FY 2023 Michigan SJS Program

The Michigan SAC requests three projects under the Core Capacity and Special Emphasis categories. As part of the Michigan State Police’s (MSP) efforts to address racial disparities, the agency hired two analysts who will be responsible for traffic stop-related data. These people are untrained in how to conduct traffic stop racial/ethnic disparity analyses. Accordingly, the Michigan Justice Statistics Center (SAC) will deliver training and provide technical assistance to these analysts. This project will build capacity within the SAC and create sustainability as MSP moves forward in its efforts to address racial disparities. The spatial analyses will build on prior disparity research the SAC has completed in partnership with the SAA. Specifically, the project will provide MSP with valuable information about the distribution of traffic stop disparities across its jurisdiction and build new capacity within the SAC to conduct spatial analyses for other agencies moving forward. The findings from this project will be provided to MSP and will result in high-quality journal articles for both practitioner and academic audiences. The proposed Special Emphasis Project aims to establish the SAC as a police training evaluation hub for Michigan police agencies. The project will build SAC capacity by assisting Michigan agencies with training evaluation efforts over the next three years. In doing so, the SAC will work towards three primary strategic goals: (1) work with current law enforcement partners to evaluate aspects of their pre- or in-service training efforts; (2) disseminate research findings about police training to police practitioner, academic, and policy-maker audiences; and (3) provide training and technical assistance to police departments regarding guidance on what works in police training, how agencies may augment their training, or how their employees could begin evaluating their own training efforts. The project will build capacity within the SAC to continue these efforts within Michigan and other states in the future.