The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) served as the data collection agent for BJS. State-level drug court coordinators provided points of contact for each problem-solving court operating in their state. NCSC combined information from court websites, court-related organizations, news media, press releases, marketing efforts, and related associations to form a comprehensive list of 3,633 problem-solving courts in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
A court can operate more than one problem-solving court at a single location. In such cases, the Census of Problem-Solving Courts (CPSC) counted each problem-solving court separately. If multiple court locations participated in a single problem-solving court, they were counted as one problem-solving court. Data were collected online and via paper questionnaires. Courts provided information on court type, size, frequency of sessions, issues addressed, services used, participant eligibility requirements, point of entry, benefits to participants, other characteristics of their operations, and case outcomes.
The report includes juvenile and adults in some analyses, but the data included juvenile drug courts and juvenile mental health courts.
No. The total homicide count includes all types of intentional homicide and involuntary manslaughter as ruled by a medical examiner or other official medical investigation. The total includes homicides committed by inmates. It also includes homicides as a result of staff use of force, such as positional asphyxia, or suffocation caused by the position of the inmate's body, while the inmate is being removed from a cell. It includes legal-intervention homicides (e.g., an inmate is shot in the process of escape). The count also includes deaths caused by events prior to incarceration (e.g., an inmate was shot during an altercation on the street and dies from complications of the gunshot wound while incarcerated).
BJS began to collect mortality data from state prisons, local jails, and local and state law enforcement agencies in 2000 in response to the Congressional enactment of the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DICRA, P.L. 106-297). Through its Mortality in Institutional Corrections (MCI) collection, BJS obtained data on deaths that occurred in the custody of local jails from 2000 to 2019 and state prisons from 2001 to 2019. Deaths that occurred in the process of arrest by law enforcement agencies were collected from 2003 to 2009, and a redesigned methodology was tested in 2015 and 2016.
Federal agencies were not included in the 2000 DICRA law, but BJS collected summary statistics on persons who died in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) through 2014. After the reauthorization of DICRA in 2013 (P.L. 113-242), which included a requirement to collect data from federal agencies, BJS began obtaining individual-level death data from the BOP, as well as from other federal agencies with law enforcement responsibilities.
The 2013 DICRA reauthorization expanded the original 2000 law to include additional enforcement and compliance requirements for local and state law enforcement agencies, jails, and prisons. As a federal statistical agency and consistent with its authorizing legislation, BJS may only use the data it collects or maintains under its authority for statistical purposes, which excludes enforcement and compliance activities. Consequently, the Department of Justice (DOJ) determined that BJS's MCI collection did not meet the 2013 DICRA requirements. DOJ decided that it would be more appropriate for the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to administer the program and collect mortality data for DOJ starting with quarter 1 (Q1) of fiscal year (FY) 2019 (October to December 2019). State departments of corrections (DOC), local jails, and law enforcement agencies will now report their death information on a quarterly basis to centralized state agencies, who will compile and submit this to BJA to comply with all applicable DICRA requirements. Federal agencies, including the BOP, will continue to report deaths that occur in their custody to BJS.
Financial fraud is defined as acts that “intentionally and knowingly deceive the victim by misrepresenting, concealing, or omitting facts about promised goods, services, or other benefits and consequences that are nonexistent, unnecessary, never intended to be provided, or deliberately distorted for the purpose of monetary gain.” (See Stanford Center on Longevity. (2015). Framework for a taxonomy of fraud. https://longevity.stanford.edu/framework-for-a-taxonomy-of-fraud/)
Caution must be used when using trend data, as definitions and reporting capabilities change over time. Some changes in definitions are due to BJS initiatives to improve counting (such as separating out state inmates held in private facilities or local jails), some may be driven by the Office of Management and Budget (such as changes in racial and ethnic definitions), and some may be noted by the reported jurisdiction (such as noncitizen inmate counts, including those who were foreign-born).
Whenever possible, BJS notes these differences and encourages users to check footnotes within tables and jurisdiction notes within reports to better understand why comparability can vary from state-to-state or year-to-year.
Note: When you see a sharp increase or decline in a year-to-year count, it is recommended to verify there was no change in definition or counting method.
Not all datasets are available for public use. We are actively working on mechanisms to make as many datasets as possible accessible to the public. Much of our data is archived at the University of Michigan’s National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. A lag period exists between the release of a report and the archiving of the data, as the dataset must be submitted to the archive with full documentation and may undergo disclosure review to protect the confidentiality of the respondents, when applicable.
In the Mortality in Correctional Institutions collection (MCI), custody refers to the physical holding of an inmate in a facility. It also includes the period during which a correctional authority maintains a chain of custody over an inmate. For instance, if a jail transports an ill inmate to a hospital for medical services and that inmate dies while in the chain of custody of the jail, that death is counted as a death in custody. A death that occurs when an inmate is not in the custody of a correctional authority is considered beyond the scope of the MCI. Out-of-scope deaths include inmates on escape status or under the supervision of community corrections, specifically inmates on probation, parole, or home-electronic monitoring.
It takes about 2 years to process death data because core data collection runs the full calendar year (i.e., January 1 through December 31). BJS does not report partial or incomplete data. Once core data collection is completed at the end of the first quarter of the following calendar year, data quality activities begin, which include waiting for autopsy results, following up with respondents who have not submitted any data, and clarifying survey items. Data quality activities end in September and a data file is delivered sometime in the fall. Data analysis and report writing typically take an additional six months, depending on the report.
Accidental injury is the sustainment of unintentional physical damage or harm. The ARD program records fatal accidental injuries sustained during an arrest process that result from actions taken by the decedents, law enforcement, or civilians.
Accidental injuries caused by the decedents typically occurred while they attempted to flee from police. For example, these injuries resulted from jumping or falling from heights, colliding with vehicles or other objects, drowning, and choking on foreign objects that were swallowed for concealment purposes. Deaths that occur during a physical struggle with police are often submitted as accidental deaths. Fatal accidental injuries caused by others most commonly involved vehicle collisions.