Covering crime is not for the faint of heart. Crime statistics, for their part, can be daunting or difficult to locate. The vast array of criminal statistics out there can be hard to navigate, but the Web helps narrow it into categories. Some sites offer answers to frequently asked questions for data that needs explanation or provide tutorials for analyzing the data. The following are just a few of the many sites that offer everything from interesting crime tidbits to vast databases. They are good places to start and can lead to more specific sites.
The FBI Home Page www.fbi.gov
This site is the premier source for the latest in crime stats. Not only can you check out who's who on the "Most Wanted" list, but you can also get the most recent version of "Crime in the U.S.," which summarizes Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) from agencies throughout the country. (Click on "Crime Statistics") It includes trends and thorough explanations, which save time. Also available is the National Incident-Based Reporting System, the latest wave in reporting crime.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs
The U.S. Department of Justice much in the way of statistics on both victims and offenders. Findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey can flesh out FBI data the survey may account for unreported crimes. This site also offers spreadsheets in trend data, information on courts and sentencing, and much more. It incorporates different data sources, so it is very useful in tracking crimes through the various stages of criminal justice. A lot of the data is available to order.
The Justice Information Center www.ncjrs.org
This site offers in-depth information that supplements FBI and other crime statistics. It includes statistics in areas such as homicide reports, arrests, and juvenile court, or victim information. For topics, such as "Crime Prevention" or "Juvenile Justice," it lists links to relevant Web sites, mailing lists, and articles. Definitely check out its extensive list of sites for criminal justice statistics http://www.ncjrs.org/statuww.htm.
The National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics www.search.org
If the data you're looking at appears to be a scrambled mess, visit this site for background. It offers information on courts, NIBRS, and can lend technical support. The consortium site gives dates for conferences and symposia in crime statistics and criminal justice. It can also link you to the Clearinghouse, another wealthy source of information for reading and analyzing data on law and order in the U.S.
FedStats www.fedstats.gov
This site is simply awesome. It links you to any government agency and is simple to follow. It calls itself "one-stop shopping" for statistics, programs, and policy. Maintained by the Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy, federal statistics from the FBI, DEA, and many more agencies are just a click away. FedStats also lists agency contacts.
Organized Crime www.crime.org
Not the Mafia, though you could probably link to them. This site, which is easy to move around in, provides tutorials on reading crime statistics and links to all the major sites. It helps answer questions on crime data and points out possible inaccuracies. Check it out for nothing else but the always enlightening "criminal quote." The designer, Regina Schekall, plans to develop the site further.
Number Crunchers Precision Journalism www.crunch.com
This site is devoted to journalists. It "crunches" the numbers, based on the adage that "journalists don't do math." It's got some "top secret" FBI files, now available under the Freedom of Information Act. You can look up the rap sheet of Al Capone, for example. A glitzy, colorful site, it offers data and spreadsheets on crime trends.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD
This site offers a wide array of background information, technical support, and data. If you need to wade through all that, go ahead, but the site offers a link straight to the downloadable data, found in outline. Just click on the subject you'd like to see: corrections, police, victimization surveys, and more.
Or search by letter of the alphabet. There are also forums to which you can post questions.
Security on Campus www.soconline.org/STATS/index.ht
Statistics concerning crime on college campuses is hard to come by, but this site makes it easy. It gives background information and offers links to UCR various university crime tables.
From the mailbox
On the NICAR-L mailing list, David Milliron of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently suggested these Web sites for the crime beat:
National Clearinghouse for Criminal Justice Information Systems http://www.ch.search.org/
Crime Data Sources in Criminal Justice http://www.ncwc.edu/-toconnor/data.htm
Uniform Crime Reports: County Level Data http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/crime/ 1995 appears to be the latest year.
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/ Data about all aspects of criminal justice in the U.S. Includes more than 600 tables in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format.
Justice Research and Statistics Association Statistical Analysis Centers with Web Servers http://www.jrsainfo.org/sac/sacsites.html
Finding forensic information on Internet http://www.bart.nl/-geradts/lit.html
Crime and Justice Electronic Data Abstracts http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dtdata.htm The Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics recently updated this massive database to include selected data through 1996. Lotus spreadsheets (.wk1) are available in 55 subjects covering crimes and arrests, criminal justice, and general demography.
UN Crime & Justice Information Network Statistics and Research Sources http://www.ifs.univie.ac.at/-uncjin/stats.html
Crime Mapping Research Center http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc/
Heather Browne can be reached by phone at (573) 884-7711