Commonwealth Community Indicators & Crime Project

The State Justice Statistics (SJS) Program is designed to maintain and enhance each state's capacity to address criminal justice issues through collection and analysis of data. The SJS Program provides support to each state to coordinate and conduct statistical activities within the state, conduct research to estimate impacts of legislative and policy changes, and serve as a liaison in assisting BJS to gather data from respondent agencies within their states.

Under this award the Pennsylvania SAC will build and implement an automated information-based support system designed to allow direct and easy access by justice and public safety strategists, planners, and program evaluators. The SAC will collaborate on this project with Temple University's College of Liberal Arts Departments' of Geography and Urban Studies, and Criminal Justice. The objectives of the project are to: (1) capture criminal justice data electronically from reliable sources; (2) organize the data into a criminal justice data repository; (3) include business intelligence and presentation tools for criminal justice data review; and (4) link to a broader service like the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project to place justice data in context with cultural, economic, demographic and social factors for cause and effect study and geographic presentation. The end result will be able to function with minimal human intervention and can be used by policy, planning, and practicing principals.

CA/NCF