The Justice Outcomes Explorer (JOE) is a Census Bureau experimental data product that measures the economic and health outcomes of people who have been involved with the criminal justice system.

Criminal justice involvement can include criminal charges, prison releases, and probation and parole sentences. Outcomes measured include employment, earnings, government program participation, and mortality.

JOE is a collaboration between the U.S. Census Bureau and the University of Michigan that uses Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS) data to better understand how people involved in the justice system reintegrate into society.

JOE covers criminal justice system involvement at any point between 2000 and 2020. Actual coverage of justice involvement depends on the coverage of agencies in the CJARS data, while coverage of outcomes depends on the availability of source data at the Census Bureau.

Data users can download JOE data below or interact directly with the JOE data using the data visualization tool hosted by the University of Michigan. The tool includes additional justice-related outcomes created from CJARS without Census Bureau data.

Experimental data products are innovative statistical products created using new data sources or methodologies that benefit data users in the absence of other relevant products. These products may not meet all Census Bureau quality standards. For example, JOE data do not cover the entire United States and have been released without measures of uncertainty, which limits how data can be compared across geographic areas or time periods.

Feedback from data users and stakeholders on the quality and usefulness of this new product can be shared by email at erd.cjars@census.gov.