Search results

This data collection contains data from the 2020 Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories (CPFFCL). The CPFFCL collected data on organizational characteristics, functions, budget, staffing, workload, resources, and quality assurance practices of publicly funded forensic crime laboratories operating in the U.S. and serving federal, state, and local jurisdictions. The CPFFCL includes crime labs that employed one or more full-time scientists who possess a minimum of a bachelor's degree in chemistry, physics, biology, criminalistics, forensic science or a closely related field and whose principal functions are examining physical evidence in criminal matters and providing reports and testimony to courts of law with respect to such evidence. Private laboratories were excluded from the CPFFCL. Laboratories may operate independently or as part of a larger system. Respondents to the CPFFCL could choose to respond as individual labs or as one system. A total of 423 individual labs, constituting 326 standalone labs and multilab systems, received the questionnaire. A total of 382 (90%) individual labs responded to the 2020 CPFFCL and 293 (90%) standalone labs and multilab systems responded. For the 2020 study, data were collected from July 2021 to February 2022.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) first surveyed forensic crime laboratories in 1998, focusing solely on agencies that performed DNA analysis. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded the 1998 study as part of its DNA Laboratory Improvement Program. The BJS' National Study of DNA Laboratories was repeated in 2001. An expanded version of the data collection, called the Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories, was first conducted among all forensic crime laboratories in 2002.

The primary goal of this project is to develop and deploy Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) as a confirmatory, rapid, and minimally destructive tool for the forensic analysis of colorants directly on human hair at a crime scene.

There are several datasets associated with this study that are available for download.

This 2020 study was funded by the National Institute of Justice to advance knowledge about the microscopical methods used to examine materials commonly found in commercial and improvised low explosives. To achieve this, researchers developed reference documentation and an "Atlas of Unburned, Partially Burned, and Fully Burned Low Explosive and Related Materials" for the characterization, comparison, and identification of such materials. This data collection includes 57 files with images and descriptive captions documenting methods of microscopical analysis for a variety of chemically reacted, improvised low explosives and related residues. Details on the optical and physical properties, information regarding chemical solubility, recrystallization, microcrystal and microchemical spot tests, melting points, potential decomposition products, references, and photomicrographs of these materials are included as a PDF table. Additional information on this research can be found on the McCrone Research Institute website.

Fingermark identification remains one of the most important and unambiguous approaches to place perpetrators at crime scenes. While a great number of forensic techniques for the visualization of latent marks already exist, they all suffer from one or more shortcomings such as: limited applicability with regard to the age of a mark or the nature of the surface it was deposited on ("substrate"); the requirement of expensive laboratory equipment and special training; and the potential to alter or even destroy evidence, or at least leave a visible record of their application.

The goal of this project was to develop and validate novel fingermark lifters, which allow instantaneous, on-the-spot visualization of marks. The underlying detection principle used with these lifters is based on the reaction of either pH-sensitive or amine-reactive substances - immobilized on suitable solid supports such as membranes - with chemicals contained in fingermark residues (e.g., lactic acid, amino acids, proteins, and amino sugars). The exposure of appropriate reagents to such an environment causes a change in their spectroscopic properties, which can be seen, depending on the type of reagent, either under ambient or luminescent light conditions.

This study examined financial exploitation of elderly people compared to other forms of elder maltreatment (physical abuse, neglect, and hybrid, i.e., financial exploitation and physical abuse and/or neglect) that occurred in a domestic setting. The cases were explored by obtaining information from a variety of sources including:

• Three different individuals about a given case including (1) the caseworker from APS that managed the reported case, (2) the person who had been reported to have experienced elder abuse and, (3) where they were available, a non-offending third party who knew the elder at the time of the APS response to the report of elder abuse (e.g., the elder's domestic partner, care provider, friend, or family member).
• Data derived from the Virginia Department of Social Services' Adult Services Adult Protective Services (ASAPS) Database which contains information drawn from several sources.
• Prosecutors in four states that were interviewed about their experience prosecuting elder abuse, barriers and facilitators associating with prosecuting such cases, and possible reforms.

