Through its grantee, Abt Associates, BJS receives data extracts regularly from each agency's case management system. The data extracts are used to create one or more "standard analysis files" (SAFs). These SAF data files represent annual cohorts of defendant-cases processed by a single agency within the federal criminal justice system. Each SAF is one of three types of cohort—incoming defendant- cases, outgoing (or "terminating") defendant-cases, and defendant-cases pending at the end of the fiscal year. The universe of each SAF spans one federal fiscal year, October 1 through September 30.

The defendant-case, which is the standard unit of observation in all SAFs, is a combination of a defendant, which may be either a person or a corporation, and a matter or case. For example, if a single defendant is involved in three different criminal cases during a specified fiscal year, he or she appears three times (i.e., as three records) in a SAF. Similarly, if a single criminal case involves five defendants—for example, a corporation and four persons—that case appears five times (i.e., as five records) in a SAF. The unit of observation for incarceration or community supervision—probation, parole, or supervised release—is an offender entering custody or supervision (in an incoming cohort) or an offender leaving custody or supervision (in a terminating cohort). For example, an offender convicted in two concurrent cases and committed once to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in a specified fiscal year appears in the SAF as one admission to a term of incarceration (i.e., as one record in the incoming BOP SAF). An offender who terminates probation twice in a fiscal year, such as with a violation and again after reinstatement, appears as two terminations of probation.

The source data provided to BJS are processed by the Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP). The processing creates recoded variables suitable for analysis, establishes offense categories that are common across SAFs, and removes information that could identify any individual defendant. The FJSP also maintains a linking file that allows records to be joined together across processing stages and over time so that individual defendant-cases may be followed through the Federal criminal justice system. The processed SAFs and the linking file are archived at Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research and made available on a restricted-use basis. For fiscal years 1978–1994, the SAFs are archived at the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data as Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Study Number 9296. The earliest fiscal year included in the linking file is 1994. BJS uses the SAFs to prepare publications that describe various aspects of federal criminal case processing.

The following table summarizes the data available from the FJSP.

			Fiscal years by website component
Stage	Provider	Cohort	Online Analysis	U.S. Criminal Code	Statistical Tables	Data Archive
Arrest	U.S. Marshals Service (USMS)	Arrests	1998-2014	n/a	1998-2014	1998-2014
		Warrants Initiated	n/a	n/a	2003-2014	n/a
		Warrants Cleared	n/a	n/a	2003-2014	n/a
	Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)	Arrests	n/a	n/a	1998-2014	1998-2014
Prosecution	Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys (EOUSA)	Incoming Matters	1998-2014	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Terminated Matters	1998-2014	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Incoming Cases	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Charges in Incoming Cases	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Terminated Cases	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Charges in Terminated Cases	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
Pretrial release	U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System	Beginning Pretrial Supervision	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	n/a
		Under Pretrial Supervision	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	n/a
		Ending Pretrial Supervision	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	n/a
Adjudication	Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC)	Filed Cases	1998-2014	1994-2014	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Pending Cases	n/a	1994-2014	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Terminated Cases	1998-2014	1994-2014	1994-2014	1998-2014
Sentencing	U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC)	Terminated Cases	1998-2014	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
Appeals	AOUSC, U.S. Courts of Appeals	Filed Cases	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Terminated Cases	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
Corrections	Bureau of Prisons (BOP)	Prison Entries	1998-2014	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Persons in Prison	1998-2014	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
		Prison Releases	1998-2014	n/a	1994-2014	1998-2014
	U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System	Beginning Supervision	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	n/a
		Cases Under Supervision	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	n/a
		Ending Supervision	n/a	n/a	1994-2014	n/a

Learn more about:

Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP)
Data available from the FJSP
Overview of Federal criminal case processing