Criminal Justice Administrative Records System: A Collaborative

Approach to Building Next Generation Criminal Justice Data

Infrastructure

Michael Mueller-Smith

University of Michigan

November 4, 2021

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 1 / 24
Disclaimer

– Any opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily

represent the views of the U.S. Census Bureau. While this work was not subject to formal

Census Bureau content review, Census staff reviewed all statistical output to ensure that no

confidential information was disclosed.

– This presentation meets all of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Disclosure Review Board (DRB)

standards and has been assigned DRB approval numbers CBDRB-FY19-444,

CBDRB-FY20-ERD002-021, CBDRB-FY21-ERD002-008.

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 2 / 24
Outline

1 Project summary

2 Project detail

3 Project operations

4 Selected contributions and findings

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 3 / 24
What is CJARS?

CJARS, founded in 2016, is a joint data infrastructure project between University of

Michigan and the U.S. Census Bureau

Building a novel data platform to modernize research and statistical reporting on the U.S.

criminal justice system, including:

– Event-level criminal justice data with nationwide scope

– Tracking across key milestones in the justice system

– Capacity to link with individual-level survey and administrative data at the U.S. Census Bureau

Financial support from the National Science Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson

Foundation, the University of Michigan, and the U.S. Census Bureau

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 4 / 24
Incomplete criminal justice data infrastructure

– Limits how performance is measured, which policy questions are asked

– Leads to varying definitions of recidivism

– Makes it difficult to identify effective policy levers

– Prevents comprehensive benefit-cost analyses

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 5 / 24
CJARS project goals

– Collect, harmonize, and link longitudinal, multi-jurisdictional CJ data to track individuals

and cases across space and time

– Embed criminal justice contact and policy within broader socio-economic data

– Enable timely and innovative federal statistical products about CJ system and

justice-involved population

– Provide national research platform for qualified researchers on approved projects

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 6 / 24
Outline

1 Project summary

2 Project detail

3 Project operations

4 Selected contributions and findings

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 7 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
Project scope and data collection

Arrest Pre-trial detention Adjudication Probation Incarceration Parole

18k police

departments

3k sheriff’s

offices/3k jails

50 state

departments

of corrections

community

corrections

agencies

3k prosecutor’s

offices

50 state court

admins/3k

criminal courts

51 state

criminal records

repositories

Out of scope: civil court proceedings, traffic offenses below misdemeanor level, crime reports not

associated with arrest, juvenile records not transferred to criminal court, records without PII

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 8 / 24
CJARS stakeholders

– University of Michigan acquires and harmonizes data from criminal justice agencies,

including law enforcement, judicial, and corrections agencies

– Census Bureau links CJARS with other socioeconomic data to build data products for

data providers, host CJARS access through FSRDC network, develop new data products,

and improve operations

– Qualified researchers on approved projects analyze CJARS in the FSRDCs

– Communities and policymakers use CJARS-derived statistical products to understand

the performance of the criminal justice system

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 9 / 24
CJARS at a glance

 

Roster File

U-M CJARS 

Secure Data 

Enclave 

Server

Local 

Agencies 

CJARS Database

CJARS statistical reports

External 

research 

request

Non-CJARS 

external 

publication

Physical Archive

State 

Agencies

Federal 

Agencies

Data Intake

Disclosure Review

Project Approval

Administrative Data

U-M CJARS Repository U.S. Census Bureau Data Providers External Researchers

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 10 / 24
CJARS data coverage

– 100–300 data providers

– States with coverage of state

court, state DOC, and/or state

repository represent 48% of U.S.

population

– 2b records

– 175m CJ events

– 36m unique individuals Statewide

coverage,

2+ domains

Statewide

coverage,

1 domain

Partial

geographic

coverage

Caseload

snapshot

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 11 / 24
Project documentation and resources

Data Documentation Benchmarking Report Proposal Guide Fellowship Solicitation

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 12 / 24
CJARS can replicate BJS series

All results were

produced without

the use of Title 13

data.

