BJS FY25 Survey of Public Defenders (SPD)

About this opportunity

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) FY 2025 Survey of Public Defenders (SPD) is a new data collection to capture questions about the provision of public defense, including demographics, caseloads, clients, and access to resources, directly from attorneys. BJS’s history studying public defense dates back to 1986, and has periodically updated and modernized its knowledge of public defense field. In 1986 BJS looked more generally at criminal defense with the Criminal Defense System Study, and targeted studies at public defense with the National Survey of Indigent Defense Systems (NSIDS) as a probability sample in 1999 and a census in 2013. In response to lessons learned from the 1999 NSIDS, BJS also conducted the Census of Public Defender Offices (CPDO) in 2007, focusing on publicly-funded...