The specific goals of this research were to (1) Determine unique aspects of financial exploitation as compared to other forms of elder maltreatment, including risk factors, reporting, investigation, and case outcomes; (2) Determine the degree of congruence between the perceptions of victims of elder maltreatment and APS caseworkers regarding these cases; and (3) Develop recommendations based on these findings for addressing the financial abuse of the elderly.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The objective of this study was to determine how homicide investigators use evidence during the course of their investigations. Data on 294 homicide cases (315 victims) that occurred in Cleveland between 2008 and 2011 was collected from investigative reports, forensic analysis reports, prosecutors and homicide investigators, provided by the Cleveland Ohio Police Department, Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, and Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts.

The study collection includes 1 Stata data file (NIJ_Cleveland_Homicides.dta, n=294, 109 variables).

The National Hate Crime Investigation Study (NHCIS) collected detailed data on hate crime investigations from law enforcement agencies (LEAs) across the United States. A nationally representative sample of 2,488 local, county, and state LEAs, stratified by agency type and size, were surveyed about agency-level characteristics and hate crime incidents investigated by their agency between January 1, 2018 and December 31, 2018.

Agency-level surveys collected information about the size of the population the agency serves, the number of full-time sworn officers, total number of hate crime cases reported, National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) participation, hate crime investigation policies and procedures, and whether the agency has conducted outreach to community or local advocacy groups on hate crimes. Case-level surveys and case report data abstraction then captured extensive data about 1,230 hate crime incidents, including crime scene details, investigative strategies, arrests, charges, and court outcomes.

Suspect and victim demographic information in the Case Data file includes sex, gender identity, age, race/ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, disability status, and immigration status.

Information and communication technology (ICT) are playing an important role in the criminal justice chain, but very little is known about public prosecutor's offices, while there is a strong need to exchange information among practitioners, decision makers, and scholars in order to share experiences, knowledge, and facilitate the adoption of common ICT solutions and practices in a cost-effective way.

This Research Project stresses the need to pursue judicial cooperation in the area of criminal law, and it contributes to fostering mutual knowledge of European legal and judicial systems as well as best practices and technological solutions. The Project is not limited to legal literature, but it has an inter-disciplinary approach, and it focuses on practical experiences and policies implemented. The project will lead to a conference to disseminate the information collected, to pass on knowledge of immediate use in carrying on professional activities, as well as to increase the number of practitioners, academics, and policy makers who will take advantage of and profit from the research. The research entails six in-depth case studies. Four of them will be carried on by the organizations' partners in this research: England and Wales, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, two others are in the process to be identified.

After a description of the governance system of public prosecution in the countries considered in this study, since ICT application are not developed in a vacuum, the research will describe, study, and compare through an in-depth analysis: (1) the use of ICT in case investigations, (2) the use of ICT for case management, (3) the ICT interoperability between public prosecutor's offices, courts, police and prisons, and (4) the use of ICT for sharing prosecutorial information between countries.

The research will allow to: (a) detect the valuable and successful implementations of ICT in criminal investigations (e.g. decision support systems, access to data bases, multimedia applications), (b) disseminate technical information about these applications, (c) explore the feasibility for cross-border exchange of data such as criminal history records and illegal immigration records, (d) develop a network of scholars and practitioners about ICT for public prosecutor's offices.

This report structure, should serve as a guide to the researchers working on the various countries. It is divided into three main sections. Section 1 will deal with the institutional setting of public prosecutor. Section 2 will deal with ICT history, governance and infrastructures. Section 3 will deal with technologies for investigation and prosecution of crimes.

In January 2016, the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School was awarded grant 2015-R2-CX-K040 for a proposal entitled "Instilling a Culture of Continuous Learning from Criminal Justice System Errors: A Multi-Stakeholder Sentinel Events Review of Process in Philadelphia." The work performed under the grant built upon a successful pilot program supported by NIJ, in which a group of criminal justice professionals in Philadelphia, PA conducted a multi-stakeholder sentinel event review (SER) of a criminal case in the United States. The Quattrone Center proposed to build upon the pilot project by implementing the Philadelphia Event Review Team (PERT) as a more permanent working group to identify cases of error in the Philadelphia criminal justice system and conduct sentinel event reviews of those cases over the three-year period of performance for the grant.

