LibGuides: ENGL 01A Epstein-Corbin: Web Resources

Statistics, Data, & Reports

Bureau of Justice Assistance
"The BVA provides leadership and services in grant administration and criminal justice policy development to support local, state, and tribal law enforcement in achieving safer communities. BJA supports programs and initiatives in the areas of law enforcement, justice information sharing, countering terrorism, managing offenders, combating drug crime and abuse, adjudication, advancing tribal justice, crime prevention, protecting vulnerable populations, and capacity building."
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Reports and statistics from the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.
Correctional Health
From the Centers of Disease Control (CDC).
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Inmate, population, and staff statistics.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
"Established in 1978, the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) archives and disseminates data on crime and justice for secondary analysis. The archive contains data from over 2,700 curated studies or statistical data series. NACJD is home to several large-scale and well known datasets, including the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN)."
National Institute of Corrections
"This web page provides lists of resources related to local, state, and federal statistics. This page also includes applications, visual representations of data in various dashboards, data mapping utilities and other online tools available to the corrections community."
National Institute of Justice
"NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. We are dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science. We provide objective and independent knowledge and tools to inform the decision-making of the criminal and juvenile justice communities to reduce crime and advance justice, particularly at the state and local levels."
National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) Program
From the US Bureau of Justice; "[p]roduces annual national- and state-level data on the number of prisoners in state and federal prison facilities. Aggregate data are collected on race and sex of prison inmates, inmates held in private facilities and local jails, system capacity, noncitizens, and persons age 17 or younger. Findings are released in the Prisoners series and the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) - Prisoners. Data are from the 50 state departments of correction, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and until 2001, from the District of Columbia (after 2001, felons sentenced under the District of Columbia criminal code were housed in federal facilities)." Latest data available from 2018.
Office for Victim's of Crime
"OVC administers the Crime Victims Fund (the Fund), which is financed by fines and penalties paid by convicted federal offenders, not from tax dollars. Federal revenues deposited into the Fund also come from gifts, donations, and bequests by private parties. OVC channels funding for victim compensation and assistance throughout the United States, raises awareness about victims’ issues, promotes compliance with victims’ rights laws, and provides training and technical assistance and publications and products to victim assistance professionals."
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
"The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, Public Law 93–415, as amended, established the From the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to support local and state efforts to prevent delinquency and improve the juvenile justice system."
Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking
The SMART Office "assist[s] with implementation of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act and provide assistance to criminal justice professionals across the entire spectrum of sex offender management activities needed to ensure public safety."
PPIC Criminal Justice Publications
From the Public Policy Institute of California; "[t]he Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. We are dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research." Topics include criminal justice, climate change / energy, economy, fiscal government / reform, health and human services, K-12 education, political landscape, and population.
Source Book of Criminal Justice Statistics
From the University at Albany; "'[t]he Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics brings together data from more than 100 published and unpublished sources about many aspects of criminal justice in the United States. Since 1973, the project has been located at the University at Albany, School of Criminal Justice, and compiled and managed by staff at the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center in Albany, New York."
Public Safety Performance Project
From Pew Charitable Trusts; "America's prison population skyrocketed over the past few decades, largely as a result of state laws and policies that placed more people behind bars and kept them there longer. But proven strategies are available that offer a better public safety return on taxpayer dollars. Pew works with states to advance data-driven, fiscally sound policies and practices in the criminal and juvenile justice systems that protect public safety, ensure accountability, and control corrections costs."
CSG Justice Center Publications
"The CSG [Council of State Governments] Justice Center develops research-driven strategies to increase public safety and strengthen communities." The Resources tab of the website provides publications, data and tools, videos, and news & analysis.

Finding Statistics

Data vs. Statistics

While the terms data and statistics are often used interchangeably, they are different.

Data are individual pieces of factual information recorded and used for the purpose of analysis. It is the raw information from which statistics are created.
Statistics are the results of data analysis; it's the interpretation and presentation. In other words, some computation has taken place that provides some understanding of what the data means.

No Single Source

There is no single source / place where you can find data and statistics. This page of the guide will offer some resources for finding statistics and data related to incarceration, but you may need to do some more searching online.

Search Terms

One strategy you can use online is to add the words data or statistics to your search.

"juvenile incarceration" statistics

Domain

You can also restrict results to statistics and data from government statistics by adding site:.gov to your search.
Restrict results to statistics and data from educational institutions by adding site:.edu to your search.
Restrict results to statistics and data from organization by adding site:.org to your search.

Questions to Ask

While including statistics can provide credibility to your argument, including faulty statistics can harm your argument. You need to evaluate the source of your statistical information. The following questions will help you to evaluate the reliability of statistical information.

Who is the author or organization of the source that presents the statistics? What are the author's credentials or organization's purpose? Is the author or organization an authority on the subject? Could the author or organization be presenting bias?
What is the date of the statistics? How current are they? Are they relevant to the time period that you are interested in?
Who is the intended audience?
What type of publication is the data published in? Is the data clearly represented?
Can the data be cross-checked in other reliable sources?
Can the statistics be verified? Do the methods used and data presented seem valid?

Purdue OWL Guide

Purdue OWL's Writing with Statistics guide is a great resource for helping you work with statistics in your writing.

Quick Tips
An overall list of dos and don'ts about writing statistics.
Overview & Introduction
A brief introduction to statistics and how to write with them.
Descriptive Statistics
Statistics that are used to describe data.
Writing Descriptive Statistics
Tips on writing descriptive statistics.
Inferential Statistics
Statistics that are used to infer patterns in a population. This section includes some definitions, basic theory, and applications.
Writing Inferential Statistics
Tips on writing inferential statistics. This section includes p-values and their interpretation.
Using Visuals and Statistics
How to use visuals to represent statistics.
Terms
Formal definitions of useful terms.

News & Advocacy

Marshall Project
"The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system. We achieve this through award-winning journalism, partnerships with other news outlets and public forums. In all of our work we strive to educate and enlarge the audience of people who care about the state of criminal justice."
Ear Hustle
"Launched in 2017, Ear Hustle was the first podcast created and produced in prison, featuring stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it."
Prison Policy Initiative
"The non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative produces cutting edge research to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization, and then sparks advocacy campaigns to create a more just society."
American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU "...was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." The ACLU focuses on a number of issues related to crime and punishment, including capital punishment, criminal law reform, juvenile justice, prisoners' rights, and smart justice. Look for the Issues section on the website.
Prison Studies Project
"In September 2008, Kaia Stern and Bruce Western launched the Prison Studies Project (PSP) at Harvard University to promote informed conversation about the challenges of mass incarceration. Born out of Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, PSP’s mission is to awaken the broadest possible public to the ways we punish, and to reimagine justice in the United States. Since its inception, PSP has been committed to raising public awareness, teaching college courses inside prison, and injecting into the public conversation a discussion of policy alternatives. Our work has focused on research, education and policy change."

ENGL 01A Epstein-Corbin: Web Resources

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