Guides: Criminal Justice: Criminal Justice Reform

Detroit Mercy Center for Justice Studies

NEW! Detroit Mercy Center for Justice Studies

"The University of Detroit Mercy Center for Justice Studies is a premiere resource for justice education. Courses cover a variety of topics designed for law enforcement, community and school leaders and private security professionals."

Organizations

Campaign Zero
A data-informed platform that "presents a package of policy solutions to end police violence in America." It integrates "recommendations from communities, research organizations and the President
s Task Force on 21st Century Policing"

Websites

Pew Public Safety Performance Project
Includes fact sheets, articles, an reports on the Pew Charitable Trusts' research, technical assistance to governments and strategic grants that work "to better align public safety practices and investments with research and constitutional principles."
NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet
Includes background information and statistics on racial bias in law enforcement, police brutality, and the court system.

Databases

Opposing Viewpoints in Context: Criminal Justice Reform
Includes journal, magazine and news articles, as well as many viewpoints (editorials).
Points of View Reference Center
Includes journal articles, news, and opinion pieces on topics such as police funding ,sentencing for juvenile offenders, police use of force, the death penalty, mandatory sentencing for drug offenders, the private prison industry, and more.
Criminal Justice Database
includes correctional and law enforcement trade publications, dissertations, crime reports, crime blogs and other material relevant for researchers or those preparing for careers in criminal justice, law enforcement and related fields.

Statistics

***The following data sets come from different sources, and users should carefully examine the consider the reliability and trustworthiness of each.***

National Violent Death Reporting System
From the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), includes data from death certificates, coroner reports, law enforcement reports and toxicology reports.
FBI's National Use-of-Force Data Collection
Includes national-level statistics on law enforcement use-of-force incidents, including the circumstances, subjects and officers involved. Participation by law enforcement agencies is voluntary. Includes data going back to 2015.
Washington Post's Fatal Force
Includes over 5,000 fatal shootings by on-duty police officers in the U.S. since 2015. The data is derived from news accounts, social media postings, and police reports.
Fatal Encounters
"Fatal Encounters intends to help create a database of all deaths through police interaction in the United States since Jan. 1, 2000. We are not a finished product. We’re just the first step toward creating an impartial, comprehensive and searchable national database of people killed during interactions with police. " Includes data going back to 2000.
US Opinions on the Need for Criminal Justice Reform, June 2020
Data from an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey displayed by race and political affiliation.