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Recent Developments of Interest to the States at the Bureau of Justice Statistics

NCJ Number
126493
Author(s)
S Dillingham
Date Published
October 1990
Length
12 pages
Annotation
Activities and statistical findings of the Bureau of Justice Statistics are presented to provide a sense of both the current focus of the Bureau and its future direction in terms of national data collection and analysis.
Abstract

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which serves as the primary criminal justice statistical agency within the Department of Justice, the federal government, the nation, and the world has 50 employees and a current operating budget for fiscal year 1990 of slightly over $21 million. Approximately 80 percent of the operating budget supports important core statistical programs and the national dissemination of crime data and analysis. Data from the 1989 "National Crime Survey," the Bureau's largest project, indicate that across the nation reported victimization levels were relatively stable when compared to 1988 and actually were down from peak levels experienced in 1988. In the area of judicial and pretrial statistics, BJS recently created two new programs to address a serious gap in existing knowledge about the criminal justice systems, namely, the National Pretrial Reporting System and the National Judicial Reporting Program. The National Corrections Reporting program, a third major BJS effort, gathers data on the characteristics of persons admitted to or released from State prisons. Two additional programs provide annual data on the number of persons placed under probation supervision and information on law enforcement and public safety functions.