Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

The Nebraska Center for Justice Research was established in 2014 with a mission to develop and sustain research capacity internal to the State of Nebraska. Our hope is to assist the Legislature in research, evaluation, and policymaking to reduce recidivism, promote the use of evidence-based practices, and improve public safety. The primary purpose of this report is to provide an overview of recent trends in Nebraska’s adult criminal justice system. Most of the data in this report is presented statewide as well as separated into Nebraska’s twelve judicial districts. Nebraska’s two most metropolitan counties are represented by District 4 (Douglas County) and District 3 (Lancaster County). The classification of the remainder of the state’s 93 counties can be found in the table on page 4. Please contact NCJR for any questions regarding county-level estimates of the data included in this report. This report compares criminal justice data across Nebraska from 2010 to 2014. Although more recent data is available for some aspects of the criminal justice system, the most recent complete and comprehensive system-wide data was available for these years, which we adopt to maintain consistency and reliability. The report is organized according to the stages of the process of the criminal justice system: • Environmental context provides an overview of the population and demographic trends in Nebraska • System context provides an overview of law enforcement employment • Arrests provides an overview of violent and property crime arrests by districts and compares arrests in Nebraska to neighboring states • Offenses provides an overview of crimes reported or known to the police and includes information on the percent of crimes cleared by arrest • County court provides an overview of the distribution of the county court caseload by district • District court provides an overview of the distribution of the district court caseload • Corrections provides data on admissions and correctional populations by factors such as gender, age, race, and correctional institution Our hope is that this report serves as a reference guide for providing a clearer understanding of recent trends in crime and criminal justice activities in the state of Nebraska. This report was made possible by the financial support provided to the Nebraska Center for Justice Research by LB 907. Our goal is to provide similar reports annually to track Nebraska’s crime and justice trends. Questions, suggestions, and comments should be directed to Dr. Ryan Spohn, Director, at rspohn@unomaha.edu. Thank you for your hard work in sustaining and improving criminal justice in Nebraska.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.