from the National Archive of Criminal
Justice Data, maintained by the
Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research at the University
of Michigan, 1-800-999-0960. The
archive may also be accessed through
the BJS Internet site.
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics is the
statistical agency of the U.S. Department of
Justice. Lawrence A. Greenfeld is director.
BJS Bulletins present the first release of
findings from permanent data collection
programs.
Lynn Bauer wrote this report under the
supervision of Steven K. Smith. Statistician
Intern Kinny Jeng provided data analysis
assistance. Steven W. Perry provided statistical
review. Tom Hester produced and edited the
report. Jayne Robinson prepared the report for
publication.
The data extraction, editing, and tabulation
for the 2001 Justice Expenditure and
Employment Extracts were performed at the
U.S. Census Bureau by Steven D. Owens.
May 2004, NCJ 202792 A
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End of file
04/19/04 ih