FY 2016 Combined Core and Special Emphasis Proposal

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. The SAC is led by the SAC Director who also serves as the 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); Measuring criminal justice system performance; and, Increasing access to data, as well as Special Emphasis areas: Conducting a statewide crime victimization survey and Conducting targeted analysis that use the state’s criminal history records. The proposed core capacity projects focus on enhancing the SAC’s capabilities to collect, analyze, and publish statistical data that support the State’s strategic criminal justice planning needs. The SAC plans to conduct a study to examine offender and victim characteristics to better understand patterns of domestic and intimate partner violence in the state of Michigan. The second core capacity project is a continuation of research on Byrne/JAG multi-jurisdictional enforcement activities. This project involves research to align performance measures with the strategic plan of the State Administering Agency. Each of the evaluation studies will include a technical report. The Special Emphasis project focuses on two research activities. The first activity 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 activity deals with conducting a study of intimate partner violence that will integrate NIBRS data with criminal history information and homicide data from state systems to link commonalities in the data, specifically related to protection orders and/or firearms prohibitions. Findings from the survey and NIBRS comparison study will be published in two technical reports and journal articles to be shared with the research community. Funds are also requested for the SAC Director’s travel to attend the NCJA National Forum Conference (CA/NCF)

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