Ohio Statistical Analysis Center

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 Ohio Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is placed within the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services (OCJS), which is a division of the Ohio Department of Public Safety. OCJS is the leading criminal justice planning and assistance agency for Ohio, and is officially designated the state administering agency. Under the FY 2014 SJS award, the SAC will use funds to carry out the following efforts: 1) Carrying out research using incident-based crime data. A SAC researcher will devote time to fully understanding the structure and content of the OIBRS dataset, as well as to learning how to use crime mapping and predictive analytics software in order to explore how these tools can be used on the OIBRS database. Publications will be generated as a result of these efforts. 2) Enhancement and expansion of the Ohio Data Dashboard. The goals of this project are to increase number of criminal justice and non-criminal justice data sources available through the Ohio Data Dashboard; to update the data to reflect the most recent information available; and to be identified throughout the state as the primary source for obtaining information and statistics on criminal justice. 3) Analysis of the opiate epidemic in OH. The OH governor has identified opiate abuse as a "public health epidemic" in Ohio. Through the creation of the Governor's Cabinet Opiate Action Team (GCOAT), the SAC has partnered with researchers from several state agencies, including those agencies who work with law enforcement, treatment providers, coroners, and health departments, to share data. The SAC as well as research divisions from other state agencies have been tasked to provide updated data on the opiate epidemic, from enforcement to prevention, treatment, and overdose data. In the short-term, this project will allow SAC staff the time needed to work with agencies to collect, share, and analyze data, with a long-term goal of creating a foundation for ongoing data-sharing efforts throughout the state. (CA/NCF)