2014 NYS Justice Statistics Program: Alternative to Incarceration Evaluation System

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 New York Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is located within the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), Office of Justice Research and Performance (OJRP). DCJS is housed under the Executive Branch, headed by the Governor.

Under this award, the New York SAC is seeking continuation funding for a two year project that began in September 2014. The DCJS promote programs that result in the most public safety at the lowest cost which has resulted in implementing Results First, a computerized cost benefit analysis tool that enables the state to more accurately forecast the public safety and fiscal impacts of criminal justice interventions. As an outcome of Results First, DCJS started an Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) program to target limited criminal justice dollars for individuals at the greatest risk of continued criminal conduct. The ATI initiative prompted a reorientation of existing resources and capacity building on the part of DCJS which includes a comprehensive fidelity and outcome evaluation process. The fidelity plan assesses programs’ adherence to the principles of effective correctional intervention while the evaluation component requires regular reporting from the programs. The 2-year SAC project provides a mechanism for collecting, maintaining, and analyzing evaluation and fidelity performance on ATI programming in New York State. DCJS is proposing to develop and improve criminal justice performance measures to reduce recidivism and victimization by properly targeting the needs of defendants. The focus is on building access to new sources of data and improving analytical capabilities using three components to measure criminal justice system performance. The three components are: 1) Capacity to Improve Data Quality of ATI Program Data by developing a new data collection and management process for the 100+ ATI programs, 2) Expand the Capacity to Conduct Recidivism Studies and Estimate Effect Sizes by measuring recidivism outcomes, confirm target populations and risk levels, estimate effect size, inform future decision making and provide feedback to programs; and 3) Develop the Capacity for Qualitative Analysis of Program Models and Characteristics by continuing its efforts from previous awarded activities to maintain the status of the database. The SAC is not seeking funding for step 3, but it is part of the overall project.

CA/NCF

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 New York SAC is located within the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), Office of Justice Research and Performance (OJRP). DCJS is housed within the Executive Department under the Executive Branch, headed by the Governor. Under this award, the New York SAC is seeking continuation funding for a three-year project that began in October 2014. The DCJS promote programs that result in the most public safety at the lowest cost which has resulted in implementing Results First, a computerized cost benefit analysis tool that enables the state to more accurately forecast the public safety and fiscal impacts of criminal justice interventions. As an outcome of Results First, DCJS started an Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) program to target limited criminal justice dollars for individuals at the greatest risk of continued criminal conduct. The ATI initiative prompted a reorientation of existing resources and capacity building on the part of DCJS which includes a comprehensive fidelity and outcome evaluation process. The fidelity plan assesses programs’ adherence to the principles of effective correctional intervention while the evaluation component requires regular reporting from the programs. The 3-year SAC project provides a mechanism for collecting, maintaining, and analyzing evaluation and fidelity performance on ATI programming in New York State. DCJS is proposing to develop and improve criminal justice performance measures to reduce recidivism and victimization by properly targeting the needs of defendants. The focus is on building access to new sources of data and improving analytical capabilities using three components to measure criminal justice system performance. The three components are: 1) Capacity to Improve Data Quality of ATI Program Data by developing a new data collection and management process for the 100+ ATI programs, 2) Expand the Capacity to Conduct Recidivism Studies and Estimate Effect Sizes by measuring recidivism outcomes, confirm target populations and risk levels, estimate effect size, inform future decision making and provide feedback to programs; and 3) Develop the Capacity for Qualitative Analysis of Program Models and Characteristics by continuing its efforts from previous awarded activities to maintain the status of the database. (CA/NCF)

Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.