Criminal Justice Statistical Analysis Center- Kentucky

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: Using administrative or operational criminal justice data for research.

Under the Core Capacity area, the SAC will create performance measures for jail-based substance abuse treatment efforts funded through the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) grant program, thereby allowing for more effective tracking of outcomes and federal resources. This project will occur over 12-months. Findings produced will be written in a report and made available on the SAC website.

Under the Special Emphasis area, the SAC will continue efforts begun in 2017 under the Core Capacity area to evaluate the diverse array of substance abuse treatment modalities used in Kentucky’s criminal justice system. The project will be conducted over several phases. Phase I allowed the SAC to identify existing sources of information and draw them together into a data set. Phase II will draw together existing criminal history records, as well as other sources of administrative and operational criminal justice data collected by the Department of Corrections, medical facilities, and the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office to help the Commonwealth integrate evidence into practice, program, and policy decisions. This project has a 24-month timeline with the initial phase of the project beginning in the fall of 2017. Findings produced will be written in a report and presented as tabular and graphical summaries.

Funds are also requested for in-state project travel and for the SAC Director to attend the 2019 ASUCRP Conference, as well as the 2019 fall JRSA meeting.

(CA/NCF)