Criminal Justice

Under the leadership of the Attorney General of the United States, the Justice Department is composed of more than 40 separate component organizations and more than 115,000 employees. Headquartered at the Robert F. Kennedy Building in Washington, D.C., the Department maintains field offices in all states and territories across the United States and in more than 50 countries around the world.

Welcome to the CQ Press Supreme Court Collection, a destination for authoritative information and data on cases, justices, and the history and power of the U.S. Supreme Court. Researchers will find the data and tools to answer questions about justices and their opinions and behavior.

The Federal Judicial Center is the research and education agency of the judicial branch of the U.S. government. The Center was established by Congress in 1967 (28 U.S.C. §§ 620–629). At left, the Center’s statutory purpose is superimposed on the photo of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., where the Center is located.

The Center's governing board is chaired by the Chief Justice of the United States. The other Board members are seven judges elected by the Judicial Conference of the United States, and the Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The ACLU is committed to challenging the criminalization and incarceration of young people—particularly youth from disenfranchised communities. We are promoting positive approaches to school discipline and seeking to dismantle the “school-to-prison pipeline.” We are working to change laws and policies so that states and local jurisdictions use youth jails and prisons sparingly and instead provide effective community-based services and supports to system-involved young people and their families.

Ensuring that young people exposed to the legal system can realize their potential, even when they make mistakes and violate the law in serious ways.

OJJDP's three priorities of treating children as children, serve children at home, with their families, in their communities, and opening up opportunities for system-involved youth reflect the Office's guiding philosophy: to enhance the welfare of America’s youth and broaden their opportunities for a better future.

The primary goals of the juvenile justice system, in addition to maintaining public safety, are skill development, habilitation, rehabilitation, addressing treatment needs, and successful reintegration of youth into the community.

The Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report is the U.S. Government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. It is also the world’s most comprehensive resource of governmental anti-trafficking efforts and reflects the U.S. Government’s commitment to global leadership on this key human rights and law enforcement issue.

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) is a national non-profit organization whose mission is to serve the media, policymakers, and the general public with data and analysis on issues concerning capital punishment and the people it affects. DPIC does not take a position on the death penalty itself but is critical of problems in its application.

We work to free the innocent, prevent wrongful convictions, and create fair, compassionate, and equitable systems of justice for everyone.

OCR’s mission is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil rights in our nation’s schools.

The FBI's Crime Data Explorer (CDE) aims to provide transparency, create easier access, and expand awareness of criminal, and noncriminal, law enforcement data sharing; improve accountability for law enforcement; and provide a foundation to help shape public policy with the result of a safer nation. Use the CDE to discover available data through visualizations, download data in .csv format, and other large data files.

Established in 1972, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally funded resource offering justice and drug-related information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) focuses on research, development, and evaluation of crime control and justice issues. NIJ provides objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge and tools to meet the challenge of criminal justice, particularly at local and state levels. NIJ funds research, development, and technology assistance. NIJ also assesses programs, policies, and technologies. NIJ publicizes the research it conducts and the evaluation findings through conferences, reports, and the media.

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 also provides financial and technical support to state, local, and tribal governments to improve both their statistical capabilities and the quality and utility of their criminal history records.

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program generates reliable statistics for use in law enforcement. It also provides information for students of criminal justice, researchers, the media, and the public. The program has been providing crime statistics since 1930.

The UCR Program includes data from more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. Agencies participate voluntarily and submit their crime data either through a state UCR program or directly to the FBI's UCR Program.

UNODC collects data on crime and the operation of criminal justice systems in order to make policy-relevant information and analysis available in a timely manner to the international community.

UNODC works on the development of standards for national crime and criminal justice information systems and for the conduct of victimization surveys. The office also aims to enhance the cross-national comparability of data through the development of key indicators and data reporting tools.
Periodic reports on selected crime issues provide in-depth analysis on key topics of concern at the global and regional level.