The PERT formed a group of dedicated criminal justice professionals across multiple agencies - the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, the Philadelphia Police Department, the Defender Association of Philadelphia, the 1st Circuit Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania, and others - who agreed to meet regularly and review cases where all of the participants felt an undesired outcome had occurred.

The process for conducting the second SER was lengthy and circuitous, and was slowed by a number of factors: the churn of elected and appointed personnel in the participating agencies, the overhang of potential impending litigation on cases being reviewed for possible selection, and in one instance, the inability to waive attorney/client privilege for a defendant whose treatment by the system was viewed as suboptimal by the PERT. Both the successes and the challenges of SERs in criminal justice as experienced by the PERT are set forth below.

The SERs conducted as part of this project followed the definition of SER set forth in the NIJ publication Mending Justice: Sentinel Event Reviews. Sentinel events, which have a history of successful application in fields as diverse as aviation, healthcare, and military operations, are multi-stakeholder reviews of instances of error in complex human systems that seek to reveal and understand the root cause(s) of such "never events" as plane crashes, surgical errors, and other accidents. They involve a formal procedure to review errors in a non-blaming atmosphere and determine ways to avoid such errors in the future.

Applying the methodology of Sentinel Event Reviews (SER) to the criminal justice system involves reviewing a criminal investigation and prosecution that demonstrated some "error," as defined by the participants of the SER. The PERT took the position that any wrongful conviction, cold case, officer-involved shooting, or death of an individual in the custody of the state was by definition a case of error; this definition is completely separate from an assessment of blame and simply held that any instance of these outcomes was per se unwanted, even if such an outcome may have resulted by good faith professionals acting within established training and protocols. The PERT attempted to conduct SERs of selected cases in the criminal justice system using principles of "just culture review," defined as "a culture that recognizes that competent professionals make mistakes and acknowledges that even competent professionals will develop unhealthy norms (shortcuts, "routine rule violations"), but has zero tolerance for reckless behavior." (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Glossary)

A substantial question regarding the application of SERs to criminal justice was whether the adversarial nature of the criminal justice system, which is different than the structure of the systems in which SERs were originally developed, would be a barrier to their successful application in criminal justice. The adversarial culture unique to the criminal justice process creates additional challenges, including the complexity of gaining consensus from cross-agency participants on the definition or occurrence of errors, the ability to define shared goals within a system, and the ability to implement reforms that require changes in agencies other than one's own. Within that context, the work performed under this grant provides additional information to help answer the questions posed by, and the methodology outlined in, Mending Justice--namely, (1) how might SERs be applied to the criminal justice system; (2) can they effectively reduce future errors; and (3) is this approach sustainable?

The datasets are the result of two data requests. The first data request asked for appeals court cases for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas involving criminal cases with an appeal filed from 1/1/2011 through 12/31/2015 as recorded in the Pennsylvania Appellate Court Management System (PACMS). The second data request asked for data on case level data related to the criminal cases disposed in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas from 11/17/2006 through 11/17/2016 with one of the following final case dispositions: dismissed, judgement of acquittal, mistrial, nolle prossed, nolle prossed (case dismissed), quashed, demurrer sustained, or withdrawn. For each kind of data (cases, case dispositions, offenses, offense dispositions, docket entries) there are two files, one for each of the data requests. The two files for each type of data share the same structure and fields.

