Bureau of Justice Statistics
GovernmentThe Bureau of Justice Statistics collects and publishes data on crime, victimization, and the criminal justice system in the United States. This includes crime rates from law enforcement agencies, the National Crime Victimization Survey, data on prisoners and incarceration, court statistics, and information about criminal justice expenditures. BJS works with state and local agencies to standardize data collection and publishes both quick reports and detailed statistical bulletins.
Pinned datasets
NIBRS Property Crimes (National Estimates)
Law enforcement agencies report crimes they handle to the FBI through NIBRS. This dataset takes all those reports and creates estimates for the whole country on how many property crimes happen each year, broken down by type (break-ins, shoplifting, car theft, vandalism). It includes the range of error around each estimate so you know how confident to be in the numbers. You can see trends over time and compare different types of theft.
NIBRS Crime Incidents (National Estimates)
What violent crimes are actually being reported in the US? This data tracks murders, assaults, robberies, and sexual offenses by year. You get counts, details about weapons used, whether victims were injured, and who was involved. The numbers come from police reports across the country, then scaled up to estimate the full national picture. It goes back decades, so you can see if crime is going up or down.
US Prison Population, 1977-Present (National Prisoner Statistics)
This is the official count of how many people are locked up in U.S. prisons at the end of each year, going back 50 years. It separates federal prisons from state prisons and includes the overall rate per 100,000 people for recent years. The numbers have been revised a few times as states corrected their reports, so if you're comparing years, you might see the same year reported slightly differently depending on which version you're looking at.