Research Guides: LAW 7222: Comparative Law II: Criminal Procedure: Empirical Research

Empirical Research

Empirical legal research applies the analysis of data to study the law and its impact on society. Empirical legal studies have gained considerable attention in recent years and are now considered an integral part of legal scholarship. In addition, non-legal empirical data can be very helpful to support a legal argument or to advance a hypothesis.

Examples of published sources include statistics, news stories, financial analyses, and research from other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, science, economics, etc. Much, though by no means all, of this can be found in the scholarly literature for law and non-legal disciplines. This section includes a selection of specific sources for empirical research.

Websites- Statistics

Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
Offers detailed statistical reports by year on U.S. District Courts and Courts of Appeals for the last ten years.
Census Bureau Data
Access data and digital content, including facts and information about your community, your economy, and your society, from the U.S. Census Bureau from 2000 and later
Bureau of Justice Statistics
The U.S. Department of Justice site with current statistics on topical criminal law areas, including capital punishment, homicide, sentencing, and much more.
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Click on Population Report for current prison statistics, updated weekly, by facility, city and state.
Federal Criminal Case Processing Statistics
"Compiles comprehensive information describing suspects and defendants processed in the federal criminal justice system. The Federal Criminal Case Processing Statistics (FCCPS) tool is an interface that can be used to analyze federal case processing data. Users can generate various statistics in the areas of federal law enforcement, prosecution/courts and incarcerations, and based on title and section of the U.S. Criminal Code. Data are available for the years 1998-2010."
National Criminal Justice Reference Center
Excellent resource for studies and reports containing statistical and anecdotal data.
The Sentencing Project
A non-profit organization that seeks humane alternatives to incarceration. See Statistics by State.
U.S. Sentencing Commission
Click on Publications link for sentencing statistics.
USDOJ- Office of the Deputy Attorney General: Publications and Documents

Select Journals

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies
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Available in print and online (on campus or via VPN).
Journal of Legal Studies
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Available in print and online (on campus or via VPN).
Law & Society Review
more...less...
Available in print and online (on campus or via VPN).

Dissertations

Dissertations & Theses
Citations from 1861-. Abstracts from1980-. Full-text of recent dissertations

Worldcat
A combined catalog of thousands of libraries. Searches retrieve records on dissertations, as well as books, periodicals, etc. Documents may be obtained from ProQuest Digital Dissertations, noted above, or via Interlibrary Loan.

Empirical Legal Research Guides

Select Books

Statistics for Lawyers by Michael O. Finkelstein; Bruce Levin
Call Number: QA276.12 .F56 2001
ISBN: 0387950079
Publication Date: 2001-09-21
Statistics in the Law by Joseph B. Kadane
Call Number: QA276 .S783443 2008
ISBN: 9780195309232
Publication Date: 2008-05-23
The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies by Peter Cane (Editor); Mark V. Tushnet (Editor); Mark Tushnet (Editor)
Call Number: K230 .O94 2003
ISBN: 0199248168
Publication Date: 2003-10-09

Websites- Statistics-Foreign

Annual Penal Statistics of the Council Of Europe "SPACE I"
"SPACE I provides data on imprisonment and penal institutions in Council of Europe Member States."
Australia. Bureau of Statistics
Official statistics on Australia’s economy and society.
Bureau of Justice Statistics, World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems
“Provides narrative descriptions of the criminal justice systems of 45 countries around the world.”
Canada. National Statistics Agency
Official statistics on Canada’s economy and society.
European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics
2021- 6th ed. Collection of statistics from European countries from 2011–2016
European Union. Eurostat
“Detailed statistics on the EU and candidate countries.”
France. National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE)
Official statistics on the French economy and society. Not fully translated.
German. Federal Statistical Office
Official source for German statistics. The GENSIS-Online database is also helpful, but it has not been fully translated.
Italy. National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT)
“The Italian National Institute of Statistics is a public research organization. It has been present in Italy since 1926, and is the main producer of official statistics in the service of citizens and policy-makers.” Fully translated.
Japan. Statistics Bureau
Official source for Japanese statistics. Most of the site has been translated into English.
Spain. National Statistics Institute (INE)
Official statistics on Spain’s economy and society. Not fully translated.
United Kingdom. Office for National Statistics
“Data on economy, population and society at national and local level. Summaries and detailed data releases are published free of charge.”
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODCC)
“Cross-national UNODC crime statistics for over 120 countries are available on this page covering the period 2003 to 2008. Statistics on police-recorded offences and identified victims are available by crime type. Statistics on the response of the criminal justice system are divided according to police, prosecution, court and prison statistics.”
World Prison Brief
Created by the International Centre for Prison Studies. Provides statistics on prison systems around the world.

ProQuest Statistical Insight

ProQuest Statistical Insight provides statistics on population, economic conditions, labor, health, education, natural resources, pollution, and more.

Contents include:

Tables from US government and business,
Reports from 1999 to present,
US federal statistical publications from 1973 (full text from 2004),
International statistical publications from 1983 (full text from 2007),
US state government, business, and research institute publications from 1980 (full text from 2007), and
Statistical datasets from government and private sector sources.

Find ProQuest Statistical Insight under the law library's Most Popular Databases page.