New report highlights need for improved criminal justice data and means thereto

I was very pleased to see that Arnold Ventures has produced this great new report focused on the need for, and means to, better criminal justice data infrastructure. At this webpage, Stuart Buck describes the effort this way:

One of the most notorious process problems with America’s criminal justice system is the lack of data. For an institution charged with administering justice and responsible for decisions that profoundly impact people’s lives, it is frighteningly antiquated when it comes to collecting and analyzing data. Experts say long-term, sustainable change is doomed if we can’t track our changes and their impacts.... For years, criminologists and other experts have made the point that criminal justice data is so scarce or unreliably reported that in most jurisdictions, we can barely come up with a simple count of the number of people charged with misdemeanors each year.

Arnold Ventures released a list of six recommendations for how the new Biden administration could improve criminal justice data and research in order to support reform. The report is the product of an expert roundtable that we organized with the guidance of Jane Wiseman from the Harvard Kennedy School, and it has been signed by over 25 national experts. The report addresses the Biden administration because the federal government must take the leadership role on this issue — indeed, a major problem with criminal justice data is that there are many thousands of county and state agencies reporting data in inconsistent ways (or not at all).

The 25-page report should be read in full, but its executive summary provides a helpful overview.  Here are excerpts from that summary:

The Biden administration has shown a willingness to push for bold ideas, with early executive orders advancing racial equity, making greater use of facts and data in federal policymaking, and ending for-profit federal prisons. Comprehensive criminal justice reform should be an important next step on the Biden administration’s agenda... 

An ambitious criminal justice reform agenda will require a strong commitment to building a modern, nimble, comprehensive data infrastructure.  Accomplishing this goal will serve multiple purposes.  An effective data infrastructure will promote transparency and allow the public to hold its officials accountable.  A modern data architecture will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of justice agencies.  A strong data system will provide a baseline for measuring progress toward better outcomes, in particular progress toward racial equity.

Unfortunately, criminal justice reform is made more difficult by data that is incomplete and fraught with error.  Indeed, due to the lack of reliable data, it is often difficult even to document systemic racism in the justice system (such as racial disparities in misdemeanor arrests), let alone to promote solutions to the fair and impartial administration of justice. 

In this moment of heightened awareness of the fragile compact between the public and those whose job it is to make our communities safe, it is time to reimagine both the system and its underlying data infrastructure.  Recommendations toward that end developed by a group of experts include:

• Recommendation #1: Establish an accurate baseline of facts about the criminal justice system, and envision a 21st century system

• Recommendation #2: Radically increase accountability of the justice system through data transparency

• Recommendation #3: Modernize the production and dissemination of criminal justice statistics

• Recommendation #4: Improve the integrity of data used for decision-making, research, and policy

• Recommendation #5: Make criminal justice data more actionable, by linking data for greater insight, and by building capacity to turn insight into action

• Recommendation #6: Harness modern technology to equip decision-makers with more timely and accurate information

This report describes each recommendation, along with implementation action steps.