Grants Give States Opportunity To Use Data, Evidence for Criminal Justice Reforms

The use of data analysis and evidence-based decisionmaking continues to gain a foothold in the grants environment, and some outcomes are showing promise. The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Center for Effective Public Policy recently issued a report on criminal justice reforms accomplished under BJA’s grants to promote the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI).

JRI is a data-driven process to improve public safety by enabling jurisdictions to make more effective and efficient use of criminal justice resources, and to reinvest those cost savings into strategies that enhance public safety and reduce crime and recidivism. In federal fiscal years 2016 and 2017, BJA issued Maximizing State Reforms program grants to Idaho, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota to advance their particular JRI goals through data-driven and evidence-based decisionmaking.

The grant program required the following for implementing new policies and practices: (1) collaborations between and within key organizations that are attempting to adopt specific changes brought about by JRI; (2) increased evidence-based decisionmaking; (3) expanded use of evidence-based programs, particularly those that reflect local or specific initiatives; (4) the sharing of critical data and information to guide practices; and (5) an examination of the methods or approaches used to bring about changes in organization’s policies or practices.

Each state recipient featured in the report noted benefits gained through the program. For example, Ohio’s initiative focused on implementing an automated telephone reporting system for low-risk individuals. Not only did this system follow the evidence-based principle that there should be minimal intervention with those at a low risk to re-offend, but it also reduced the amount of time supervision officers spent with this population, allowing them to focus more attention on higher-risk individuals.

The report did note some challenges. Each state involved in the program needed more time than was anticipated to thoughtfully plan and execute their initiatives. In some states, implementation planning took up to a year or more, which reduced the period during which a program has actually operated, or will operate, to two years or less. Also, because program implementation took longer than anticipated, it has been challenging to measure recidivism reduction and other outcomes within the three-year grant period. According to the report, each state involved in the program requested no-cost extensions from BJA in order to allow for a longer period of program implementation and more meaningful measurement of outcomes.

Despite these issues, the report sounded an upbeat note about the grant program. “Without this grant program, these states would not have had the opportunity to focus on their specific areas of concern — issues that, in the long term, may significantly affect overall JRI outcomes,” it noted. “Results in several states … resulted in numerous changes in sentencing and criminal justice policies, making it possible to reinvest in other criminal justice and human service strategies, programs and services, with a renewed focus on public safety initiatives.”

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