A Guide to Sources of Texas Criminal Justice Statistics Page: 2

                                
2  - A Guide to Sources of Texas Criminal Justice Statistics
the National Crime Information Center) and statistical gateways of a general
nature (e.g., FedStats and LexisNexis Statistical Insight).
The annotations were written with the goal of providing sufficient detail to
enable users to decide whether the listed resources merit further investigation.
The research notes contain information regarding the scope of the published
data; title changes; related publications; and the availability of earlier data,
previous editions, online tables, and datasets.
The National Criminal Justice Thesaurus: Descriptors for Indexing Law
Enforcement and Criminal Justice Information was the principal source for
terminology used in the chapter subdivisions and subject index. Some index-
ing terminology (e.g., mental defectives, physically handicapped) does not
conform to current practice. Supplemental terminology was supplied by Li-
brary of Congress subject headings. Numbers in the indexes refer to entry
numbers, not page numbers.
How to Use This Book
This book contains twelve chapters that cover sources for statistics on Texas
crime, juvenile delinquency, law enforcement, courts, sentencing, capital
punishment, corrections, victimization, driving/boating under the influence,
substance abuse, governmental finances, and related subjects. Each chapter
is arranged by topical subheadings. The subject index is the key to finding
statistical data on specific subjects, whether they relate to criminal justice,
corrections, and law enforcement, or to individual federal and State of Texas
agencies. The listed resources report data either at the level of geographical
areas (e.g., state, county, and city), or administrative/jurisdictional units (e.g.,
federal judicial district).
Statistical sources for many subjects will appear in more than one chapter.
For example, data on illicit drugs can be found in Chapter 1 (arrests), Chapter
2 (production and trafficking), Chapter 3 (seizures), Chapter 4 (judicial case-
loads and sentencing), Chapter 5 (use among adult inmates), Chapter 6 (use
among juvenile inmates), Chapter 9 (driving under the influence), Chapter 10
(substance abuse and treatment), and Chapter 12 (state rankings for several of
the foregoing topics).
Although the majority of the annotations are fairly detailed, researchers are
advised to use the URLs provided and connect directly online to any resource
that looks promising. The abstract, table of contents, list of tables, and statisti-
cal appendixes can then be evaluated for relevance. Complete sets of statistical
reports, particularly those published before the digital era, are generally not
available on governmental websites. Researchers seeking historical statistics
will often need to consult the print editions (WorldCat can be checked for the
holdings of individual libraries). For those requiring in-depth statistics, the re-
search notes provide information on locating related datasets (where available).