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Crime Research Group unveils Act 40 interactive data portal; committee urged not to rush policy changes
Summary
The Crime Research Group presented an interactive Act 40 report covering 2019–2023 data on arrests, bail, detention lengths, returns and restorative justice programs. Presenters cautioned committees about data limits and recommended using the portal as a shared baseline for policy discussion.
Monica Weber and Dr. Robin Joy of the Crime Research Group demonstrated an interactive Act 40 report and dashboard to the Joint Justice interim committee, saying the publicly posted portal compiles multiple agency extracts and is designed to inform legislative oversight and policymaking.
Weber introduced the portal and PDF summary, noting that the report draws on data from several agencies and that the Department of Corrections provided a large portion of the dataset. Dr. Robin Joy highlighted the date ranges (2019 through the FY2023/24 period in most datasets), emphasized pandemic effects on trends and cautioned that some judiciary fields were late or incomplete in the initial release.
Demonstrators walked the committee through several dashboards: NIBRS crime categories and clearance rates, Odyssey bail amounts, DOC detention lengths and a novel returns analysis showing most people returned once or twice during the study window. On caution about interpretation, Dr. Joy told the committee: “Please don’t make any public policy right now off of these data,” noting some extracts were incomplete and additional validation was ongoing.
The portal also maps restorative justice programs by funder, location and outcomes. Presenters showed program participation and success rates by age and race and provided a funding breakdown in which, in one chart, $317,000 represented roughly 11% of a $3,000,000 DOC program total (chart metadata).
Monica Weber said the project was initially funded by a Bureau of Justice Statistics grant and DOC seed funding; future editions of the Act 40 report are planned but depend on grant cycles and additional data access (for example, Department of Labor records). Committee members asked how to convert the report’s findings into practical policy recommendations; presenters said the report is intended to provide a common baseline and that targeted follow‑up research or staff work will be needed to convert data into action.
Presenters offered to meet with committees and provide deeper dives on individual reports; the Crime Research Group also pointed committee members to contact links embedded directly on each report page for follow‑up.
