** Guide to Statistics

A library research guide to using and finding statistics

Bureau of Justice Statistics

Searchable statistical reports on all aspects of criminal justice in the US.

Census Data (formerly available through American Factfinder)

Census.gov is the new government platform for delivering data through many individual tools (e.g., American FactFinder, OnTheMap, My Congressional District) to a model where those tools’ capabilities are integrated and served on a single platform. including the following data:

• American Community Survey   
• American Housing Survey  
• Annual Economic Surveys   
• Annual Surveys of Governments   
• Census of Governments  
• Decennial Census  
• Economic Census 
• Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Tabulation 
• Population Estimates Program   
• Puerto Rico Community Survey

Census Data (Social Explorer)

Explore over 500,000 data indicators and over 220 years of data for the United States through interactive maps from the present to 1790, including all Decennial Censuses, American Community Surveys U.S. election data, U.S. crime data (FBI/UCR), World Development Indicators, and more.

Alternate access via CUNY login credentials

Census of Population and Housing 2010

Gateway to the 2010 Census from the U. S. Census Bureau.

CIA World Factbook

An annual publication of the CIA providing a two- to three-page summary of the demographics, geography, communications, government, economy, and military of 266 U.S.-recognized countries, dependencies, and other areas in the world. Includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and  Standard Time Zones of the World map.

CoreData.nyc

Research tool for New York City housing and demographic information created by the Furman Center at NYU.

Crime Report (www.thecrimereport.org)

Comprehensive news service published by the Center for Media, Crime and Justice, at John Jay College, covering challenges and issues of 21st century criminal justice in the United States.

Criminal Justice Data for New York State

Searchable statistical reports on criminal justice in NY state from the NY Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Data and Statistics About the U.S.

Gateway to U.S. government statistics from over 100 agencies. Find data about the U.S., such as demographic and economic data, population, maps, and information about the U.S. Census.

ICPSR

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research provides access to an archive of social science data from more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations.

It maintains a data archive of more than 250,000 files and hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.  

Infoshare Online

Population statistics, immigration trends, socio-economic indicators, birth and death data, hospitalizations, local economic data, and more for New York City.

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data

Data collections relating to criminal justice from federal and state agencies, and grant-funded projects. Provides documentation, and browsing and downloading access to most of the data.

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Papers

Full-text of NBER Working Papers from November 1994 to the present -- approximately 500 papers are published annually. The NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals. Key focus areas include developing new statistical measurements, estimating quantitative models of economic behavior, and analyzing the effects of public policies.

 Download the newest working papers at   https://www.nber.org/new.html

National Registry of Exonerations

Provides detailed information about  all known exonerations of innocent criminal defendants in the United States from 1989 to the present.  Includes statistical and interactive displays that allow you to sort the data based on different issues including by DNA and Non-DNA exonerations, type of crime, race and contributing factors.

New York City Crime Map

Interactive crime map created by the NYPD showing date and location for  the seven major NYS penal law felonies (murder, rape, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny motor vehicle). Data available for current and previous calendar year and by month within each period.

NYC Equitable Development Data Explorer

Interactive map for exploring how demographic, housing, and quality of life characteristics compare across neighborhoods and demographic groups in NYC over the past two decades.

NYC Health Data

Interactive visualization tools, downloadable datasets and rigorous research on New Yorkers’ health provided by the New York City Health Department.  

Includes data about the social, economic and health conditions and outcomes of New Yorkers, neighborhood-by-neighborhood;  over 200 NYC environmental health indicators in charts, maps and scatter plots; and tools to analyze  and visualize NYC health data from surveys, disease reports and vital records by sex, race/ethnicity, age and other stratifications.

Roper Ipoll

The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, currently located at Cornell University, is an archive of social science data, specializing in data from public opinion surveys.

SAGE Research Methods Videos

Includes over 400  tutorials, interviews, video case studies, and mini-documentaries covering the entire research process. You can search videos by method; by discipline (criminology, economics, sociology, etc.); or by video type (i.e. interview, tutorial, case studies, etc.).

Social Explorer

Displays interactive maps of U.S. Census data going back to 1790, U.S. election data, U.S. crime data (FBI/UCR), World Development Indicators, and more.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online

Statistics from the current Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics with ongoing updates and the archive back to 1994. The print version is available at the Reference Desk.

Statistical Abstract of the U.S.

Comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.  Current print edition of ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States is available at the reference desk -- HA 202.A5.   

Tax Break Tracker

Tax Break Tracker contains disclosures from the 50 states plus DC, the five most populous cities, counties, and school districts within each state, and select other jurisdictions. Data include the jurisdiction affected, the jurisdiction-awarding abatement, its legal authority to do so, name of the abatement program, type of abatement program, and amount of taxes abated for that fiscal year. 

Corporate tax breaks cause cities, counties, and school districts to lose tax revenue that could have been better spent improving public services.

TRACFED

Data about federal enforcement activities -- criminal, civil, and administrative -- including detailed information about federal staffing, federal enforcement agencies, and income and demographic statistics.

Uniform Crime Reports (FBI)

The FBI's compendium of crime statistics. It includes volumes from 1995 to the present. The print version is available at the Reference Desk.

Violation Tracker

Violation Tracker contains information from official sources on more than 600,000 cases in which companies and large non-profits paid monetary penalties for regulatory violations and other forms of misconduct. Those entities include subsidiaries linked to more than 3,000 parent companies and smaller firms without parents. The parents are both publicly traded and privately held and are both U.S.-headquartered corporations and foreign firms with U.S. operations.

It covers banking, consumer protection, false claims, environmental, wage and hour, safety, discrimination, price-fixing, and other cases resolved by federal regulatory agencies and all parts of the Justice Department since 2000—plus cases from state attorneys general and selected state and local regulatory agencies. They have 628,000 civil and criminal cases from more than 450 agencies with total penalties of $1 trillion. They also cover selected types of class action lawsuits.

Vital Statistics on American Politics

Provides summary data on political behavior such as voter turnout, election results, public opinion, media trends, campaign financing and more. Some charts provide data from the 1790s, but most focus on the 1940s to 2012. Data can be downloaded.

World Health Organization Statistical Information System

A guide to health and health-related statistical information from the World Health Organization. Includes statistics on AIDS/HIV and other diseases.