Assessment of Official Data Regarding Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC) in Mississippi

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 Mississippi Statistical Analysis Center (SAC), at the Department of Administration, University of Mississippi (USM), will use these grant funds to develop and implement data collection to provide information regarding Disproportionate Minority Confinement (DMC). Mississippi was found noncompliant with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) Act which requires states to address juvenile delinquency prevention efforts and make system improvement efforts designed to reduce the disproportionate number of juvenile members of minority groups who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. The SAC will examine State and local data regarding DMC in three counties with the largest minority concentration or counties with targeted DMC-reduction efforts. In addition to the examination of existing records, the MS-SAC will collect additional data to augment the analysis. NCA/NCF