Detection of minor DNA components in biological mixtures has increased as molecular techniques have become more sensitive, and thus, mixture deconvolution has become a major concern and topic of debate in the forensic DNA community. Deconvolution of forensic samples may be improved by sequencing microhaplotype loci as they are not subject to the amplification noise artifacts and stochastic effects that impact the commonly analyzed short tandem repeat (STR) loci. By coupling a highly discriminatory microhaplotype MPS assay with probabilistic genotyping methods such NexGenID, a novel software platform optimized for mixture deconvolution and probabilistic genotyping of sequence data, or EuroForMix, a widely used open-source probabilistic genotyping software modifiable for use with microhaplotype sequence data, this effort demonstrated an end-to-end microhaplotype analysis workflow that may be efficiently implemented by practitioners.

The proposed microhaplotype panel demonstrated high discriminatory power with combined match probabilities ranging from 9.53E-52 to 4.79E-63 and the ability to infer biogeographical ancestry. The assay proved to be sensitive down to 50 pg inputs and applicable to inhibited or degraded trace samples. Application to complex DNA mixture samples demonstrates the assay's potential to exceed minor-contributor detection when compared to STR deconvolution, help solve complex cases, increase the number of samples considered suitable for comparison, and enable retesting of cold cases where a minor contributor was assumed present but was not suitable for comparison.

This study produced six csv datasets covering microhaplotype panel construction information and a variety of sample metrics for all analyzed study samples.

The Pilot Study of State and Federal Digital Evidence Laboratories data collection contains data collected in 2015 as part of the Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories (CPFFCL). The CPFFCL examined the forensic services provided by publicly funded crime labs across the nation and the resources devoted to completing the work.

To capture more information about an emerging forensic science discipline known as digital evidence, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) expanded the scope of the 2014 CPFFCL from previous data collections to include a separate pilot study of state and federal agencies that solely analyzed digital evidence in support of criminal investigations and prosecutions. These agencies obtained digital and multimedia evidence in various formats, including audio, video, and graphical images from computers, cell phones, cameras, and other electronic devices. The traditional CPFFCL definition of a crime lab limited the information collected about digital evidence since some agencies only handle this type of evidence and employ forensic experts with training in computer science or information technology as opposed to natural sciences such as chemistry and biology.

The census collected detailed information on laboratory staff, budgets, workloads, and backlogs in requests for forensic services. The census also provides data on lab accreditations, proficiency tests, and other quality assurances.

This study used a mixed-methods approach to pursue five interrelated objectives: (1) to document the extent of case attrition and to identify the stages of the criminal justice process where attrition is most likely to occur; (2) to identify the case complexities and evidentiary factors that affect the likelihood of attrition in sexual assault cases; (3) to identify the predictors of case outcomes in sexual assault cases; (4) to provide a comprehensive analysis of the factors that lead police to unfound the charges in sexual assault cases; and (5) to identify the situations in which sexual assault cases are being cleared by exceptional means. Toward this end, three primary data sources were used: (1) quantitative data on the outcomes of sexual assaults reported to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) from 2005 to 2009, (2) qualitative data from interviews with detectives and with deputy district attorneys with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office who handled sexual assault cases during this time period, and (3) detailed quantitative and qualitative data from case files for a sample of cases reported to the two agencies in 2008.

The complete case files for sexual assaults that were reported to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in 2008 were obtained by members of the research team and very detailed information (quantitative and qualitative data) was extracted from the files on each case in Dataset 1 (Case Outcomes and Characteristics: Reports from 2008). The case file included the crime report prepared by the patrol officer who responded to the crime and took the initial report from the complainant, all follow-up reports prepared by the detective to whom the case was assigned for investigation, and the detective's reasons for unfounding the report or for clearing the case by arrest or by exceptional means. The case files also included either verbatim accounts or summaries of statements made by the complainant, by witnesses (if any), and by the suspect (if the suspect was interviewed); a description of physical evidence recovered from the alleged crime scene, and the results of the physical exam (Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) exam) of the victim (if the victim reported the crime within 72 hours of the alleged assault). Members of the research team read through each case file and recorded data in an SPSS data file. There are 650 cases and 261 variables in the data file. The variables in the data file include administrative police information and charges listed on the police report. There is also information related to the victim, the suspect, and the case.

