Excerpt from Judicial Criminal Statistics, 1934: Statistics Relating to the Disposition of Defendants in Criminal Cases Definitely Before Trial Courts of General Criminal Jurisdiction in 25 States

Crime surveys.-a technique for such study was developed by the crime sur veys which were made in various parts of the country beginning with the Cleve land Survey of 1919. The surveys usually selected a large number of felony cases which were disposed of by law enforcement agencies during a specific per iod. They followed these cases through the various stages in the procedure and sought to determine the methods used in disposing of them and to allocate the responsibility of law enforcement agencies for their disposition. These surveys tremendously enriched our fund of knowledge of the processes of criminal jus tice. They demonstrated very clearly the possibility and the desirability of measuring the routine activities of law enforcement agencies by statistical techniques.

Criminal justice surveys, however, provided only a picture of conditions in the community at the time the survey was made, whereas conditions may be radi cally different the year following. Indeed, changes may have occurred as the result of putting into effect the recommendations of the survey. In order to keep abreast of the changes in criminal justice a continuous record of the activities of law enforcement agencies is necessary. Surveys were also con cerned primarily with the administration of justice in urban centers. Rural areas were neglected. But there may also be acute problems of rural crime con trol. No picture of criminal justice is complete without the inclusion of data from rural areas. Survey statistics, moreover, were not all compiled on simi lar bases, making comparisons between different parts of the country very difficult. But there is a definite advantage in comparing the work of law enforcement agencies in different parts of the country.

Annual collection OF data.-these limitations of the surveys could be over come only if State - wide statistics were collected from law enforcement agen cies, annually, on uniform bases in the various States. As one step toward supplying the need for such statistics the Census Bureau, under authority of an Act of Congress, inaugurated an annual collection of judicial criminal statis tics. In 1932, the first year for which the collection was made, 16 States, including the District of Columbia, contributed data;l/ the returns for l933 covered 24 and those for 1934, 27 States.2/ The area covered by this report contains approximately of the population of the United States.

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