Data Resources Program: Making Data Available to Researchers

• NCJ Number: 204519
• Journal: NIJ Journal Issue: 251 Dated: July 2004 Pages: 18-19
• Date Published: July 2004
• Length: 2 pages
• Publication Series: NIJ Journal
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This article briefly describes the National Institute of Justice’s (NIJ) Data Resources Program assisting researchers and evaluators in replicate findings or testing new hypotheses.

Abstract

Since 1984, resulting data from numerous National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funded research and evaluation projects have been available through NIJ’s Data Resources Program (DRP).The DRP assists researchers obtain and use the data for secondary analysis, provide training in methodological and statistical issues relevant to NIJ studies, and offers technical assistance. The DRP database contains documentation files, codebooks, and the data definition syntax files for SAS and SPSS. In addition to the database, DRP prepares and distributes CD-ROM’s containing topical studies and assists NIJ staff prepare data sets in areas, such as crime mapping and spatial analysis programs. Since 1993, DRP has conducted an annual workshop for quantitative analysis of criminal justice data. The activities of DRP were transferred in 1992 to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research’s National Archive of Criminal Justice Data Team at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. The necessary steps involved in locating data in the DRP database are presented with additional resource information available.