Feasibility Study of Statewide County Jail Data 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. This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements – 2CFR 200.210(a)(14).

Utah’s Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is located in the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) and has been established in CCJJ since the inception of the SAC program in the state. The Research and Data section of the CCJJ is the functional area that houses the SAC. Currently, there are three members, a SAC director, research consultant, and data coordinator, who manage the day-to-day operations of the state SAC programs.

The Utah SAC proposes to conduct a project under the following Core Capacity areas: Measuring criminal justice system performance and Increasing access to statistical data. The Utah SAC will undertake a study to address the feasibility of bringing together local county jail offender management systems into some form of a statewide jail data system. Currently, all 25 counties with jails operate their own independent offender record management systems, with no means to connect them together or for state agencies, researchers, or policy makers to easily and efficiently access data to track populations and offender outcomes. The Utah SAC and State Administering Agency propose working with the Utah Department of Technology Services (DTS) to hire an experienced consultant to assess the status of all county jail data systems along with the data needs of CCJJ, other statewide agencies (e.g., Department of Corrections, Department of Public Safety, Administrative Office of the Courts), and the counties, and determine if these systems and the needs are amenable to a larger system of data sharing and/or integration. The result of this project will be a plan for moving forward toward a better way of sharing data from county jails to statewide agencies and policy-makers, with various options that could take the form of a fully integrated statewide data system of offenders in county jails or a more efficient means for county jails to communicate important information (e.g., population counts by certain offender categories, admissions and releases, incident data collection, etc.) to CCJJ and other statewide partners. This plan will then be used by CCJJ to inform future applications for grant funding (e.g., NCHIP) and for funding requests to the Legislature.

Funds are also being requested for travel to have the SAC Director attend the JRSA Western Regional meeting and the ASUCRP Conference in 2020.

(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. This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements – 2CFR 200.210(a)(14). Utah’s Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) is located in the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ) and has been established in CCJJ since the inception of the SAC program in the state. The Research and Data section of the CCJJ is the functional area that houses the SAC. Currently, there are three members, a SAC director, research consultant, and data coordinator, who manage the day-to-day operations of the state SAC programs. The Utah SAC proposes to conduct a project under the following Core Capacity areas: Measuring criminal justice system performance and Increasing access to statistical data. The Utah SAC will undertake a study to address the feasibility of bringing together local county jail offender management systems into some form of a statewide jail data system. Currently, all 25 counties with jails operate their own independent offender record management systems, with no means to connect them together or for state agencies, researchers, or policy makers to easily and efficiently access data to track populations and offender outcomes. The Utah SAC and State Administering Agency propose working with the Utah Department of Technology Services (DTS) to hire an experienced consultant to assess the status of all county jail data systems along with the data needs of CCJJ, other statewide agencies (e.g., Department of Corrections, Department of Public Safety, Administrative Office of the Courts), and the counties, and determine if these systems and the needs are amenable to a larger system of data sharing and/or integration. The result of this project will be a plan for moving forward toward a better way of sharing data from county jails to statewide agencies and policy-makers, with various options that could take the form of a fully integrated statewide data system of offenders in county jails or a more efficient means for county jails to communicate important information (e.g., population counts by certain offender categories, admissions and releases, incident data collection, etc.) to CCJJ and other statewide partners. This plan will then be used by CCJJ to inform future applications for grant funding (e.g., NCHIP) and for funding requests to the Legislature. Funds are also being requested for travel to have the SAC Director attend the JRSA Western Regional meeting and the ASUCRP Conference in 2020. (CA/NCF)