Datasets 2-5 were obtained from the district attorney's office and contain outcome data that resulted in the arrest of a suspect. The outcome data obtained from the agency was for the following sex crimes: rape, attempted rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object, oral copulation, sodomy, unlawful sex, and sexual battery.

Dataset 3 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Police Department - Adult Arrests) is a subset of Dataset 2 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Police Department - All Cases) in that it only contains cases that resulted in the arrest of at least one adult suspect. Dataset 2 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Police Department - All Cases) contains 10,832 cases and 29 variables. Dataset 3 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Police Department - Adult Arrests) contains 891 cases and 45 variables.

Similarly, Dataset 5 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department - Adult Arrests) is a subset of Dataset 4 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department - All Cases) in that it only contains cases that resulted in the arrest of at least one adult suspect. Dataset 4 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department - All Cases) contains 3,309 cases and 33 variables. Dataset 5 (Sexual Assault Case Attrition: 2005 to 2009, Los Angeles Sheriff's Department - Adult Arrests) contains 904 cases and 47 variables.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they there received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except of the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompany readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collections and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

This collection includes data gathered through three separate study designs. The first study called for tracking cases and forensic evidence through local criminal justice processes for five offenses: homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery and burglary. Two sites, Denver, Colorado, and San Diego, California, participated in the study. Demographic data were collected on victims (Victim Data n = 7,583) and defendants (Defendant Data n = 2,318). Data on forensic evidence collected at crime scenes included DNA material (DNA Evidence Data n = 1,894), firearms evidence (Ballistics Evidence Data n = 488), latent prints (Latent Print Evidence Data n = 766), trace evidence (Other Impressions Evidence Data n = 49), and drug evidence (Drug Evidence Data n = 43). Comparisons were then made between open and closed cases from the participating sites. Two smaller studies were conducted as part of this grant. The second study was an analysis of an experiment in the Miami-Date, Florida Police Department (Miami-Data County Data n = 1,421) to determine whether clearance rates for no-suspect property crimes could be improved through faster processing of DNA evidence. The third study was a survey of 75 police departments across the nation (Crime Labs Survey Data) to obtain information on the organizational placement, staffing and responsibilities of crime lab units.

Eyewitness lineup identification accuracy is affected by numerous variables, including those that are under the control of the legal system, called system variables (e.g., pre-lineup instructions), and those that are not under the control of the legal system, called estimator variables (e.g., the race of the perpetrator). One of the ultimate goals of eyewitness researchers is to develop procedures that:

• minimize false identifications caused by system and estimator variables (while minimizing any decrease in correct identifications), and
• require few resources for law enforcement to enact.

The project tested the effectiveness of a system variable--providing witnesses with an explicit 'not sure' instruction before viewing the lineup-- that potentially meets both of these criteria. Furthermore, a 'not sure' instruction may act as a prophylactic against the harmful effects of system and estimator variables known to inflate false identifications. The specific objective of the research was to test the effectiveness of this 'not sure' instruction.

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

Seeking to measure the usage of Familial DNA Searching (FDS) to aid in criminal investigations, this study utilized a multi-phase, mixed methods approach to obtain data on FDS policies and practices in the United States. This study includes data from the National Survey of CODIS Laboratories, which was compiled after two expert roundtables, a literature and policy scan of practice, cost modeling, and state case studies.

The study includes one SPSS data file: FDS_National_Survey_of_CODIS_Labs_Data.sav

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The general and original hypothesis to be explored in this study was that multi-slice computed tomography (CT) imaging of decedents in whom elder abuse was suspected or reported might enhance the work of the medical examiner by providing novel information not readily available at conventional autopsy and/or by ruling out the need for complete conventional autopsy in cases in which abuse findings were negative, thereby providing: time and cost efficiencies, additional evidentiary support in the form of state-of-the-art images, and, in some cases, compassionate support for families whose religions or cultures required more rapid and/or noninvasive techniques.

No quantitative or qualitative data are available with this study. The data are comprised of the images taken from the autopsies of 57 decedents.