5k

10k

15k

Colorado

10k

20k

30k

40k

50k Florida

10k

15k

Michigan

1k

2k

3k

Nebraska

10k

20k

30k

North Carolina

10k

20k

Pennsylvania

1980 2000 2020

0k

50k

100k Texas

1980 2000 2020

0k

10k

20k

Year

Washington

1980 2000 2020

4k

6k

8k

10k

Wisconsin

Annual prison entry count

CJARS

National Prisoner Statistics Program

National Corrections Reporting Program

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 13 / 24
Outline

1 Project summary

2 Project detail

3 Project operations

4 Selected contributions and findings

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 14 / 24
Funding/resources

– UM has raised about $7m for project so far

– Census resources

– Increasingly difficult to fund general operations

– Growing research obligations could slow collection, harmonization, and Census production

activities

– 2–3 year cycles increase risk of losing subject-matter expertise

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 15 / 24
Current staff

University of Michigan

– Lead: Mike Mueller-Smith

– 2 project managers

– 3 RAs

– 1 post-doc

– 2 PT grad students

– 2 PT undergrad programmers

US Census Bureau

– Lead: Keith Finlay

– Civic Digital Fellows (4 since 2020)

– 3 add’l researchers working on topical research projects

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 16 / 24
Governance

– Census Bureau acquiring UM data under legal agreement through 2026

– Access to IRS tax data available through 2024

– Strategic data decisions consensus based

– Board of Directors/Scientific Advisory Board

– Census/FSRDC proposal review at UM is as light as possible

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 17 / 24
Project challenges

– Representative data system requires significantly more data acquisition

– Limited economies of scale in data acquisition and harmonization

– Trade-offs in geographic coverage, procedural scope, schema detail, data quality

– Cannot depend on grant funds to UM for core Census Bureau outputs

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 18 / 24
Outline

1 Project summary

2 Project detail

3 Project operations

4 Selected contributions and findings

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 19 / 24
Innovations in data science/measurement

– Entity resolution at UM

– Agency-validated identifiers across datasets/PII realizations used to algorithmically identify

high-quality matches

– Automated offense string classification

– Partnered with Measures for Justice

– New offense categorization scheme based on FBI/BJS standard

– ML model estimated from 400k hand-coded offense strings

– Public classification service

– Family and residential history crosswalks at Census

– Link residentially unstable people to families and local labor markets

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 20 / 24
Cohort-level cumulative felony conviction risk

Note: Estimates based on CJARS data linked by Census-provided PIK to Census Numident (to identify Commuting Zone

of birth, sex, race, and ethnicity). These results were disclosed by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Disclosure Review Board with

approval number CBDRB-FY19-444.

0 0.1 0.2 0.27

Asian/PI women

AIAN women

Hispanic women

White women

Black women

Asian/PI men

AIAN men

Hispanic men

White men

Black men

10%ile median risk 90%ile

Cohort = year of birth

× commuting zone of birth

× sex

× race/ethnicity

Probability of any felony conviction by age 25

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 21 / 24
Children exposed to parental justice involvement

Note: Estimates based on CJARS data linked by Census-provided PIK to family relation crosswalk that was synthesized from

a variety of survey and administrative data. These results were disclosed by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Disclosure Review

Board with approval number CBDRB-FY20-ERD002-021.

0 5 10 15 18

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

felony conviction of any parent

incarceration of any parent

Child age

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 22 / 24
Employment of the justice involved

All figures have been

rounded according to

Census Bureau DRB

rules. All results

were approved

for release by the

Census Bureau,

authorization number

CBDRB-FY21-ERD002

2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018

0.4

0.45

0.5

0.55

0.6

0.65

Year

Probability of employment

Felony

conv. in

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

————

ACS cohort

Mueller-Smith (Univ. of Michigan) CJARS: A Collaborative Approach November 4, 2021 23 / 24
Thank you

Michael Mueller-Smith

mgms@umich.edu

Learn more:

https://cjars.isr.umich.edu

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