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). The SAC is also the Policy and Research arm of OCJS. OCJS is the lead criminal justice planning and assistance agency for Ohio. Although housed within the Ohio Department of Public Safety, OCJS is by constitution and statute separate from enforcement, courts, and corrections, providing a neutral criminal justice branch within state government. OCJS is officially designated the state administering agency for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG), the Violence Against Women Act grant (VAWA), the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) grant, the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement grant, the National Criminal History Improvement Program (NCHIP) grant, and the Family Violence Prevention Services (FVPSA) grant.

Under the 2016 SJS program, the OCJS will be conducting two Core Capacity projects. One set of projects focuses on conducting research using NIBRS data. Specifically, the SAC proposes to examine and improve the data quality coming out of the Ohio Incident-Based Reporting System (OIBRS) which does not have 100% participation from law enforcement. The Ohio SAC will replicate work done in the West Virginia SAC looking at data quality issues. The SAC also proposes to continue to generate descriptive reports that are of interest to law enforcement, to advocacy groups, and to the general public.

A second set of projects focuses on increasing access to statistical data using Weave, a powerful and interactive open source software that allows users to explore, analyze, visualize, and disseminate data online. Unlike the current data dashboard software used by the SAC, Weave will allow for the display of 'live' administrative data. Once SAC staff have developed the competency to use Weave, two projects will be undertaken. The first project will involve the transfer of static spreadsheets from OCJS's current data dashboard software to Weave. The second project, which takes advantage of Weave's ability to pull from dynamic datasets, will be the creation of data reporting templates on specific crimes.(CA/NCF)

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