Combined Core and Special Emphasis Proposal:Michigan 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 Michigan Justice Statistics Center (MJSC) is located in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. On October 1, 1993, the Executive Order 1993-18 (renewed October 1995, Executive Order 1995-20) created MJSC and designated Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice to operate the center and carry out the duties of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting criminal history data; producing reports; and providing information to policymakers and the public. Edmund McGarrell assumed the position of Director of the SAC in 2013 and serve as principal investigator and project director for this grant.

Under this award, the Michigan State University's Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) will conduct activities under the following Core Capacity areas: Carrying out research using incident-based crime data that are compatible with the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and Measuring criminal justice system performance; and Special Emphasis area: Conducting a statewide crime victimization survey. The proposed core capacity projects focus on using NIBRS data to address criminal justice system performance related to state and local priorities. The current proposal builds on FY2012 and FY2013 BJS SAC programs in Michigan which included evaluations of the initial Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS) in the City of Flint, as well as a project that used state NIBRS data to improve understanding of violent crime patterns in Michigan. The 2014 proposal seeks to build on these experiences and expand the use of NIBRS data to understand crime patterns and trends, support evaluation of state and local priority interventions, assess NIBRS data quality, and identify supplemental data sources that complement NIBRS data to enhance SAC and state capacity for policy relevant research. Each of the evaluation studies will include a technical report. The Special Emphasis project focuses on two research activities. The first area involves conducting a local level victimization survey to increase the understanding of victimization patterns in a high crime urban setting, as well as to address methodological issues of national significance. The survey will be conducted with an address-based sample using mixed methods (phone, mail, and internet) to maximize response rates and representativeness. The second research area deals with comparing victimization and NIBRS data to enhance the understanding of crime trends and patterns, as well as to better understand potential reliability and validity issues associated with NIBRS data. Findings from the survey and NIBRS comparison study will be published in two technical reports and peer review articles to be shared with the research community. Funds are also requested for the SAC Director's travel to attend the NCJA Conference where JRSA will be facilitating a track for the SACs. (CA/NCF)