About

Established in 1978, the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) provides free and comprehensive access to high-quality criminal justice datasets for researchers, policymakers, students, and other data users. NACJD is home to several large-scale and well-known datasets, including the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), and the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

In addition to making data available, NACJD curates and preserves data to ensure that they are accessible now and in the future. We also perform outreach activities that include creating learning guides and providing user support for our current and prospective data users and depositors.

Our Broader Impact

The work we do has an impact on the study of crime and justice. For example:

  • Over 30,000 publications cite our data.
  • We support the training of new criminal justice and legal scholars.
    • In 2025, over 100 students published doctoral dissertations and master’s theses that relied on our data.
  • Data deposited with us remains in perpetuity.
  • Our collections enable secondary data analysis and replication-based projects.
  • We promote open science.
  • NACJD-processed datasets are cleaned and include codebooks.

Who Are We?

Located at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, a research center of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, NACJD is sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Our staff includes professional researchers, data curators, project managers, and others working to promote the sharing and use of crime and justice data.

Our Services

We offer a variety of services, including:

  • Data Access and Distribution: Providing researchers with access to a wide range of criminal justice datasets sponsored by BJS, NIJ, and OJJDP.
  • Data Deposit Services: Assisting data producers with the submission and standardization of datasets to be included in the archive, enhancing data sharing and reuse. We focus on supporting BJS, NIJ, and OJJDP projects.
  • Data Preservation: Ensuring the long-term preservation and storage of archived data.
  • Technical Assistance: Providing limited support and guidance to researchers about how to access and analyze datasets in the archive.
  • User Training and Resources: Conducting workshops, webinars, and providing instructional materials to help users.