Researchers, policymakers and advocacy groups trying to understand the U.S. criminal justice system—and fix what is broken—have long encountered fragmented, inconsistent data scattered across thousands of municipal, county and state agencies.
To address this systemic challenge, LSA recently launched the Center for Crime and Justice Research. The sponsored research center, supported by a $6 million grant from Arnold Ventures, will bolster the quality, comparability and accessibility of data surrounding a system that impacts millions of Americans and costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year.
The cornerstone of the center is the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS). Established in 2016 by the Institute for Social Research and the U.S. Census Bureau, CJARS was designed to transform millions of lines of raw data from thousands of jurisdictions into a unique, nationwide database that anonymously and securely follows the experiences of individuals involved in the justice system over time.
“We wanted to create a platform that empowers advocates to build evidence for making the change they want to see,” said Michael Mueller-Smith, director of the new center, associate professor of economics, and faculty associate at the U-M Population Studies Center.
Read the complete news story in The University Record.
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