James P. Lynch
Current Position: Director-designate, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice
Boss: Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs
Why He Matters
President Barack Obama nominated Lynch to head up the Bureau of Justice Statistics on Oct. 29, 2009. If confirmed, Lynch will oversee the arm of the Department of Justice responsible for collecting, analyzing and releasing statistics on crime and all levels of the criminal justice system nationwide.
The agency’s most high-profile project is the National Crime Victimization Survey, a household survey that provides information on the characteristics of crime victims and offenders. It is the nation’s primary source of data on crimes not reported to law enforcement.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics became the center of some controversy several years ago during John Ashcroft’s tenure as attorney general.
In 2005, President George W. Bush’s administration removed then-director Lawrence A. Greenfeld, a Bush appointee, allegedly because Greenfeld resisted pressure from higher-ups in the justice department to downplay implications of racial profiling in a press release on a study about race and traffic stops.
It wasn’t the first hint of unrest at the statistics bureau. The New York Times reported in 2002 that agency employees and criminal justice experts were concerned that higher-ups in the DOJ were attempting to exert political control over the information released. The critics traced the issues to the U.S. Patriot Act of 2001, which transferred authority from the bureau’s director to the assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs.
Lynch told members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary at a Jan. 20, 2010, hearing that, if confirmed, he would preserve the credibility and independence of the statistics bureau.
The judiciary committee considered his nomination and reported it out on Feb. 11, 2010. Lynch is awaiting confirmation.
Path to Power
Early life and education:
Lynch was born in Hartford, Conn., in 1949. He graduated from Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford in 1967. During his high school and college career, he was known as a gifted football player. Northwest Catholic inducted him into its Alumni Athletic Hall of Fame in March 2009.
He graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and went on to obtain first a master’s degree and then a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Career in crime statistics:
In biographical information provided to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Lynch wrote, “I have been interested in national statistics on crime and criminal justice since 1980, and during this period I have been involved in most of the major efforts to build and improve these systems.”
Lynch had experience with criminal justice programs prior to 1980. He worked for a year as a program evaluator for the Connecticut Planning Committee on Criminal Justice Administration beginning in 1972, and he interned with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Improvements in the Administration of Justice from 1978 to 1979.
However, his major work on crime statistics began in 1980. From 1980 to 1985, he served as project manager for the National Crime Survey Redesign, a multi-million dollar revamping of one of the nation’s major indicators of crime. He served as an adviser in the redesign of the other major indicator, the Uniform Crime Report, during the same period.
In 1991 Lynch co-authored “Understanding Crime Incidence Statistics,” a book examining the differences between crime statistics based on surveys and police data. He continued his work with crime statistics through the 1990s. From 2007 to 2009 he served on a National Academy of Science panel to review the Bureau of Justice Statistics programs.
University career:
In 1985, Lynch took a position as an assistant professor at American University’s School of Justice. He remained at the university for the next two decades, working his way up to chair of the Department of Justice, Law and Society.
In 2005, he left to take a position as a presidential scholar at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He stayed on as a distinguished professor from 2006 until Obama tapped him to head up the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Throughout his career, Lynch has headed up research projects on a wide variety of crime and criminal-justice related topics, from comparing incarceration practices in different countries to looking at the impact of incarceration on families.
He has published three books, two dealing with crime statistics and one with immigration policies. He co-edited another one that is forthcoming, “Criminologists on Terrorism and Homeland Security.”
In Their Own Words
“I think the biggest challenges for the Bureau of Justice Statistics moving forward are the perennial challenges to a statistical agency, and that is to say, to maintain its credibility as an independent federal statistical agency. I think the way you do that is the same way you always do that, which is to provide accurate, timely and useful data at the same time as you’re protecting confidentiality and maintaining access to the data.” — James P. Lynch to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Jan. 20, 2010
The Issues
Independence of the Bureau of Justice Statistics
Greenfeld’s ousting led to discussions around how to keep the bureau independent from political influence, but stakeholders disagree as to the best strategy for doing so.
Lynch sat on a National Academy of Sciences panel that issued a 2009 report that recommended moving the bureau out of its current position in the Office of Justice Programs so that the bureau director would report directly to the attorney general or deputy attorney general. The shift was presented as a means to increase the prominence and ensure the independence of the bureau.
Senate judiciary committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and committee member Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., pressed Lynch on this recommendation. The senators questioned whether moving the office closer to the attorney general would have the effect of politicizing it.
In a response to Sessions, Lynch wrote, “I do not believe that the Panel meant to appear dismissive of the danger of moving the agency closer to a cabinet officer. They weighed this danger against the problems that come from obscurity within a larger department and an even larger government.”
However, Lynch also acknowledged that the suggestion has given rise to a considerable amount of debate and said that discussion of the strategy should continue until stakeholders reach a consensus.
The Network
Lynch is highly connected in the criminologist community. He co-edits the Journal of Qualitative Criminology and serves as vice president-elect of the American Society of Criminology. The organization’s president Richard Rosenfeld and Janice Joseph, president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, co-signed a letter to the Senate judiciary committee backing Lynch’s nomination on behalf of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy Coalition.
“The nation can ill afford weak leadership of this crucial source for data on which policy makers and scientists alike rely,” Rosenfeld and Jospeh wrote. “Dr. Lynch’s years of experience as a researcher and leader in our field have prepared him to excel in this role.”
Janet Lauritsen, a professor at the University of Missouri St. Louis, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, who served with Lynch on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on National Statistics, also wrote to voice her support.
Campaign Contributions
A search of the Federal Election Commission and Center for Responsive Politics databases found no campaign contributions that appeared to have been made by Bureau of Justice Statistics director-designate James P. Lynch.
At a Glance
Current Position: Distinguished professor, Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, City University of New York.
Career History: Professor and department chair, Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University (1985 to 2005); research assistant, Bureau of Social Science Research, Inc. (1980 to 1985); social science intern at U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Improvements in the Administration of Justice, 1978 to 1979.
Birthday: 1949
Hometown: Hartford, Connecticut
Alma Mater: University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1983; University of Chicago, master of arts, 1975; Wesleyan University, bachelor of arts, 1971.
Spouse: N/A
Religion: N/A
DC Office: N/A
Email N/A
Web site http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/criminaljustice/facultyprofile/lynch.asp