The FY 2017 Maryland State Justice Statistics Program

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 Maryland’s Statistical Analysis Center (MSAC) is located within the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP), Maryland’s State Administering Agency (SAA). The MSAC works in conjunction with GOCCP, and is aligned programmatically with the state’s public safety priorities.

Under the FY 2018 SJS program, the MSAC will conduct two projects: One Core Capacity and One Special Emphasis project.

Under the Core Capacity project, the MSAC will partner with and receive NIBRS data from the Montgomery County Police Department and the Prince George’s County Police Department (representing the two largest counties in Maryland) for the period from 2016 – 2018. This project proposed will be the first ever analysis of Maryland incident based crime data. There are many goals of this project with the first being to see how the process of collecting incident-based data compares to the traditional process of collecting data through the UCR program on the number of crimes reported.

Under the Special Emphasis project, the MSAC will continue the efforts from their FY 16 Special Emphasis project to study Pre-trial Supervision.

In year one, the MSAC focused specifically on one of Maryland’s largest counties (Montgomery) to conduct the first phase of the study. With the issue of overcrowding and other systemic issues that have impacted the court system, the issue of pre-trial detention has become more prominent over the last several years.

In year two of the project, the MSAC will remain focused on understanding the circumstances related to Montgomery County’s pre-trial service but, have decided to expanded their efforts to other counties within the state. The MSAC has contacted six (6) counties to be a part of the expansion project but, only three (3) have agreed.

The base as well as expansions projects aim to answer three hypotheses to help them better under the effects of pre-trial services on other criminal justice outcomes.

• H1: Among those released pre-trial, people who are supervised are less likely to recidivate than those who were not supervised.

• H2: Among those released pre-trial, people who are supervised have lower Failure to Appear (FTA) rates than those not supervised.

• H3: Those detained pre-trial are more likely to recidivate than those who were released pre-trial.

(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 Maryland’s Statistical Analysis Center (MSAC) is located within the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP), Maryland’s State Administering Agency (SAA). The MSAC works in conjunction with GOCCP, and is aligned programmatically with the state’s public safety priorities.

Under the FY 2019 SJS program, the MSAC will conduct two projects: One Core Capacity and One Special Emphasis project.

Under the Core Capacity project, the MSAC will conduct a study and compile information related to “crime firearms” in Maryland as required by Senate Bill 0622 (passed on April 30, 2019). More specifically, “crime firearms” include a firearm that was used in the commission of a violent crime and a firearm that was recovered by law enforcement in connection with an illegal firearm possession, transportation or transfer.

Under the Special Emphasis project, the MSAC will continue efforts from the FY 16 Special Emphasis project to study Pretrial Supervision. In year one (1), the SAC focused specifically on one of Maryland’s largest counties (Montgomery) to conduct the first phase of the study. With the issue of overcrowding and other systemic issues that have impacted the court system, the issue of pretrial detention has become more prominent over the last several years. While new research ground has been explored, there remains a need for a greater understanding of the role of pretrial detainment and supervision on criminal justice outcomes.

In year two (2) of the project, the SAC remains focused on understanding the circumstances related to Montgomery County’s pretrial service and and expand to other counties within the state. The SAC has contacted six (6) counties to be a part of the expansion 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 Maryland’s Statistical Analysis Center (MSAC) is located within the Maryland Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP), Maryland’s State Administering Agency (SAA). The MSAC works in conjunction with GOCCP, and is aligned programmatically with the state’s public safety priorities. Under FY 2017 SJS program, the MSAC will conduct two (2) projects: Under the first project, the MSAC will create a data warehouse and implement a data input, analysis and visualization tool named Project C.O.R.E. (Crime Operations and Reporting for the Enterprise) Analytics. The MSAC envisions Project C.O.R.E Analytics to be a “single instance of the truth” tool to provide access to all of the data which both the GOCCP, as well as the MSAC will have access to. Project CORE Analytics creates a common operating picture for those who use this information for data management and analysis to enable data-driven decision making. The first deliverable from this project will be a report summarizing the project. The report will briefly outline the process that was used to achieve the end goal, and provide a wide range of sample outputs. This guide will be structured so that it could be used by other research and data collection entities as a “how to” guide for creating a data analysis and data visualization tool. The ultimate plan is to have this tool available online, and not just for use as an internal data collection and analysis tool. This project will also allow the MSAC to complete the data input and publication of a UCR data dashboard. Deliverables will also be shared (for publication and dissemination) with the Justice Research & Statistics Association, as well as posted on the MSAC website. Under the second project, the SAC will enhance the performance measurement instrument for all grant funding streams administered by the MSAC. The MSAC believes this instrument, Project A.I.M (Aligned Impact Measurement) will enables them to measure and manage the impact of the entire portfolio of grants programs using a common outcome-oriented performance management and reporting framework. Upon completion of this project, the MSAC will write a report, outlining the process which was used to achieve a total change in the performance measures associated with the Office’s grant funding streams. Included in this report will be a complete set of outcome based performance measures for each grant. This information could potentially be used either by other states looking to complete a similar project, or even the various entities responsible for drafting guidance at the federal level. In addition, a follow up report will be submitted after the new measures have been implemented, and one full year of outcome-based performance measurement data has been collected and analyzed. (CA/NCF) Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law.