Core Capacity and Special Emphasis SAC Proposal: Michigan Statistical Analysis Center 2018

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 (MSU). On October 1, 1993, the Executive Order 1993-18 created MJSC and designated MSU 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 Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is led by the SAC Director who also serves as the principal investigator and project director for this grant.

Under this award, the MSU’s SAC will conduct activities under the following Core Capacity areas: Measuring criminal justice system performance; and, Increasing access to statistical data, as well as Special Emphasis areas: Using administrative or operational criminal justice data for research; and, Conducting targeted analysis that use the state’s criminal history records. The major goals of the 2018 Core Capacity proposal are to enhance the SAC’s capabilities to collect, organize, analyze, and disseminate data that support the state’s strategic criminal justice planning needs. Primarily, research and capacity-building activities will focus on collaboration with the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) to build capacity for both internal and external use. Under the Core Capacity area, two research projects are being proposed. The first project represents a new collaboration between the SAC and MDOC. The SAC plans to assist MDOC in enhancing their prisoner reentry data system’s capacity through the linking of numerous disparate data sources into a more centralized, clearinghouse model. The final deliverable will be the creation of a database linking various sources of institutional and community corrections data to be used by community corrections field agents and community-based treatment providers to perform comprehensive reentry planning and service delivery. The second project is a continuation of research on Byrne/JAG multi-jurisdictional enforcement activities, specifically focusing on the heroin and opioid crisis. 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.

There are two projects being proposed under the Special Emphasis program area. The first project builds on the database being constructed under the Core Capacity program area. The SAC will use the integrated data system to describe patterns of parole admissions across Michigan jurisdictions. A dataset will be created, structured at the parolee-level, matching geographic unit identifiers to their release locations. In addition, the SAC plans to study the patterns of employment during the reentry process to show the correlation between employment and wage growth during the process, and determine whether such patterns have an effect on recidivism. This information will aid the MDOC research unit in gathering data concerning rates of parole release for planning and grant application purposes. The second project involves a targeted analysis of criminal history records to conduct a long-term sex offender recidivism study. Findings will be produced in a dataset, a technical report, and a scholarly manuscript describing long-term recidivism estimates.

Funds are also requested for the SAC Director’s travel to attend the 2018 fall JRSA meeting in Atlanta, GA.

(CA/NCF)