Teaching Statistics and Computers - SPSS, SAS - New York - Agron Kaci Tutor

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Web Sources of Criminal Justice Data
These are the major categories of Criminal Justice Data links:

General Sources for Criminal Justice Data Sets
Online Data Analysis Links
General National Data Sources
International Data Sources
State and Local Agency Sites
Other Sites of Interest

General Sources for Criminal Justice Data Sets

National Archives: Access and Use of Archival Data
An amazing resource that is offering more digital access to its collections each year. Its potential for criminal justice research is relatively undeveloped.

NACJD: National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
A vast collection of criminal justice related data files that may be downloaded in SAS or SPSS format.

BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics
BJS offers access to a wide variety of reports and analyses of criminal justice data.

UCR Data: UCR County Data from Fisher Library-Virginia UT
The UCR data, as provided by the FBI, are not especially easy to use. The Fisher Library at the University of Virginia provides fairly comprehensive access that is easy to use.

UCR Data: Uniform Crime Report
The FBI's online publication of the UCR, essentially the same as the printed version. Reports are provided in pdf format from 1995 on. There are also documents available about hate crimes, law enforcement casualties, and some information about NIBRS. Because the data are provided in table format and as pdf documents, the site is of limited utiity for research; however, most of the underlying data are available elsewhere, say at NAJCD or the Fisher Library's GeoStat center (see above).
In addition to UCR data you will find data from National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).
NIBRS is gradually replacing the Uniform Crime Reports system albeit with very slow progress. This ICPSR site provides an overview of the system. The data are rich, promising and relatively unexploited for policy or research.

FedStats
You can find here statistics for every state of the US.

 

Online Data Analysis Links

Crime & Justice Data Online
Increasingly, crime data are avialable for analysis at online web sites. This BJS site provides access to a variety of these sites.

National Crime Victimization Survey, 1992-2005
An ongoing series of annual surveys that attempt to measure the extent of crime, to include the "dark figure". This site gives access to NCVS data and allows estimates of national rates of victimization based on the survey results.

General Social Survey, 1972 - 1996
For years, the National Opinion Research Center has conducted an annual survey that is representation of the overall U.S. population. These survey data have been a mainstay of sociological research for decades. Many opinion items are included that relate to crime, justice and public safety. You can find patterns between attitudes and experience with criminal justice issues and other social and personal characteristics.

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General National Data Sources

Statistical Abstract of the United States - 2008 (online)
Published annually for many year, this Census Bureau volume provides extensive comparative data by state, to include crime and justice data.

City and County Data: City and County Data Book
A classic U.S. Census Bureau document published every few years that provides an extensive series of data that allow comparisons and analysis of city and county data. An online version by the Fisher Library at the University of Virginia allows custom downloads of the data.

U.S. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
The Sourcebook is produced by the SUNY/Albany School of Criminal Justice. A huge compendium of lots of data with a useful index. Data from the tables can be further analyzed.

National Criminal Justice Reference System - Statistics
This site does not provide raw data but data refined into tables on various topics. The trick is to mine the data provided in the tables for your own research questions.

U.S. Census
Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the online availability of vast troves of data such as data from the U.S. Census. This site is a virtual candy store of data!

U.S. Census 2000 EEO Data Tool
This is an example of the extraordinary access to data that can be provided when an agency puts its mind to it. Alas it also shows how agencies tend to only serve a specific need. In this case, the purpose is to provide tables and downloadable data geared to ethnicity and employment for the EEO. For example, here you can find out how many, say, Asian and black police officers there are by place but not how many female officers. By the way, this site is run with SAS.

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International Data Sources

United Nations: Statistics and Research Sources
A useful, if spotty, collection of international data, including criminal justice and crime data.

BJS: The World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems
This site is geared to country specific portraits of criminal justice systems. However, comparative data can be harvested from this site with a bit of copying and pasting.

European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics
An attempt to provide some comprehensive source of data on European criminal justice.

EUROPOL
Europol is the European Law Enforcement Organisation which aims at improving the effectiveness and co-operation of the competent authorities in the Member States in preventing and combating terrorism, unlawful drug trafficking and other serious forms of international organised crime.

World Prison Brief
An interesting site by a British organization that monitors national prison situations. A good example of how access to potentially useful comparative data is complicated by the use fancy graphics.

Some National Sites for Crime Data:
Australia
Canada
China
Germany
France
Japan
Russia
South Africa
Sweden
United Kingdom

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State and Local Agency Sites

Criminal Justice Statistics for New York State
The official web site for the state. Geared to getting location specific data.

New York State Statistical Yearbook
A rare accounting of crime rates for New York City counties.

Mayor's Management Report for NYC: My Neighborhood Statistics
Local New York City crime statistics are available through this annual publication.

NYPD: New York City Crime Statistics
The data posted only stay online for a short time, but you can see very specific weekly crime data by precinct.

Cambridge, Mass: Annual & Quarterly Crime Reports
An examplary local police department web site that provides extensive crime data.

South Carolina Statistical Analysis Center: Statistical Publications
South Carolina was one of the earliest states to fully adopt NIBRS. Some of the products of NIBRS are shown here.

London Crime Statistics
A slick site that shows neighborhood crime statistics for London in the UK.

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Other Sites of Interests

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse
A remarkable site run by TRAC, based at Syracuse University, that collects and provides data that federal law enforcement agencies have traditionally avoided sharing with the public.

Uniform Crime Report -- State Index Offenses from 1960 - 2006
A handy source of 40+ years of state based index crime reports from the UCR from a private site.

New York State UCR Statistics from 1965 - 2006
The New York page of crime statistics from the above site (The Disaster Center).

Understanding Crime Statistics: A Reporter's Guide
Useful site that attempts to provide journalists with a quick study of crime statistics and the issues associated with using and interpreting them.

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Other Helpful Web Links

Plug-ins, Players and Viewers
Browsers also use plug-ins and other helper applications to help them display Web documents. If you encounter an element (such as video or animation) that requires one of these helpers, you may see a message that your browser isn't equipped for that content type. Viewers are required to display certain file formats, such as a PowerPoint slide show. These are common plug-ins, players, and viewers that are used on the Web in general, and that may also be used in this course. We recommend that you download all of them.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is free, and freely distributable, software that lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Apple QuickTime player is for viewing video in Apple's QuickTime format. Works with over 30 audio, video and image formats.

Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 97 is for viewing and printing PowerPoint presentations. Download this if you do not already have PowerPoint installed on your computer.

Adobe Shockwave and Adobe Flash are for viewing interactive content in various formats.

Real Player is for streaming audio and video content.

WinZip or StuffIt have trial versions that you can use to extract zip files.

 

Free Document Viewers
By clicking on the links below, you will be able to download and install some free software that will assist you in viewing and using the documents that your professors are posting for your class readings and assignments.

a) Word viewer: makes all versions of MS Word reader-compatible.
b) PowerPoint viewer: makes all versions of MS PowerPoint reader-compatible.
c) Excel viewer: makes all versions of MS Excel reader-compatible.
d) Flash player: Flash Player is a cross-platform browser plug-in that delivers breakthrough Web experiences to over 99% of Internet users.
e) Adobe Reader: Adobe Reader software is the global standard for electronic document sharing. It is the only PDF file viewer that can open and interact with all PDF documents. Use Adobe Reader to view, search, digitally sign, verify, print, and collaborate on Adobe PDF files.
f) Windows Media Player:  
g) Real player: Click on the link in the upper right-hand corner that says "Free RealPlayer"
h) QuickTime player
i) Java: Verify and download the latest version of Java

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