2020 Criminal History Record Assessment and Research Program (CHRARP)

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) periodically uses criminal history data from the FBI and state repositories to study recidivism patterns and criminal careers. The Criminal History Record Assessment and Research Program (CHRARP) builds on an existing data processing system at BJS that converts the state- and federal-specific contents of criminal history data (e.g., demographic characteristics, offense descriptions, and case outcomes) into nationally-standardized research files to support a series of national statistical studies.

BJS is awarding funding to NORC to support the goal of producing accurate and timely information on recidivism and criminal histories of offenders. This goal is supported through five primary objectives: (1) assess and report on the quality, variability, and completeness of state and federal criminal history records in terms of their ability to support research on crime, criminal offenders, and the operation of justice systems; (2) develop computer programs and crosswalk tables that expand BJS’s capabilities to process the parsed rap sheet datasets efficiently; (3) convert the state- and federal-specific fields in the parsed rap sheet datasets into standardized numeric codes for at least two BJS studies; (4) generate high-quality research files for each study; and (5) provide BJS with statistical support to analyze the data.

CA/NCF