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A non-partisan non-profit organization working to make criminal justice and public safety policies and practices more effective through innovation, research, and education. |
CRIME PREVENTION Overview | PreventStat | Expanding the DNA Databank | Cyber Crime Resources PreventStat Using Technology to Effectively Measure Crime Prevention Programs The Crime Commission supports the diversion of non-violent offenders toward alternatives to incarceration. Available data strongly suggests that these programs are less expensive and more effective than prison for many offenders, in particular those with substance abuse or mental health issues. Unfortunately, there is very little data on what works best and virtually no systematic studies of individual programs in New York—particularly in the juvenile justice system. While New York City collects statistics regarding youths in the justice system, it does so in a disorganized manner. When data is collected, it is sometimes overlapping—there are databases maintained by the Departments of Correction, Law, and Probation as well as the Administration for Children's Services and the New York Police Department. There is no centralized collection of data that would best inform stakeholders of how well programs work. The Crime Commission is working to develop a new data system—PreventStat—that will aggregate data and measure what is working and what is not working. PreventStat will draw heavily from the successful and nationally modeled system "CompStat," the organization management tool developed by the New York Police Department in 1994 under the direction and supervision of then-Commissioner Bill Bratton. PreventStat will address the underlying reason nobody is performing an on-going, real-time study of the effectiveness of specific treatment programs, both for specific individuals and groups of individuals: stakeholders will be able to access both the immediate and long-term data that can be used to measure short-term and long-term outcomes. The concept behind PreventStat is that criminal justice officials need to monitor the performance of offenders to ensure they comply with the mandates imposed on them. Traditionally this monitoring role has been limited to corporations mandated to institute reforms as an alternative to prosecution in criminal court or to mitigate punishment through the option of corrective programs. However, combining this role with a commitment to expanding the use of treatment programs for non-violent offenders is necessary. By tracking individual offenders' progress in his or her treatment program or intervention, criminal justice officials will learn which interventions are most effective for specific types of offenders and will allow them to appropriately utilize programs that have proven to be effective for an offender's specific offense. Over time, stakeholders will also be able to measure the long-term impact of a given program's effectiveness by monitoring whether specific treatment programs were effective at reducing recidivism. This new analysis will make the entire justice system more effective while saving money and increasing the return on taxpayers' investment. |
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