The United States lacks a national integrated criminal justice data repository that can track individuals across multiple stages of the criminal justice system and integrate with current social and economic data resources. This proposal seeks to address this gap is data infrastructure through continuing developing of the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS). The Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS) is a new integrated data repository that collects longitudinal electronic records from police, sheriffs, courts, and correctional agencies and harmonizes these records to track a criminal episode across multiple stages of the justice system. In this project, we will continue refinement of the data platform, conduct original research on a range of topics that exemplify the comparative strengths of CJARS, and engage in outreach activities to build an active user base of the platform.
