PA Data Quality Framework for Criminal Justice Project

The Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP's) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), furthers the Department's mission by assisting state and local jurisdictions in improving the criminal justice system and assisting communities in preventing drug abuse and crime. In fiscal year 2007, the Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program will focus on funding local, regional, and national efforts within six major categories: 1) targeting violent crime; 2) preventing crime and drug abuse; 3) enhancing local law enforcement; 4) enhancing local courts; 5) enhancing local corrections and offender reentry; and 6) facilitating justice information sharing. All categories combat, address, or otherwise respond to precipitous or extraordinary increases in crime, or in a type or types of crime.

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) will organize a Project Steering Team that will handle the direction and implementation of a statewide effort to facilitate justice information sharing and unify and improve criminal justice record management systems. The four key goals of the project are to develop a roadmap toward achieving National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) compliant data quality within the county criminal justice records management systems; construct a model that allows Pennsylvania's local criminal justice community to resolve and improve data quality in a collaborative and consistent way; develop a framework that can be replicated by all local jurisdictions; and provide training on the use of these components so that substantial improvement in information accuracy and reduced costs of government operations costs can be realized. The CCAP plans to create a data dictionary and a model for data consistency. The success of this project would lead to timely access to accurate data and ultimately lead to a decrease in both incarceration costs and inmate population. Funds will be used to conduct regional meetings that will be used to gather pertinent data and local government input for the model framework.

CA/NCF