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Where to Find Data:Juvenile Justice

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Amanda on Mona edited this page Oct 28, 2018 · 1 revision

This list was compiled for John Jay's Tow Fellowship Symposium 2014 in conjunction with our workshop on Telling Better Stories with Data.

You're welcome to add resources, or request help finding a resource that isn't listed.

Ugh, PDFs

Many of these sources provide data in PDFs. A PDF is kind of like a photograph of a spreadsheet. It's nice to look at but you can't do more than gaze lovingly at it, which is pretty annoying. Luckily, there are some great resources for reliably extracting rows and columns from a PDF, including tabula (though ... see my troubleshooting tips if you're having trouble installing it) and Cometdocs which is available for free if you are a member of IRE.

Unadvertised Data

  • Let me get that data for you will scour any website and identify what appear to be data sets -- xls files on any domain. They miss a fair amount, but might sniff out a spreadsheet you couldn't find otherwise.

National Organizations

Gov't Agencies

  • US DOJ's [Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention] (http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/default.asp) maintains a Statistical Briefing Book -- an excellent resource for both national data and state level data. They also maintain the Compendium of National Juvenile Justice Data Sets that includes a number of excellent data sources on well being, incarceration and juvenile crime:

  • Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement

  • Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth

  • Uniform Crime Reports, Summary Reporting of Offenses and Arrests

  • National Incident Based Reporting System

  • National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997

  • The National Youth Risk Behavior Survey

  • National Crime Victimization Survey

  • National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File

  • Juvenile Residential Facility Census

  • Police-Public Contact Survey

  • Survey of Youth in Residential Placement

  • Deaths in Custody Reporting Program

  • National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health

  • National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being

  • Survey of Youth in Custody

  • Children in Custody Census

  • Bureau of Justice Statistics

  • Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator

Independent

In many of the resource directories described below, information is presented in finished reports, available for download as PDFs. Reporters will need to contact individual authors for access to raw data.

  • Annie E Casey Foundation publications
  • Vera Institute of Justice's Resource Library includes an extensive archive of their own work dating back to 1961.
  • Juvenile Justice Information Exchange manages a great information hub
  • Urban Institute maintains a number of relevant data sets, including the Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center.
  • National Association of Youth Courts
  • Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University compiles and publishes extensive data on federal enforcement, staffing and spending. None of it is juvenile specific, but their immigration project tracks deportation backlogs, proceedings and outcomes. They also track a range of data on the ATF, FBI and IRS.
  • National Center for State Courts maintains a Juvenile Justice Resource Guide with dozens of reports available. Most of the NCSC resources are PDFs rather than raw data sets, but the reports are well footnoted and provide an excellent starting point for identifying researchers with data you're looking for. Remember: you can always ask for raw data even if an author chose not to publish it. Note that each report is assigned to exactly one category. An evaluation of an evidence based mental health program might be under Program Evaluation, Evidence Based Programs or Mental Health. Topics:
  • Delinquency Prevention
  • Evidence Based Programs
  • Girls and Minorities
  • Juvenile Court and Case Management
  • Juvenile Court Jurisdiction and Structure
  • Juveniles Tried As Adults
  • Mental Health
  • Program Evaluation
  • Sentencing Detention Probation
  • Specialized Courts for Juveniles
  • Trends and Statistics

Other Newsrooms

Loads of newsroom publish the data they've worked with. It isn't usually tagged or sorted, but there's often good stuff there.

State and Local Resources

State Resources

Looking for resources on a state you don't see listed? Let me know!

  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Colorado
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • North Dakota
  • Ohio
  • Oklahoma
  • Oregon
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • South Carolina
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Vermont
  • Virginia
  • Washington
  • West Virginia
  • Wisconsin
  • Wyoming

International resources

  • UNICEF maintains country-by-country data stores on member states, including juvenile prosecution and incarceration rates.

Resources to keep an eye on

Great Newsletters

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