BJS FY 09 State Court Processing Statistics

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is seeking proposals to redesign the State Court Processing Statistics Project (SCPS) project. The purpose of this award is to provide funding to redesign SCPS and enhance the project's data collection capabilities. SCPS is a recurring data collection project involving the compilation of felony cases processed in 40 large urban counties chosen to be representative of the 75 most populous counties in the U.S. Approximately 15,000 felony cases filed on certain days in May of every even numbered year are tracked for up to 1 year in these 40 sampled counties. The data collected includes current arrest charges, demographic characteristics, prior arrests and convictions, criminal justice status at arrest, type of pretrial release or detention, bail amount, court appearance record, adjudication outcome, and sentence received if convicted. The SCPS data collection platform has remained essentially unchanged since it inception in 1988. This solicitation will provide an opportunity to re-conceptualize SCPS to take into account the increasing levels of automation in state courts and other enhanced collection mechanisms that have occurred since the late 1980s. BJS is authorized to issue this solicitation under the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act of 1968, Section 302, as amended.