Expanding Understanding of Complex Criminal Justice System Measures and Crime Trends in the Criminal Justice System Response to COVID19

The Oregon SAC (ORSAC) is housed Oregon Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) which became the State Administering Agency (SAA) in 2009. The ORSAC will use FY21 SJS funds for a Core Capacity project to facilitate the design and publication of several animated infographics to better explain and present complex criminal justice measures and the underlying context. The Expanding Understanding of Complex Criminal Justice System Measures project will correspond with the state’s need to quickly share information that impacts different areas of the state’s public safety system. The ORSAC will release four to five animated infographics on key areas of Oregon’s public safety system by end of 2022 which includes racial disparity measures, traffic and pedestrian stops, and recidivism. The funds will be used to support a research analyst for a 1-Year period. The ORSAC will also use FY21 SJS funds for a Special Emphasis project to conduct a deeper analysis of the trends found in the previous year’s SJS 2020 project, “COVID19 Impact on Oregon’s Public Safety System.” The prior year’s project found that COVID19 had an immediate impact on police stops, arrests, case processing, felony convictions, and prison intakes. More specific research questions are focused on crime classifications in the FY21 SJS project entitled, Crime Trends and the Criminal Justice System Response to COVID19 in Oregon. The project will enhance Oregon criminal justice analysis priorities, as well as BJS and national priorities on the following reasons: The COVID19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the criminal justice system, both nationally and locally. Fully understanding these impacts is important both to make criminal justice systems more resilient to future crises and to protect system employees, adults in custody, and their families in the future. All these findings will inform state-level policymakers as they form long-term responses to COVID19 and continue to reform criminal justice systems. The project will produce a written report detailing the COVID19 impact on crime trends and specifically to violent crime and domestic violence by end of 2022. The publication will be made publicly available on the website and will provide data and trend analysis to criminal justice stakeholders, legislators, and the public.