2015 SAC Core and Special Emphasis Projects - Evaluation of Byrne JAG projects and Supreme Court Criminal Records Review

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 Louisiana SAC (LSAC) is the research division of the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement. LSAC is responsible for activities that require the gathering, analysis, and implementation of practical information such as the development of the annual comprehensive plan, policy analysis, and applied research. The mission of the SAC is to provide research and analytical support for policy development on significant criminal justice issues at all levels of government, while producing basic information for the public and policymakers on the operation of the state’s criminal justice system.

Under this award, LSAC will conduct activities under the following Core Capacity area: Measuring criminal justice system performance, and Special Emphasis area: Conducting targeted analyses utilizing the state’s criminal history records. In the Core Capacity area, the LSAC will continue activities to provide an assessment and evaluation of the Byrne grant program in an effort to appraise effectiveness and efficiency in the utilization of the state’s federal block grant funds. Funds will be used to develop an evaluation process and database for Byrne grants and to produce literature on best practices to assist sub-grantees with designing, developing, and implementing future projects. Tasks will include: 1) reviewing obtained data to identify practices/procedures identified as target areas; 2) identifying training needs of the local multi-jurisdictional task forces (MJTF) to improve productivity and promote public safety; 3) measuring defined outcomes such as scope of work, major accomplishments of MJTFs, and progression towards achieving goals and established objectives; 4) identifying protocols for successful programming; 5) using extensive research and literature reviews to determine the most successful evaluations done by other states to use as models; and 6) identifying obstacles to success based on quantified and qualified data previously obtained. In the Special Emphasis area, the LSAC, in collaboration with the Louisiana Supreme Court (LSC) and the Louisiana Clerks of Court, will continue to conduct a data quality assessment and development of a remediation program. Louisiana has a long standing issue with the completeness and accuracy of criminal history record information. In an effort to address one specific area of concern, disposition and sentencing information accuracy, LSAC will partner with the LSC to perform a data quality assessment, determine the contributing factors, and make recommendations for error remediation. As part of this process, LSAC intends to execute a memorandum of understanding with the LSC to create a disposition/sentencing database for research and analytical purposes enhancing the LSAC’s ability to provide support for policy makers and legislators. Additionally, funds will be used for the SAC Director and Research Associate to travel to attend the NCJA Conference where JRSA will be facilitating a track for the SACs. (CA/NCF)

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