Oklahoma State Justice Statistics Program, 2017

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 Oklahoma Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is located at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI). Oklahoma’s SAC is co-located with the state’s criminal history repository and the state’s incident-based reporting system. The SAC includes the SAC Director, Angie Woodrow, and four statistical research specialists. Ms. Woodrow works with SAC staff and agency leadership to plan and develop the agency’s research agenda. SAC staff also works closely with the agency’s Field Services Unit which is responsible for the statewide collection of crime statistics and exploring the feasibility of providing online access to incident-based datasets in the future. In addition, SAC staff assists the Oklahoma Information Fusion Center with research and crime analysis.

Under this award, the OK SAC will conduct activities under the following Core Capacity area: Increasing access to statistical data. The OK SAC is requesting funds to increase access to statistical data through enhancing data sources and improving analytic capabilities. These funds will be used to carry out research and analyses using incident-based crime data that are compatible with the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). For this project, staff will analyze intimate partner murders reported in to the state system (SIBRS). There are three objectives for this project. First, staff will examine how law enforcement has recorded the relationship(s) between the victim(s) and the offender(s) for intimate partner murders reported in SIBRS over a six year period (2011-2016). Staff are interested in the changes over time in the types of relationships identified to determine if reporting practices differ among jurisdictions. Second, staff will examine trends and characteristics of intimate partner murders in SIBRS jurisdictions during implementation of the Oklahoma lethality assessment. Third, staff will develop recommendations to reporting agencies that will be incorporated into training materials by the Field Services Unit. As part of the analysis, staff will assess and review the quality of SIBRS data and calculate descriptive statistics for intimate partner murders reported by SIBRS agencies. The final product will include a qualitative analysis of incident report narratives and a description of the special distribution of domestic violence murders through the use of crime maps. Funding is also being requested for travel to attend the National Criminal Justice Association Annual Forum. (CA/NCF)

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