How to Cite the Bureau of Justice Website in APA Style

If you're citing the Department of Justice or Bureau of Justice Statistics in your research, it's important to use the proper citation style in your reference list. When using the American Psychological Association style, government websites use the same basic format as other Web sources.

Reference List Citation

Citing a page on the Bureau of Justice Statistics or the Department of Justice website follows the same basic format for APA website citations:

Author Lastname, First Initial(s). (Year, Month Day). Title of webpage. Retrieved Retrieval Date, from URL.

For example:

Motivans, M. (2015, January 22). Federal justice statistics 2011-12. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5218.

If the page does not have a specific author, the author is the organization that published the page.

For example:

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs. (2015, February 27). Florida Man Pleads Guilty for Role in Puerto Rican Identity Trafficking Ring. Retrieved February 27, 2015, from http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/florida-man-pleads-guilty-role-puerto-rican-identity-trafficking-ring.

In-Text Citation

When quoting or referencing the website in the body of your paper, use an in-text citation. An APA in-text citation is contained in parentheses, and lists the author's last name and year of publication.

For example:

By the end of 2012, 38 percent of persons under federal correctional control were under community supervision (Motivans, 2015).

When the author of the website is an organization, use the organization's name instead.

Federal information showed that the trafficking ring was run out of Bartow, Florida (Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, 2015).

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