Terrorism in the United States

For years, the FBI produced a publication entitled ‘Terrorism in the United States’ - basically an annual report of terrorist activities in the U.S. Around 2000/2001, they began to change the scope of the publication, and it was no longer produced annually. A 2000/2001 report entitled ‘Terrorism’ was produced, and that was the latest information available, until now. The FBI recently released ‘Terrorism 2002-2005,’ and according to the forward, it “provides an overview of the terrorist incidents and preventions designated by the FBI as having taken place in the United States and its territories during the years 2002 through 2005 and that are matters of public record. This publication does not include those incidents which the Bureau classifies under criminal rather than terrorism investigations. In addition, the report discusses major FBI investigations overseas and identifies significant events—including legislative actions, prosecutorial updates, and program developments—relevant to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The report concludes with an “In Focus” article summarizing the history of the FBI’s counterterrorism program.”

Reports dating back to 1996 are available from the FBI’s publications page; Gorgas Library’s government documents collection has reports from 1988-1998 (call # is J 1.14/22:year).

Yearbook of Immigration Statistics

The Department of Homeland Security has released the 2006 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. This publication, compiled annually, provides data on legal permanent residents, refugees and asylees, as well as naturalization and enforcement information. The yearbook includes a variety of data on immigrants, including country of origin, gender, age, marital status, and occupation. Selected data is available by state - for instance, if you’re looking for the total number of persons naturalized in Alabama for the years 2005-2006, table 22 has what you need (795 and 1,946, respectively). If you’re trying to find out what percentage of those naturalized in Alabama are female, or are working in the construction industry, that level of detailed data is not available.
The data tables are available as Excel spreadsheets; the reports are available as pdf files. Previous editions of the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics are also available - dating back to 1997.

State Facts for Students

Did you know that Alabama had 3432 fast food restaurants in 2004?  And 1409 dentist offices?  You can find out more of that kind of information, for Alabama and the other 49 states from the Census Bureau’s State Facts for Students site.

Alabama Public School Data

Yesterday the Department of Education announced that Alabama’s fourth-graders led the nation in reading improvements last year. For more information about the reading section of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, check out the publication ‘The Nation’s Report Card: Reading 2007′ on the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) web site.

While I was looking for the report that the newspaper article cited, I stumbled onto a neat tool produced by NCES - the School District Demographic System.  Combining Census data with School District data, you can access information about particular schools, school districts, etc.  Once you’ve selected your geographic area, then you can apply demographic information.  I mapped the Tuscaloosa County School District, and was able to see data on race, total population, educational attainment, etc.  Unfortunately, that was based on data from the 2000 Census, which is now 7 years old.  This could grow to become a very useful tool for planning programs, services, etc., or for learning more about a particular school district when relocating to an area.  I encourage you to play with it!

Alabama State Websites: Department of Corrections

The Alabama Department of Corrections has put together a very nice website, full of useful information.  For starters, they have developed a handy FAQ that answers questions such as “How many prisons are in Alabama?” and “What method of execution is used in Alabama?”

They’ve also included an inmate search, where users can search for people who are currently incarcerated in Alabama prisons, and a glimpse of escapees and parole violators.  Also, monthly statistical reports on inmates go back to 2000, as do the annual reports on the site.

If you’re interested in the state of the death penalty in Alabama, there is a listing of all inmates executed - including name, sex, race, county, crime, execution date, and governor.   There is also a listing of inmates currently on death row.  And finally, a map of all Dept of Corrections locations is available.  All in all, a very usable and informative site!

State Government Tax Collection

I recently discovered a wealth of data on the Census Bureau’s web site related to tax collection.  From the site,

“The State Government Tax Collections (STC) report provides a summary of taxes collected by state for up to 25 tax categories.  These tables and data files present the details on tax collections by type of tax imposed and collected by state governments.”

Data is available from 1992 to 2006 - and the taxes are broken down pretty specifically.  For instance, you can see how much the state of Alabama has collected in taxes on motor fuels, alcoholic beverages and tobacco products.  Or see where a particular state ranks in terms of total taxes collected.  [In 2006, Alabama ranked #25.  California was #1 and South Dakota was #50.]  Some of the data is available for download in an excel spreadsheet.

NAL Digital Collections

The National Agricultural Library continues to add historic content to their digital repository, NALDR. In addition to the Agriculture Handbook, the Yearbook of Agriculture, and Annual Reports of the Commissioner/Secretary of Agriculture, NAL is also in the process of digitizing the publications “Fruit and Vegetable Market News Report” and “World Poulty Conference Proceedings.”  The Fruit & Vegetable Market News Report can be pretty useful for determining what crops were shipped or received in particular Alabama counties.  Currently the publication is available back to 1952.