Montana State Justice Statistics Program

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.

The Montana Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) will use funds to contract with researchers from the University of Montana to complete two projects. First, the SAC will conduct a prospective test on its revised Detention Risk Assessment Instrument (DRAI) to assess the relative ability of the revised instrument to correctly classify public safety risks among youths released from detention. The performance of the superior instrument will be based on the number of juveniles returned to detention in a 9 month period for a new felony or misdemeanor citation or failure to appear in court within the 30 day period of risk after release from detention or placement in a detention alternative. Second, the SAC will conduct an extensive literature review to determine the most effective method to conduct an economic analysis of the state's seven Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Forces. Findings will be used to inform policymakers and officials about funding decisions for the state's JAG block grant funding.
CA/NCF