Maine Statistical Analysis Center - CourTools: Access and Fairness Survey

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 Maine SAC is located at the Muskie School of Public Service (MSPS) within the University of Southern Maine (USM). USM's Research Services Center provides financial support and oversees financial management to ensure compliance with federal, state, and university funding requirements, including the Maine SAC with the Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) that has been administered as a cooperative agreement since 1999.

The Maine SAC, in collaboration with the Maine Judicial Branch (MJB) will implement the National Center for State Courts’ CourTools – Access and Fairness Survey. The survey is geared towards several groups of court users and provides data on justice systems and court performance measures. The use of the survey instrument will enable the MJB to establish baseline data on access and fairness measures throughout the court systems (superior and district). It is MJB’s intent that this tool will be used regularly, every few years, to monitor access and fairness indicators over time. Findings from the survey will be used to drive access and fairness quality improvement efforts such as improving court signage, improving information available on court web pages, and improving customer service. The CourTools instrument consists of ten access and five fairness questions along with five demographic questions. (CA/NCF)

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