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Purpose – Since 1987, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has periodically collected data from police agencies in the USA and disseminated these data as the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) series. The purpose of this paper is to outline LEMAS's impact on criminal justice scholarship by describing the nexus between policing scholarship and LEMAS, and by analyzing the LEMAS constructs and variables used by researchers in refereed journal articles. Design/methodology/approach – A systematic review of the literature is undertaken to better comprehend how scholars use LEMAS variables and constructs. In total, 114 peer-reviewed journal articles were analyzed to parcel out variables and constructs derived from LEMAS data. Findings – The paper's analysis reveals that LEMAS is the second-most used BJS data series and the majority of authors use LEMAS to measure elements of organizational structure but not organizational behaviors, outcomes, or outputs. Originality/value – The study is the first to systematically identify all peer-reviewed journal articles that utilize LEMAS data. Police organizational research is unique in the fact that most authors agree on the operationalization of variables and constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]