Iowa Statistical Analysis Center Research and Data Analysis

The Iowa SAC, the Iowa Division of Criminal Juvenile Justice Planning (CJJP) will use FY21 SJS funds for five projects which are continuation projects from prior funded SJS awards. The first Core Capacity project will use funds for the current Decision Matrix (DM) by focusing on the continuing of the pilot implementation that is underway in two counties and conducting analysis of the data collected. Based on the data analysis, the SAC will recalibrate the DM based on changes made to the Iowa Delinquency Assessment (IDA). Training instructions will be developed for use of the DM. The goal is to make changes to the DM in order to minimize recidivism. The second Core Capacity project will use funds to expand the CJJP’s dashboard with predictive models (PMs) to allow for a more complete evaluation of factors that impact recidivism. Specifically, the project will incorporate data points on services that individuals received while on community-based corrections into the PMs for recidivism. The dashboard was created through FY19 SJS funding that currently displays counts of disposed charges and convictions for adult court throughout Iowa. The first Special Emphasis project will use funds to build off the data quality assessment in Iowa’s Justice Data Warehouse (JDW) from FY20 SJS funds and conduct an extract, transform, and load (ETL) of Iowa’s jail data into the JDW. From the ETL, the Iowa SAC will establish on-going procedures to maintain monitoring data quality and reliability of jail data within the JDW. The second Special Emphasis project will use funds to continue an evaluation and outcomes assessment for Iowa’s DOC Apprentice Programs. The IDOC has a policy to provide offenders with Apprentice Program opportunities to assist them in re-entry to the public and reduce recidivism. The SAC will continue to seek methodologies that will increase the efficacy of the DOC programs as well as develop programs and policies that will seek to reduce recidivism for adult offenders. The third Special Emphasis project will use funds to update and analyze Iowa’s sex offender special sentence supervision which builds off of the FY19 SJS assessment project. This project will use a more recent cohort and examine outcomes (2+ years) of a more proportionate group of offenders serving both life and 10-year special sentences. The study will expand on the FY19 study by expanding the cohort to identify characteristics of offenders who recidivate within the tracking period.