The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the
U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring crime, criminal victimization, criminal offenders, victims of crime,
correlates of crime
The correlates of crime explore the associations of specific non-criminal factors with specific crimes.
The field of criminology studies the dynamics of crime. Most of these studies use correlational data; that is, they attempt to identify variou ...
, and the operation of criminal and civil justice systems at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels. Established on December 27, 1979, BJS collects, analyzes, and publishes data relating to
crime in the United States. The agency publishes data regarding statistics gathered from the roughly fifty-thousand agencies, offices, courts, and institutions that together comprise the U.S. justice system.
The mission of BJS is "To collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government."
BJS, along with the
National Institute of Justice (NIJ),
Bureau of Justice Assistance
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, within the United States Department of Justice. BJA provides leadership and assistance to local criminal justice programs that improve and reinforce the nat ...
(BJA),
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP),
Office for Victims of Crime
The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) is a part of the Office of Justice Programs, within the U.S. Department of Justice.
The OVC's mission is to provide aid and promote justice for crime victims.
The office was created in 1988 in an amendment t ...
(OVC), and other program offices, comprise the
Office of Justice Programs (OJP) branch of the Department of Justice.
Programs
The BJS conducts the Annual Survey of Jails of a sample of about 950 U.S. jails, and a periodic Census of Jails covering all U.S. jails.
Data from these programs was used to show that local jails in the U.S. had a sharp decline in inmates from February to May, 2020 of perhaps 185,000 inmates, more than 20% of the inmate population, in response to the danger of covid-19 on a crowded incarcerated population. Many inmates were given an "expedited release".
See also
*
Uniform Crime Reports
The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program compiles official data on crime in the United States, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). UCR is "a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort of nearly 18,000 city, university and c ...
(FBI)
*
Data.gov
Data.gov is a U.S. Government website launched in late May 2009 by the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States, Vivek Kundra. Data.gov aims to improve public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by t ...
*
USAFacts
BJS Directors
In 2005, the Bush administration replaced BJS Director Lawrence Greenfeld after he refused to remove certain racial statistics from a report, despite having published similar statistics in 2001. The following two references provide analysis and initial reporting, respectively.
* Josephf M. Bessette
* Eric Lichtblau
"Profiling Report Leads to a Demotion"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', August 24, 2005.
More recent directors have included Jeffrey H. Anderson, Jeffrey Sedgwick, Michael Sinclair, John Jay Professor James P. Lynch, and former Deputy Director William Sabol.
Until 2012 the position of the BJS Director required a Senate approval, but since 2012 the post only requires the President's appointment.[Hanna Kozlowska]
Trump’s Man In Charge Of U.S. Crime Data Is Known For His Football Rankings
Government Executive, December 1, 2017. Accessed July 31, 2018 Alex Piquero is the current BJS Director.
References
External links
*
most recent reports
Research, Evaluation, and Statistics
account on USAspending.gov
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Government agencies established in 1979
Crime statistics
National statistical services
Statistics
Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
Statistical organizations in the United States
1979 establishments in Washington, D.C.
Federal Statistical System of the United States