Under this supplemental award, APPRISS will assist BJS is a comprehensive assessment of the quality and completeness of the data they can provide for statistical purposes.
Appriss data elements consist of identification variables (names, social security numbers, state and federal inmate ID numbers, date of birth, address of residence), demographic characteristics (age, race, Hispanic origin, sex, height, weight, marital status, nationality), and operational variables (arrest and booking time stamps, date and reason for release, charge code and description, bond amount, offense, disposition). Several elements have a high rate of missingness, and part of the BJS pilot study of three stateÂ’ data in 2015 and this supplement will be to determine whether this lack of data will degrade the overall quality of the data. Appriss has agreed to work with BJS in addressing the item missingness issue.
BJSÂ’s 2015 pilot study of three statesÂ’ data proved that the Appriss records could be matched to individual facilities in the ASJ, DCRP, and census of jail facilities, and aggregated to counts of annual admissions, releases, and one-day populations. BJS identified several issues through the pilot study, including the fact that the high rate of missingness on release date introduced error into these estimates, and that the quality of the identification variables varied over time and across the different jurisdictions. BJS wants to determine the extent of these issues across a wider range of jurisdictions, since problems with these elements could limit our ability to make estimates of annual population movements and measure recidivism.
BJS anticipates that they will also need technical support from Appriss to explain nuances of the data, as well as making small adjustments to certain jurisdictionsÂ’ data during the pilot studies, such as increasing their response rate on particular variables. If this enhanced pilot is successful, BJS hopes to routinize this collection to deliver an annual bolus of all jurisdictionsÂ’ data.
(NCA/NCF)
Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.
