Open Data

Publishing high-value data sets that increase transparency and accountability can improve public knowledge of the Department of Justice and our operations. We hope that in implementing the Open Government Directive we not only respond to the needs and demands of the public but also create economic opportunity.

To date, we have registered dozens of data sets to Data.gov, a clearinghouse for data from the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. We will continue to register new data sets as they become available for publication. Every bureau, office and division at The Department of Justice has been asked to identify and inventory potential data sets for release to the public. This includes new data as well as data that may be in existence, but unpublished.

The goal of our Open Government Plan is to improve the Department's fulfillment of its core mission by making appropriate use of more transparent, participatory, and collaborative approaches to its activities.

The nature of much of our work means that our law enforcement, national security and client responsibilities will at times come before the important values of openness. However, there will be areas in which we can better serve the public by making more information available, enlisting the public in our mission, and undertaking joint efforts with other governmental and non-governmental bodies.

Department of Justice Open Data Inventory Program

About the DOJ Open Data Program

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is pleased to release a new version of its high-value data inventory as of Nov. 30, 2013. The Inventory identifies a large set of raw data and other information we believe will be of interest to the public. This publication meets the requirements of the White House Memoranda M-13-13, Open Data Policy - Managing Information as an Asset (May 9, 2013) and DOJ's commitment in its Digital Strategy plan. The inventory includes information previously published on Data.gov, through DOJ open API's and through other web-based data outlets.

DOJ Interim Open Data Identification and Release Process

The DOJ Data Inventory has been scored in accordance with our Interim Open Data Identification & Release Process, which will serve as the Department's guidance for identifying inventorying DOJ data sets until a formal data transparency policy is released, tentatively planned for 2014. The interim process addresses protections for security, privacy, confidentiality, and other traditional concerns that may warrant redaction of some information in our data sets. Identification of a data set within the DOJ Data Inventory does not mean that DOJ will release the entire data set without appropriate redactions. The DOJ Data Inventory will be updated regularly as the Department continues its data inventory and review activities and builds its data release management capabilities.

DOJ Data Catalog Feedback

Do you have a question about the DOJ Data Catalog? Is the dataset you're looking for not currently available? Perhaps you just have a great idea? We'd love to hear about it. Please provide comments and suggestions by email to opengov@usdoj.gov to let us know how we can improve our services.

Data Sets Underlying Department of Justice Reports

The Department has adopted a presumption that when an office or division of the Department publishes a report that summarizes quantitative data that the office or division has collected, the component will also make the underlying data available through an appropriate channel. The appropriate channel may vary depending on the nature of the data being released. For information that will be of value to the general public, the appropriate channel may be Data.gov. For information that is primarily of value to researchers, another channel may be more appropriate. One such channel that the Department regularly uses is the University of Michigan Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. The ICPSR also assists the Department in preparing data for public release on Data.gov.

The Department has found that it is more efficient to post data to the Data.gov site series-by-series, rather than moving data according to the release date of the reports based on the data. Some data underlying Department reports will not be released on Data.gov because they include extensive personally identifiable information (PII). They will be kept on restricted access at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD).