Summary
This survey provides nationally representative data on inmates held in state prisons and federally-owned and operated prisons. Through personal interviews conducted from October 2003 through May 2004, inmates in both state and federal prisons provided information about their current offense and sentence, criminal history, family background and personal characteristics, prior drug and alcohol use and treatment programs, gun possession and use, and prison activities, programs, and services. Prior surveys of State prison inmates were conducted in 1974, 1979, 1986, 1991, and 1997. Sentenced federal prison inmates were interviewed in the 1991 and 1997 surveys.
Citation
Export Citation:
Funding
United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit
United States
Restrictions
A downloadable version of data for this study is available however, certain identifying information in the downloadable version may have been masked or edited to protect respondent privacy. Additional data not included in the downloadable version are available in a restricted version of this data collection. For more information about the differences between the downloadable data and the restricted data for this study, please refer to the codebook notes section of the PDF codebook. Users interested in obtaining restricted data must complete and sign a Restricted Data Use Agreement, describe the research project and data protection plan, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.
Sample
A two-stage sampling procedure was used. Prisons were selected in the first stage. Inmates within sampled prisons were selected in the second stage.
Universe
Inmates in state and federal prisons in the United States.
Unit(s) of Observation
individual
survey data
Mode of Data Collection
computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI)
telephone interview
Response Rates
The overall response rates for state and federal inmates were 89.1 percent and 84.6 percent, respectively.
Original Release Date
2007-02-28
Version Date
2016-04-27
Version History
2016-04-27 Datasets 0003 and 0004 were added. They contain analysis variables corresponding to the Federal and State datasets. The analysis variables are useful in replicating results reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
2007-02-28 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Standardized missing values.
- Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.

This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.