About the Data Resources Program
The Data Resources Program provides an opportunity for researchers to conduct secondary analyses of existing NIJ-sponsored data to understand crime and inform criminal justice policy and practice in the United States.
NIJ has built an archive of hundreds of data sets from its research. This large number of data sets allows researchers to conduct reanalyses and perform complex meta-analysis of research trends. Combining data sets from NIJ's archive and other publicly available sources also allows researchers to pose new questions beyond those for which the data was originally collected to answer.
In awarding grants under the annual solicitation Data Resources Program: Funding for the Analysis of Existing Data, NIJ gives preference to research that asks compelling crime and justice questions and tests new hypotheses with existing data.
The Data Resources Program also sponsors the dissemination of research results both to traditional criminology and criminal justice-related venues and publications and to conferences and publications oriented to practitioners and policymakers.
Research Themes
In the past several years, Data Resources Program grant awards for the analysis of existing data have been directed toward research that examines data from specific NIJ-sponsored studies and specific types of data, including:
- Data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. Learn more and review the data Exit Notice.
- Geographic data or data that can be linked with geographic data for analysis in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or using spatial analysis on current data. Learn more and review GIS data Exit Notice.
- Crime trends in neighborhoods within a city, metropolitan area or region to further research that can explain why crime is more prevalent in certain sections of these areas than in others.
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
NIJ archives data sets at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD). NACJD is part of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, and is supported and used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The NACJD Web site allows users to register, search, download and analyze data sets.
