Frequently Asked Questions

Drug arrest statistics are available through the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

A study of deaths from the use of oleoresin capsicum ("pepper spray") was conducted with grant money supplied by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The publication, Deaths in Police Confrontations When Oleoresin Capsicum is Used, discusses fatal incidents in which law enforcement officers use oleoresin capsicum to control a subject. Additionally, The Effectiveness and Safety of Pepper Spray, another resource from NIJ, presents the findings from two NIJ-funded studies testing the safety and effectiveness of pepper spray.

Data on rapes that occur in the U.S. are available in the Criminal Victimization and Criminal Victimization in the United States series of reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The number of rapes reported to the police is available in the annual Crime in the United States report, which is published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Data on indigent defense is available on the Indigent Defense Systems section of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) website.

The number of methamphetamine laboratory incidents (includes lab seizures, dumpsites discovered, and chemical/glass/equipment seizures) nationwide is available on the Drug Labs in the United States section of the Drug Enforcement Administration website.

National, state, and local criminal justice statistics are available on the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) website.

Additional data sources include the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program and state and territory Statistical Analysis Centers.

Information on juvenile sex offenders is available in the following Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention resources: Juveniles Who Have Sexually Offended: A Review of the Professional Literature and Juvenile Sex Offender Research Bibliography. Also view the Juvenile Sex Offenders resources and the Juvenile Section Research Briefs from the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking.

Robbery statistics are available in the Federal Bureau of Investigation annual report, Crime in the United States.

Information on the use of DNA to exonerate inmates postconviction can be found on the Wrongful Convictions and the Exonerations Resulting from NIJ Postconviction DNA Testing Funding sections of the National Institute of Justice website.

Through grant funding, the Office of Justice Programs has provided millions of dollars to state and local forensic science laboratories to increase casework capacity, reduce backlogs, and improve quality. For example, grants obtained through the Postconviction Testing of DNA Evidence program can be used to help defray the costs associated with postconviction DNA testing for violent felony offenses in which actual innocence might be demonstrated.

According to Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2014 National Report, a report funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP): "There is no national recidivism rate for juveniles. Each state's juvenile justice system differs in organization, administration, and data capacity. These differences influence how states define, measure, and report recidivism rates. This also makes it challenging to compare recidivism rates across states." In addition, view the report Measuring and Using Juvenile Recidivism Data To Inform Policy, Practice, and Resource Allocation and Core Principles for Reducing Recidivism and Improving Other Outcomes for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System, which are sponsored by OJJDP and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

Also see Measuring Juvenile Recidivism an online interactive resource from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Public Safety Performance Project.

You may also wish to conduct a search of the Abstracts Database, which contains a number of reports on recidivism at the state level. Also see the recidivism data collection from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.