CSGJC to continue to build Justice Counts infrastructure and momentum and to support implementation for grantee states

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center requests $6,000,000 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to further expand Justice Counts and support the implementation for a cohort of the Founding States and additional states. Using lessons learned from the initial phases of Justice Counts, we will 1) continue to develop and refine relevant metrics and tools; 2) facilitate the adoption and implementation in additional states; and 3) provide related data literacy education to practitioners.

During the project period, we will finalize and release Tier 2 metrics; refine the Justice Counts subcommittee structure to clarify roles and secure involvement in the next phases of work; and publish the second edition of Tier 1 and first edition of Tier 2 Technical Implementation Guides and implement them in the Justice Counts Publisher. We will also review and update Tier 1 metrics as needed based on feedback; continue providing technical assistance to states and jurisdictions; provide open-source data platforms to automatically standardize, analyze, and report data; sign on three additional states to fill the final Founding State opportunities with a goal of achieving participation of half of all states (25) by 2025; implement advanced sales and marketing techniques to scale outreach and secure more agency participation; and launch self-service approaches for publishing Justice Counts metrics. To improve data literacy among practitioners, we will develop publications and web tools that illustrate the importance of the metrics and how they can be used; make Justice Counts data publicly available and accessible; generate tools to help agency leaders use Justice Counts data; deploy ongoing content to agency leaders participating in Justice Counts to deepen their capacity to use Justice Counts data; generate materials to educate state policymakers in the 2025 legislative session; develop a network of policymakers interested in criminal justice issues; deploy ongoing content to this network; and host a data literacy bootcamp for policymakers.

The CSG Justice Center leads BJA’s Justice Counts initiative where we continue to work with partners to establish national criminal justice data standards that have enjoyed widespread support. This work provided us with invaluable information about gaps in data collection and opportunities to build fieldwide capacity to use data to drive decision-making. We will leverage this experience to support a new cohort of states and improve and expand upon our ongoing work.

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center requests $3,800,000 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to further expand the Justice Counts community to power data insights and tools to inform policy and practice. Using lessons learned from the initial phases of Justice Counts, we will 1) engage additional agencies and jurisdictions to adopt Tier 1 metrics, 2) finalize and launch the Tier 2 metrics, 3) support the initial adoption of Tier 2 metrics, and 4) develop and disseminate use cases to demonstrate the value of Justice Counts.

During the project period, we will implement advanced sales and marketing techniques to scale outreach and secure more agency participation; deepen participating of half of all states (25); provide technical assistance (TA) to states and jurisdictions to share and use data; update and improve Tier 1 metrics and technical implementation guides (TIGs) to further advance adoption; and continually improve and provide access to Justice Counts’ open-source data platform to automatically standardize, analyze, and share data. We will ratify Tier 2 metrics and release them to the public, and refine the Justice Counts subcommittee structure to clarify roles and secure involvement in the next phases of work. We will also author and release TIGs for Tier 2 metrics and implement them in Publisher; establish eligibility for agency access to Tier 2 metrics and support them in implementing the metrics; and develop publications and web tools that illustrate the metrics’ importance and use. To demonstrate the project’s value, we will make Justice Counts data publicly available and accessible; generate tools and resources to help agency leaders use and share Justice Counts data; deploy ongoing content to agency leaders and policymakers participating in Justice Counts to deepen data literacy and effectiveness in using Justice Counts data; publish case studies on the impact of Justice Counts; and generate materials to educate state policymakers.

The CSG Justice Center leads BJA’s Justice Counts initiative where we continue to work with partners to establish and implement national criminal justice data standards that have enjoyed widespread support. This work has provided us with invaluable information about gaps in data collection and opportunities to build fieldwide capacity to use data to drive decision-making. We will leverage this experience to support new states and improve and expand upon our ongoing work.