BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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Corrections refers to the supervision of persons arrested for, convicted of, or sentenced for criminal offenses. Correctional populations fall into two general categories: institutional corrections and community corrections. Corrections data, with a few exceptions, covers adult facilities and adult inmates. For data on youth in the juvenile system, please see statistics provided by the Correctional Populations in the United States series.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) Corrections Unit maintains over 30 data collections. Most are annual collections of administrative data from correctional administrators, ranging from basic population counts and offender demographic characteristics to facility capacity, programs, staff, and resources. These data collections include—

The NPS also collects counts on specific inmate populations from the Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. territories, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Some limited information on the number of juveniles held in adult facilities is also collected in the NPS and the ASJ. Jails in Indian Country is a separate collection for data on counts and characteristics of persons held in tribal jails. BJS also tracks administrative data on other topics, such as HIV in correctional facilities, deaths in custody, sexual assault in correctional facilities, and capital punishment statutes, populations and executions.

In addition to collecting administrative data, BJS maintains a number of recurring national surveys of prison inmates, jail inmates, probationers, and parolees. These surveys are typically conducted every 5 to 7 years and use a nationally representative sample of offenders. The surveys, such as the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, are broad in scope and collect a wide range of data on the personal and criminal histories of criminal offenders. Topics cover childhood experiences, family structure, educational background, prior criminal activity, substance abuse experiences, mental and physical health problems, and conditions of current confinement. Estimates derived from these surveys are national, and with rare exceptions, are not available at the state or facility level.

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Terms & Definitions

Community corrections Community corrections refers to the supervision of criminal offenders in the resident population, as opposed to confining them in secure correctional facilities. The two main types of community corrections supervision are probation and parole. Community corrections is also referred to as community supervision.
 
Custody To have custody of a prisoner, a state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons must hold that person in one of its facilities. A locality, state, or the Federal Bureau of Prisons may hold inmates over whom a different government maintains jurisdiction.
 
Custody count To have custody of a prisoner, a state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons must hold that person in one of its facilities. A state may have custody of a prisoner over whom another state maintains jurisdiction.
 
Design capacity The number of inmates that planners or architects intended for the facility.
 
Federal prisons Prison facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Prisoners housed in these facilities are under the legal authority of the federal government. This definition excludes the private facilities that are under exclusive contract with BOP.
 
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