Criminal Justice: Federal Agencies

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) was created in 1984 to reduce violent crime, create safer communities, and reform our Nation’s criminal justice system. BJA strengthens the Nation’s criminal justice system and helps America’s state, local, and tribal jurisdictions reduce and prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and promote a fair and safe criminal justice system. BJA focuses its programmatic and policy efforts on providing a wide range of resources, including training and technical assistance, to law enforcement, courts, corrections, treatment, reentry, justice information sharing, and community-based partners to address chronic and emerging criminal justice challenges nationwide.

BJS is the primary statistical agency of the Department of Justice. It is one of the thirteen principal federal statistical agencies throughout the Executive Branch, agencies whose activities are predominantly focused on the collection, compilation, processing, or analysis of information for statistical purposes.

Includes links to America's most wanted criminals, a database of corrections departments by State, and much more.

The world's largest law office and the central agency for enforcement of federal laws.

A list of current reports and publications that are searchable by subject and/or year.

The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program generates reliable statistics for use in law enforcement. It also provides information for students of criminal justice, researchers, the media, and the public. The program has been providing crime statistics since 1930. The UCR Program includes data from more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies. Agencies participate voluntarily and submit their crime data either through a state UCR program or directly to the FBI's UCR Program.

The Federal Judicial Center is the research and education agency of the judicial branch of the United States Government. The Center supports the efficient, effective administration of justice and judicial independence.

A joint venture of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center, this site provides access to resources regarding cyber crimes and fraud, including prevention and information for filing complaints.

Full list of DOJ agencies with descriptions of each, as well as links to their websites.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) is a federally funded resource offering justice and drug-related information to support research, policy, and program development worldwide.

NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.

We are dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of crime and justice issues through science. We provide objective and independent knowledge and tools to inform the decision-making of the criminal and juvenile justice communities to reduce crime and advance justice, particularly at the state and local levels.

The Office of Justice Programs is a federal agency that provides federal leadership, grants, training, technical assistance and other resources to improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime, assist victims and enhance the rule of law by strengthening the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Its six program offices support state and local crime-fighting efforts, fund thousands of victim service programs, help communities manage sex offenders, address the needs of youth in the system and children in danger, and provide vital research and data.

Organized in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the DHS comprises 22 federal agencies brought together in attempt to coordinate federal security issues. Some of the criminal justice agencies included in DHS are the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, U. S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The U.S. Sentencing Commission is an independent agency in the judicial branch that was created as part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Commissioners are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Attorney General, or the Attorney General’s designee, and the Chair of the U.S. Parole Commission serve as ex officio, nonvoting members of the Commission.