To allow large-scale, cross-jurisdictional analyses of criminal arrests, we have developed the Center for Science and Law’s Criminal Record Database (CRD), a collection of tens of millions of U.S. courthouse records. The CRD can enhance many types of research—for example, identification of high-frequency offenders, measurement of changes in policing strategies, and quantification of legislative efficacy—giving policy makers the best data upon which to base law enforcement decisions. The CRD provides a heightened level of detail about individual offenders, their crimes, and their interactions with the criminal justice system; additionally, it translates court records into a common framework for cross-jurisdiction comparison. In particular, the database includes anonymized identifiers to support exploration of criminal re-offense (recidivism) within the same jurisdiction. A constantly growing project, the CRD currently contains 22.5 million records from 1977 to 2014 from Harris County in Texas, New York City, Miami DadeCounty in Florida, and the state of New Mexico.