In George Orwell’s 1984, the hero, Winston Smith works for the government’s Records Department. His job is to edit, redact, and rewrite news articles and then destroy the last remaining copy of the original. The contemporary equivalent of the Records Department, apparently, is the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Until a few months ago, any citizen could access the latest, complete collection of data on the courts and prison systems in this country via the Web. Now, suddenly, the Bureau of Justice Statistics provides public access only to summaries of data, without any of the backup datasets. This means you and I cannot verify the accuracy of the BJI summaries or analyze the data for our own purposes, which may not coincide with the government’s all the time.

For example, I was trying to determine how many people charged with murder actually go through a murder trial, as opposed to “copping a plea” or opting for a bench trial. I can’t do that now, because the data simply aren’t there.

A couple of months ago, I discovered that the raw data are no longer housed at the BJI. When I finally tracked down the repository, it appeared to be an organization of universities, which claimed to provide complete information to “member institutions.”

But I can’t prove this now, because things seem to have changed again. Now the data are supposedly available through The Federal Justice Statics Resource Center. (BTW: This is described as a “project,” not an agency or bureau.) But I still can’t seem to access the datasets. Instead, something called the Urban Institute seems to have them. When I tried to download data from the “Data Archive” I received the following message:

“These data are to be used for research and statistical purposes only. Use of the data for any purpose other than research or statistical purpose may constitute a violation of section 812(a) of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, section 1407(d) of the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, or Part 22 of section 28 Code of Federal Regulations and may be subject to Federal prosecution and a fine of up to $10,000.”

What possible use could data be put to that would be criminal? Data=facts, right? To me it sounds as if I were to use the data to support my opinions about the justice system, I might be committing a crime.