Kentucky 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 Kentucky Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) was officially transferred from the Office of the Attorney General to the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet (KJPSC), Office of the Kentucky Criminal Justice Council, in March 2000. Because of the SAC’s placement within the KJPSC, the research efforts and daily operations are directly linked to the Cabinet’s policy and planning goals as well as other statewide and national efforts to collect, analyze, and disseminate data on topics that impact law enforcement and criminal justice efforts.

Under this award, the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet’s Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) will conduct activities under the following Core Capacity area: Measuring criminal justice system performance, and Special Emphasis area: Conducting a statewide crime victimization survey. Under the 2016 SJS Core Capacity area, the SAC will continue the evaluation of a Vulnerability Assessment Instrument by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice. Once developed, the instrument will help identify individuals at risk of engaging in or being victim to a sexual and/or physical assault while in a juvenile confinement setting. The SAC will conduct performance evaluations, identify longitudinal trends, examine risk profiles, and answer additional research questions as they arise. The SAC will also conduct the initial phase of a sexual assault study by examining research literature to identify appropriate analytic techniques as well as factors that may impact the likelihood of sexual assault, the willingness of victims to report a sexual assault, the propensity that an investigation or prosecution will occur, and other necessary information. Findings will be presented in a written report that will be made available on the SAC website and submitted to BJS. In addition to the core capacity projects, the SAC will continue its efforts to conduct the next iteration of the state’s Crime Victimization Survey. The SAC, in partnership with other researchers, will conduct additional psychometric and statistical analyses using data collected during the statewide administration of the survey among a stratified random sample of Kentucky’s registered voters and among those receiving overnight shelter from the Kentucky Interagency Council on Homelessness (KICH) affiliated service providers. The survey instrument will include items regarding risk perception, feelings of safety, and attitudes towards the criminal justice system, as well as the criminal victimization experience itself. The SAC will estimate the prevalence of each type of crime described and gather follow up information about the attributes of each offense reported, using the American Crime Survey as a guide to help address the issue of multiple incidents having occurred. Data will be processed from the paper versions of the returned survey into Microsoft Excel or another similar program. This data will be cleaned. During this process, the dataset will be examined for typographical errors, missing values, incorrectly coded items, and other problems that will be corrected when possible. Final products will consist of a report, manuscripts, and presentations. Funds are also requested for the SAC Research Coordinator to attend the NCJA Conference where JRSA will facilitate a track for the SACs. (CA/NCF)

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