Research and Statistics

Adoration of the Question: Reflections on the Failure to Reduce Racial & Ethnic Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System. This report/document raises important questions regarding the  tendency to study, study, study the issues and not act.

Bureau of Justice Statistics: A wealth of information including crime and prison statistics. The mission is: “To collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.

Categorically Less Culpable: Children Sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole in Illinois: a report from the Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children.

Cradle to Prison Pipeline Report: From the Children’s Defense Fund identifying known causes of our burgeoning prison populations based on correctable issues with our children.

Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority – Data on the burgeoning incarceration rates in Illinois.

Internet Legal Research Group (Public Legal Forms):  This site was established in 1995 to serve as a comprehensive resource of the information available on the Internet concerning law and the legal profession, with an emphasis on the United States of America. Designed for everyone, lay persons and legal scholars alike, it is quality controlled to include only the most substantive legal resources online.

Locked Up Potential A strategy for reforming prisons and rehabilitating prisoners: This report is out of the UK by the Prison Reform Working Group of The Centre for Social Justice. The recommendations that result from this analysis have two principal objectives: the reduction of re-offending and the easing of prison overcrowding.

The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs: Since the inception of the war on drugs, African American communities have been subject to high levels of arrest and incarceration for drug offenses. As of 2005, African Americans represented 12% of the total population of drug users, but 34% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 45% of those in state prison for a drug offense. This report from The Sentencing Project

Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration By Race and Ethnicity:  The American prison and jail system is defined by an entrenched racial disparity in the population of incarcerated people. This report from The Sentencing Project provides extensive statistical data on those disparities.

Vera Institute – The Vera Institute of Justice uses its unique approach to work with government leaders on a wide range of criminal and social justice issues.