A spike in the crime rate may prompt politicians to consider building new jails or to legislate stiffer sentences, but with nearly 110,000 criminal offenders in Louisiana and an average sentence length of three years, keeping the streets safe is no easy task. In an era of shrinking budgets, one of the biggest challenges in government today is getting more out of data for better decision making, improved program evaluation and system-wide waste reduction.
Nowhere is that challenge more evident than in the arena of criminal justice. That's why each month an average of 13 million criminal records are analyzed by Louisiana's Commission on Law Enforcement in order to determine the impact of policy changes that affect more than 165,000 offenders and 275,000 reported indexed crimes in the state each year. The Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement serves the governor and legislature and responds to requests for information from citizens, the media and government agencies. It is responsible for collecting data on crimes and arrests from 374 law enforcement agencies around the state including those figures in its Uniform Crime Report for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
To manage large databases, many law enforcement agencies rely on large mainframes. But as the revolution in computer hardware and software begins to deliver alternatives, an increasing number of agencies are taking advantage of advances in desktop computers.
In Louisiana, the Commission on Law Enforcement moved to the desktop for data analysis, graphing and reporting using software from SPSS Inc. "We use PASW Statistics to perform actuarial analysis and statistical studies," said Carle L. Jackson, State Policy Advisor for Criminal Justice at the Commission. "For instance, we use PASW Statistics data analysis software to help forecast crime rates and prison capacity. This helps us determine the number of jail cells for the future. We also use it to analyze the success of the many programs the Commission on Law Enforcement implements and to ensure that statistical data about each crime is collected. We need the flexibility in report-generating capabilities because the data are utilized by many people for many reasons," said Jackson.
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The Department of Corrections (DOC), headquartered in Baton Rouge, maintains a database of about 147,000 cases on a mainframe running a relational database management system (RDBMS). Recently, the DOC was asked to compile a report on the average sentence length for all offenses committed in the state in the past year. Analyzing a database of this size often requires programmers to write computer code to search the files to find the necessary information. In this case, it was information on the type of crime, date of offense, and sentence length that was important.
The DOC, which frequently receives these requests, estimated 48 hours of mainframe programming time with RDBMS to retrieve the proper statistics. Running the same analysis on PASW Statistics, the Commission on Law Enforcement was able to shorten that time considerably. A job that would have required 48 hours of mainframe programming time was accomplished in less than 30 minutes using PASW Statistics.
The fast turnaround impressed the programmers at DOC who were planning to work through the weekend to complete the same report.
The move to the desktop at the Commission was prompted in part by interfacing with so many other government agencies that each have their own requests and varieties of computer file formats. "The Commission on Law Enforcement is responsible for many ad hoc analyses, and we require software that enables us to read the many types of data files we receive from internal and external sources. We need flexibility and a range of programs that can be easily applied to a variety of data files for a variety of reports," said Jones.
New files are added hourly to the computer criminal history database, which is maintained by the Department of Corrections and aptly named CAJUN (Criminal Adult and Juvenile Unified Network). Information is gathered by 200 parole officers and other personnel in the court system monitoring ex-offenders around the state and entered into CAJUN. The Commission on Law Enforcement then taps into CAJUN using a dedicated lease line and pulls down a flat ASCII file to PASW Statistics for analysis and reporting.
"PASW Statistics gives us multiple output windows so we can see our data alongside our results. And with the Data Editor, analyzing and querying the data before running a procedure helps generate the reports we need," said Jones.
The Commission uses a variety of statistical procedures for analysis and reports. Crime statistics are generated for legislators and judges who are reviewing sentencing guidelines. The Frequency command in PASW Statistics helps identify trends in criminal activity important to the Uniform Crime Report and recidivist studies. Descriptive statistics are used to see the data quickly before producing reports and to plan other analytical reports.
In the past year, the Louisiana state legislature requested more than 200 policy impact statements, requiring the Commission to analyze more than 156 million records containing some 15.25 billion data points. As Louisiana moves ahead with implementing a new, federally-mandated, statewide information network called the Louisiana Incident-Based Reporting System, Jackson says his reliance on PASW Statistics for more complete tracking of criminal activity will increase significantly.
Jackson also discussed the impact of current crime prevention programs. "Criminal justice is an information-driven activity," he said. Improving data management and automation at the municipal level is another area of interest. Using PASW Statistics, Jackson plans to implement the same tracking program statewide that two years ago demonstrated a major case backlog in the Louisiana criminal justice system.
By using PASW Statistics, the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement was able to perform sophisticated and detailed analyses to keep state and federal agencies well informed. Through the continued analysis and emphasis on quality data collection and reporting, the Commission hopes to translate improvements in information technology to crime prevention programs that keep the streets safe in communities throughout the state.
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