Indigent Defense

What's New | Conferences | Funding | T. A./Training
Fielded Programs | Research and Statistics | Links Outside OJP

Research and Statistics

• What Policymakers Need to Know To Improve Public Defense Systems (BJA)(Dec. 2001) (TXT, PDF or Black & White)

• Bolder Management for Public Defense: Leadership in Three Dimensions (BJA) (November 2001) (TEXT or PDF or Black & White PDF)
• Keeping Defender Workloads Manageable (2001) (Text or PDF)
• Collected publications on Juvenile Courts and case processing
  OJJDP's collection of publications about Juvenile Courts that includes statistics, analysis and summaries of innovative programs.

• For an exhaustive search of the current literature regarding indigent defense or other related criminal justice subjects, use the Justice Information Center Virtual Library of full-text documents and the NCJRS Abstracts Database for summaries of even more publications.

  Statistics

• Civil Trial Cases and Verdicts in Large Counties, 2001 (BJS) (April 2004) In 2001 plaintiffs in the 75 largest counties won just over half the 12,000 general civil cases at trial, with 442 or 4% awarded $1 million or more.

• Federal Criminal Case Processing, 2001: With trends 1982-2001, Reconciled Data (BJS) (January 2003) An annual publication that provides statistics describing defendants processed at different stages of the Federal criminal justice system for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2001.
• Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 1999 (BJS) (February 2002) In 1999 the United States spent a record $147 billion for police protection, corrections, and judicial and legal activities.
• Survey of DNA Crime Laboratories, 2001 (BJS) (January 2002) In the calendar year 2000 publicly operated forensic crime laboratories that perform DNA analyses reported analyzing almost 25,000 cases which involved DNA evidence and over 148,000 DNA samples collected from persons convicted of a crime.
• State Court Sentencing of Convicted Felons, 1998 -- Statistical tables (BJS) (Dec. 2001)
• State Court Prosecutors in Large Districts, 2001 (BJS) (Dec. 2001)
• Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 1998 (BJS) (Nov. 2001)
• Felony Sentences in State Courts, 1998 (Oct. 2001) (BJS)
• State-Funded Indigent Defense Services, 1999 (BJS) (Sept. 2001)
  Presents findings from data collected as part of the 1999 National Survey of Indigent Defense Systems in the 21 States where the State government provides virtually all of the funding for indigent defense services. It examines the type of defender porgrams used in the 21 States and how the programs are organized.
• Defense Counsel in Criminal Cases, (2000) examines issues of legal representation for defendants in Federal District Court and large local jurisdictions, and inmates in local jails and Federal and State Prison.
• Indigent Defense Systems in Large Counties, 1999 (2000) details the methods by which criminal indigent defense is delivered in the Nation's 100 most populous counties. It compares the operating expenditures, staffing and caseload of public defender, assigned counsel, and contract services used in these counties.
• Statistical Information on Indigent Defense

National estimates of what defendants are being represented, the cost, the trends, public defender offices and more.
• Courts and Sentencing Statistics
  Has everything from pretrial detention and release to sentencing including federal justice and information on court organizations.

• Prosecution Statistics
  Describes state prosecutors and their offices.