FY 2018 SJS Core Capacity Building Project

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 Kansas Sentencing Commission (KSC) was established by the 1989 Senate Bill 50 and is located within the Executive Branch. The KSC is the designated Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) for the State of Kansas. The membership of the KSC is statutorily defined and is made up of 17 members. The SAC conducts research and analysis on issues and processes in the criminal justice system, identifies alternative solutions and makes recommendations for improvements. The SAC staff produces statistical reports on findings regarding the impact of sentencing guidelines on prison populations, sentencing trends and practice in Kansas criminal justice. The SAC is involved in the ongoing collection and analysis of data derived from felony journal entries, probation revocation journal entries and the SB 123 program. The SAC also provides statistical information to state and federal agencies, academic entities, criminal justice associations, and other interested parties.

Under the 2018 SJS program, the KSC will conduct a Core Capacity project.

Under the Core Capacity project, the KSC will increase the access to statistical data by purchasing and using the data visualization software (Tableau). This software will function as the main tool for data dissemination and KSC believes that Tableau will allow them to establish an interface with data from all sources to conduct analysis, research and present research findings. Additionally, the dashboards would include tables, graphics, maps and reports based on both historical and real-time data. This project will include online analytic capability, graphical presentation, spatial analysis mapping, trend analysis and datasets downloads. It will also build linkages to the agency’s website or a separate dashboards link via the internet. This digitalization project in the criminal justice area will significantly enhance the core capacity of KSC’s performance and research in the criminal justice area.

(CA/NCF)