Justice Counts implementation funding will support states to adopt a core set of criminal justice metrics — to collect, analyze, and share data in a timely andconsistent manner — so that policymakers

JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF GEORGIA

BJA FY2022 Justice Counts Implementation Program

O-BJA-2022-17300

Proposal Abstract

The Georgia Judicial Council’s Automated Data Collection Project will aid the Georgia Administrative Office of the Court’s (AOC) Office of Research and Data Analysis (ORDA) in its efforts to collect granular case data – approximately 15 times the volume of current data collected – and at an increased frequency. Data will be more current in comparison to the existing annual court data collection period which is comprised of the prior year’s data and generally limited to just the number of cases filed in each court by case type. The goal is to help our over 400 local courts automate the annual case count process while also adding various data elements to expand the amount of local data for query and analysis.  Access to this level of case data is a matter of public safety, trust, and confidence. Such data could greatly influence future policy and funding decisions by the legislature and local government entities.  With increased data, the AOC can contextualize it for further analysis by law enforcement and other interested groups.

Georgia is poised to be a leader in the national initiative Justice Counts, a consensus-building initiative of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance led by the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and an unprecedented coalition of 21 partner organizations representing wide-ranging expertise across the criminal justice field. Georgia’s own incoming Chief Justice Michael Boggs leads this effort, and we want to support and fulfill the promise of good and consistent data and track the metrics which come from the data. Such metrics include, but are not limited to, pretrial data, equity, supervision, prosecution, and case dispositions.  Mapping of justice data brings an opportunity for increased and reliable data and for sharing of data among justice partners.

This statewide effort will address these data concerns by developing both logical standards (common data definitions) and technical standards (data relationship models) for court data.  The Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA) and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) through the National Open Court Data Standards (NODS) developed business and technical court data standards to support the creation, sharing, and integration of court data.  Data will be transmitted from Georgia’s 400+ local courts to statewide data repository for analysis and reporting.