The Criminal Justice Administrative Records System: A next-generation research data platform

Abstract

The Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS), a joint project of the U.S. Census Bureau and the University of Michigan, is a nationally integrated data infrastructure project designed to transform research and policymaking on the United States criminal justice system. At the University of Michigan, CJARS collects longitudinal electronic records from criminal justice agencies and harmonizes these records to track a criminal episode across all stages of the system. At the U.S. Census Bureau, harmonized criminal justice records can be linked anonymously at the person-level with extensive social, demographic, and economic information from national survey and administrative records.