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The following is research from Cops and robbers in the digital Age: Improving rates of crime and recidivism through a data-based approach. Please use this to educate yourself more about criminal justice.
Oppotunities for Data-Driven Improvement to lead to Better Results
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How is crime data is collected and organized?
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How is crime data is visualized in interpreted?
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What approches work best, and could they be expanded?
The United States has two statistical programs designed to measure the magnitude, nature, and impact of crime.
First, crime data is collected through law enforcement reports and victim studies. These reports are usually a part of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) Program, administered by the FBI, which collects information on 29 different types of crime reports. This information is frequently processed into data tables that are available to the public or are inputted into visualization programs.
Another program is the National Crime Victimization Survey, which collects information on crimes suffered by individuals or households and statistics about victims, offenders, and crimes in general (Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics).
By relying solely on the reports made by the law enforcement authorities, the bias of the officers filling out the report will be reflected in the data. For example, COMPAS, an AI program used by a Wisconsin court to predict the likelihood that an inmate will reoffend, was biased against black prisoners by incorrectly selecting them to be more inclined to reoffend than white prisoners in the algorithm.
A restorative justice practice is a peace circle.
In a peace circle, the offender, victim, family members, and others sit in a circle formation and talk about their feelings towards the situation.
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A talking piece is used to regulate the conversation and there is a circle keeper who acts as a facilitator of the group and poses questions towards members to get them to open up. The overall purpose is to restore and build relationships that were damaged previously.
Not only in peace circles, but also in restorative justice, it is still important to hold the offender accountable, while looking out for their development towards the future for the community.
Click these icons to access the whole report on a Word or PDF document.
Bibliography
Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, www.ucrdatatool.gov/twomeasures.cfm
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