Special Emphasis - Montana Crime Victimization SurveyCore Capacity - Montana Statewide Jail Survey and Detention Data Information System Improvements

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 State Statistical Analysis Center (MSAC) is located in the Montana Board of Crime Control (MBCC). The MBCC provides policy analysis to the Governor, Legislature, and law enforcement agencies at the local and state level to use in developing and evaluating criminal and juvenile justice policies and issues. The purpose of the MSAC is to analyze and publish data from its own and other statewide data sources while overseeing the information technology available to both the staff of MBCC and the Board itself. Additionally, the MSAC is responsible for data collection, data analysis, research studies, and reporting of all juvenile and adult crime statistics for Montana. Lastly, the MSAC collects and analyzes crime data from Montana law enforcement agencies, and reports that analysis to law enforcement, criminal justice agencies, state and local policy makers and the general public.

Under this award, the MSAC has proposed three projects.

Under the first core capacity project, the MSAC proposes to continue efforts from its 2014 SJS project. This project, year two of two, will be dedicated to the design, pre-test and administration of a jail usage survey and the analysis of the results. The objective of the proposed research is to develop core-capacity capabilities that will enable the State of Montana, Montana's Association of Counties, and the local sheriff's overseeing jail operation to effectively and systematically monitor and evaluate jail population within the state and local jurisdictions. The data will provide critical information needed to implement necessary changes associated with the population of offenders in secure placement within the county jails and the practitioners who are tasked with their care. The enhancement of a systematic data collection process will facilitate state and federal level reporting requirements for data that are difficult to collect.

Under the second core capacity project, the MSAC proposes to develop and administer an online survey that will be administered to local law enforcement officers in Cascade County. The data will be used to obtain a more complete understanding of the interactions that street-level law enforcement officers have with juveniles and the factors that influence formal (citation, arrest) versus informal outcomes (counsel and release).

Under the special emphasis project, the MSAC proposes a continuation of Montana’s 2010 crime victimization survey. The purpose of this study is to better understand victimization trends while also focusing on victimization related to the increasing oil development in eastern Montana, Williston Basin Region (WBR). In addition, the proposed study will provide much needed data on the current state of facilities and services that are available to crime victims in Montana. The study will also provide data on drug related crime victimization and public perceptions of fear of drug related crime. This data will provide an opportunity to analyze Montana’s Incident-Based data to estimate how many more crimes occur that go unreported to law enforcement.

CA/NCF

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 State Statistical Analysis Center (MSAC) is located in the Montana Board of Crime Control (MBCC). The purpose of the MSAC is to analyze and publish data from its own and other statewide data sources while overseeing the information technology available to both the staff of MBCC and the Board itself. Additionally, the MSAC is responsible for data collection, data analysis, research studies, and reporting of all juvenile and adult crime statistics for Montana. Lastly, the MSAC collects and analyzes crime data from Montana law enforcement agencies, and reports that analysis to law enforcement, criminal justice agencies, state and local policy makers and the general public.

Under this award, the MSAC has proposed two projects.

Under project one, the MSAC will implement the recommended elements of the cost-benefit analysis from the Criminology Research Group (CRG) economic assessment report from 2014. A cost-benefit analysis of Montana’s Multi-Jurisdictional Drug Task Forces (MJDTF) will provide for more sound MBCC funding decisions. Montana is using a majority of its JAG funds to support the MJDTFs while little funding is used to support education and treatment for drug abuse. A full economic analysis will allow for a more in depth examination of the MJDTFs while comparing the programs to other drug use and offending intervention and prevention strategies. Researchers from the CRG will work with the MSAC to structure the format of the completed technical report. Along with the presentation of the findings, the draft report will include recommendations about future allocation of JAG funding for MJDTF’s in Montana.

Under project two, the MSAC will conduct final year of a three year crime victimization study. The purpose of the project is to collect the data needed to build upon findings from Montana’s 2005 and 2010 state crime victimization surveys in order to better understand victimization trends while also focusing on victimization related to population changes associated with oil development in Williston Basin Region (WBR) of northeastern Montana. In addition, the proposed study will provide much needed data on the current state of facilities and services that are available to crime victims in Montana. The study will also provide data on drug-related crime victimization and public perceptions of fear of drug-related crime. In the final year, the MSAC will largely be consumed by data analysis and writing the final report. An analysis of the patterns in the responses and the types of victimization will be a key component of the findings from the survey data. The victimization data that is gathered will provide a basis upon which official counts of crimes reported to the police in state incident-based reporting system (MTIBRS) can be compared and will provide an estimate of the total amount of crimes that occur in Montana. A key component of the technical report will be the implications of the findings on practice and policy in Montana and recommendations for improving existing practices. (CA/NCF)

Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.