The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released Public Defender Offices, 2007—Statistical Tables. This document examines offices that provide representation for indigent defendants through a salaried staff of full-time or part-time attorneys employed as direct government employees or through a public, nonprofit organization. Public defender offices are categorized according to whether they are principally funded and administered at the state government level, the county level, or through a combination of state and county government. Topics include public defender office staffing, caseloads, expenditures, and standards and guidelines used by the nearly 1,000 public defender offices found across 49 states and the District of Columbia.

Findings showed that in 2007, 964 public defender offices across the nation received nearly 6 million indigent defense cases. Half of all state-based public defender offices had formal caseload limits in place in 2007. Misdemeanor cases accounted for about 40 percent of all cases received by state-based public defender offices and about 50 percent of the cases received by county-based offices. For additional information, access the complete report (NCJ 228538) at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service’s website, http://www.ncjrs.gov.