Legal Statistics

Drugs & Substance Abuse

  • DEA Statistics & Facts – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration provides national data on DEA arrests, seizures, meth lab incidents and various reports related to substance abuse activity.
  • Drugs and Crime Facts Report – This site summarizes U.S. statistics about drug-related crimes, law enforcement, courts, and corrections from Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and non-BJS sources.
  • Drugs and Crime Facts, Bureau of Justice Statistics – Provides statistics on drug use and crime, drug law violations, drug treatment, drug control budget and general drug use.
  • National Drug Threat Assessment Summary (2018)The 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA) is a comprehensive assessment of the threat posed to the United States by the trafficking and use of illicit drugs
  • National Survey of Drug Use & Health – Provides a plethora of reports, replete with statistics, on a wide range of drug usage topics, includes state reports, including the National Survey on Drug Use & Health going back to 1979.
  • Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration – Provides a plethora of surveys and reports related to substance abuse.
  • World Drug Report – Produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
  • DEA Drug Fact Sheets – List of one to two-page fact sheets come from the 2017 edition of “Drugs of Abuse: a DEA resource guide.” Also includes the text of the “Controlled Substances Act,” drug schedules and penalties for drug trafficking

Law Enforcement & Police

Corrections in the United States

  • Bureau of Prisons — Quick Facts – Provides statistics about the inmate population, sentences imposed, types of sentences and prison staff.
  • Crime & Justice Atlas – Includes links to both the original 2000 edition and the 2001 update. The Atlas provides a graphical presentation of trends in crime and sentencing over the last 25 years for the nation as a whole, and for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia individually. Included with each state’s data is a list of significant justice system initiatives implemented in the state since 1975.
  • Historical Corrections Statistics in the United States, 1850 – 1984Published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and authored by Margaret Werner Cahalan. This is a comprehensive compendium of corrections data for the period of 1850 to 1984.
  • Justice statistics: an extended look at crime in the United States – Generally this publication reproduces statistical tables from the Bureau of Justice and FBI, but in a more user friendly format with some additional expository narrative. The e-book is divided into 11 chapters, mostly crime data but 3 chapters delve into correctional, probation & parole and recidivism data
  • National Institute for Corrections (NIC) Search the U.S. National Institute for Corrections for state statistical data related to correctional facilities, inmates, correctional facilities’ staff, etc.
  • National Prisoner Statistics (Bureau of Justice) Provides statistical reports and tables related to correctional populations and facilities (local, state and federal levels), recidivism, capital punishment, sexual violence, expenditures, employees, community corrections and deaths in custody.
  • Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention — Statistical Briefing Book – Provides access to data analysis tools and data sets for a wide range of juvenile justice statistics.
  • Source Book of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2013 The Sourcebook is no longer published. This online version (2013) comes via the Internet Archive. The Sourcebook gathers together data from more than 100 sources, including over 600 statistical tables related to criminal activity, law enforcement, courts, public opinion, prosecution, sentencing and corrections (including parole, jails and prisons).

International Corrections

  • European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics – The Sourcebook (5th ed, 2015) provides facts and statistics related to criminal activity, law enforcement, prosecution, convictions and corrections.
  • World Prison Briefs – Published by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London (ICPS@bbk.ac.uk). This website provides statistics and administrative information on the world’s prison systems and populations.
  • World Prison Population List – Published by the International Centre for Prison Studies. This is the 12th edition, 2018.

Additional Sources of Statistics