Performance Metrics for Community Corrections

The Board of State and Community Corrections has released its anticipated report designed to help counties, legislators, policymakers, researchers and other interested stakeholders assess how local community corrections systems are functioning. Click here to view more.

“Performance Metrics for Community Corrections,” mandated by the Budget Act of 2014, outlines interrelated metrics that are readily available and measurable. The county-by-county performance metrics address reported crime, arrests, split sentencing, supervision and incarceration. Taken together, these interrelated metrics can provide insight into the functioning of a county’s criminal justice system. The report provides information about current status and changes since mid-2007.

Over the past seven years, as California has shifted toward community-oriented corrections, crime rates have continued a long-term downward trend: incarceration rates are down; and probation departments are supervising different people using methods unique to each county.

This report takes into consideration that local socioeconomic indicators are part of the counties’ unique challenges impacting community corrections systems. To understand how criminal justice policy is working one must also consider the impact of these local conditions on the system.

Having a way to analyze performance will allow policymakers to make informed decisions based on what they desire for their communities. County-by-county performance metrics will be available on the BSCC’s website in March 2015.

To view the full document, click here. This document was updated on Feb. 26, 2015 to correct non-substantive editing errors.

In addition to the Metrics report and county-by-county performance metrics, the BSCC has created a Performance Metrics for Community Corrections dashboard. This dashboard is a visual representation of the data presented in the Metrics report and the county-by county-data sets and tables. Each tab on the dashboard has a distinct area graph or time-series graph that uses county, region and date filters to customize the graphs. Click here to view more.