Idaho Statistical Analysis Center

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ISAC Awarded Grant to Study School Resource Officers; Wins Two National Publication Awards
September 12, 2023

ISAC has been awarded a research grant from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to study the prevalence and effectiveness of school resource officers (SROs) in Idaho, as well as two Douglas Yearwood National Publication Awards from the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA; now the Justice Information Resource Network).

Study of School Resource Officers

The grant will fund a 1-year ISAC research project that will be carried out in partnership with a state-level working group comprised of the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections, the Idaho State Department of Education, and the Idaho Office of Drug Policy. ISAC plans to collect and analyze data on schools with and without access to an SRO to determine SRO impacts on school safety, juvenile offenses and disciplinary actions, and the role of SROs on campus. This project will provide stakeholders with an in-depth look at the prevalence and effect of SROs around Idaho, and will attempt to discern best practices for leveraging SROs to enhance school security and decrease juvenile crime and delinquency while increasing academic performance. The expected publication date of the final report is fall 2024.

The grant was awarded under BJS’s State Justice Statistics (SJS) program, a competitive federal research grant aimed at enhancing states’ capacity to develop and carry out innovative and timely justice system research projects. Only state Statistical Analysis Centers are eligible for funding under the SJS program, positioning ISAC as the only entity in Idaho eligible for this funding. 2023 marks the seventh straight year ISAC has earned an SJS award; ISAC has received SJS awards 23 of the last 24 years. Historically, the SJS program funds between 30 and 40 research proposals per year.

Douglas Yearwood National Publication Awards

ISAC has been awarded two 2023 Douglas Yearwood National Publication Awards from the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA; now the Justice Information Resource Network). JRSA awards four Yearwood Awards annually in recognition of outstanding communication of research by Statistical Analysis Centers (SACs). The awards are broken into two divisions based on SAC staff size (small SACs have 1-4 employees; large SACs have 5 or more employees), and two awards are made in each division (one for statistical/management reports, and one for policy/research reports).

ISAC swept the Small SAC division. Crime Victimization in Idaho: An Overview of Available Data won for Best Statistical/Management Report by a Small SAC, while Offending Patterns Among Domestic Violence Offenders in Idaho won for Best Research/Policy Report by a Small SAC. As part of the award ceremony, ISAC made short presentations on each of these reports to a national audience at the 2023 Symposium on Justice Information Technology, Policy, Research, and Practice hosted by SEARCH, JRSA, and the National Criminal Justice Association held during the last week of July 2023 in Long Beach, CA.

The awards are the fifth and sixth Yearwood Awards ISAC has won since the award was created in 1986, and the first time that ISAC has swept the Small SAC division.

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ISAC Releases New Data Dashboard, Updates Crime in Idaho Data Dashboard
July 7, 2023

ISAC is pleased to announce the release of one new data dashboard on victimization in Idaho, as well as the annual update to the Crime in Idaho Data Dashboard.

Idaho Crime Victim Services Dashboard

ISAC and the Idaho Council on Domestic Violence and Victim Assistance (ICDVVA) have collaborated to compile, analyze, and visualize multiple sources of data that focus on the experience of crime victims in Idaho’s justice system. It is intended to be a resource for state and local policymakers, victim service agencies and program managers, and the general public to better understand the full scope of crime and victimization in the state. The dashboard currently includes data on community demographics, crime victims who reported their victimization to law enforcement, and crime victims served by a federally funded victim service program in Idaho.

Some highlights from the Idaho Crime Victim Services Dashboard:

• The number of victims served by federally funded victim service programs rose 88% between 2017 and 2021 (from 29,503 to 55,557). Similarly, the amount of federal funding awarded to these programs rose 94% in that same span (from $8.5 million to $16.5 million).
• The rate of victims served by federally funded victim service programs is much higher than the rate reporting to law enforcement. In 2021, the rate of sexual assault victims who received federally funded victim services (5.6 victims served per 1,000 residents) was 4.4 times higher than the rate reporting to law enforcement (1.3). For intimate partner violence victims, that rate is 5.2 times higher (16.6 victims served per 1,000 residents, compared to 3.2 reporting to law enforcement).
• Based on regional need scores calculated by ISAC, the Magic Valley consistently ranked as the area of the state most in need of victim services based on community demographics and reported crimes. Public Health District (PHD) 5, which is made up of eight counties in south-central Idaho and includes Twin Falls County, had the highest overall need score of the seven PHDs in 2021, and had the highest need scores in the Child Victims and Sexual Assault categories. However, in 2021 PHD 5 ranked 5th in grant funding distributed to the district.

Explore more data on victimization and victim services here.

Crime in Idaho Data Dashboard

Today ISAC released its annual update to the Crime in Idaho Data Dashboard. The dashboard displays data collected from state and local law enforcement agencies on reported crime in Idaho since 2005. The update includes all 2022 data for existing sections of the dashboard.

Some state-level highlights from this year’s updates:

• In 2022, the total offense rate dropped 4.3% from 2021 to 55.2 offenses per 1,000 residents. This is 43% lower than the 2005 rate (97.4), and the lowest point in that time span.
• The long-term drop in the offense rate was driven by large decreases in the rates of crimes against persons (down 32% since 2005), crimes against property (down 59%), and group B offenses (these include DUI, disorderly conduct, loitering, and other less serious offenses; down 56%).
• The only group of offenses that saw a rate increase since 2005 was crimes against society (up 47%). This increase was driven by an increase in the rate of drug offenses (up 53%). In 2022, drug offenses accounted for nearly a quarter (24.5%) of all offenses recorded that year, up from 9% in 2005.
• Although the rates of all crime categories was lower in 2022 than in 2021, the raw number of offenses for all crime types actually increased. The number of crimes against persons increased 6.8%, the number of crimes against property increased 0.7%, the number of crimes against society increased 3.0%, and the number of group B offenses increased 3.7%. This means that the declines in crime rates noted above are purely due to population growth that outpaced the increase in the number of crimes committed in 2022.

Additional data on county-level rates, demographics, and more can be viewed on the dashboard.

The Crime in Idaho Data Dashboard, which is still under construction, allows users to explore much of the data housed in the Idaho Incident-Based Reporting System, Idaho’s vast repository of law enforcement data on criminal incidents that occur within Idaho and the same data set that drives the annual Crime in Idaho report series. Agency, county, and state data from between 2005 and 2022 can be visualized in one place, allowing for highly customizable views and quick trend analysis. The dashboard currently contains sections pertaining to crimes against persons, crimes against property, and drug/alcohol-related arrests, intimate partner violence, and sex offenses, with additional sections to follow as they are built. Data updates are provided annually on or around July 1st. This project is a collaborative effort between ISAC and the Idaho Uniform Crime Reporting Program, both of which are components of the Idaho State Police.

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ISAC Releases Report on Crime During COVID-19
May 31, 2023

ISAC is pleased to announce the release of a new research report on state-level crime trends in Idaho during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report, Crime in Idaho During COVID-19: Time Series Analysis of Data from the Idaho Incident-Based Reporting System, utilizes interrupted time series analysis to identify changes in the frequency of reported crime during the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic when Idaho’s stay-at-home public health order was in effect. During that six-week period in March and April 2020, total crime and drug/alcohol crime was significantly lower than normal. The total number of criminal offenses during the stay-at-home order in 2020 was 28% lower than during the same period in 2019. However, that number rebounded to a normal level during the same six-week period in 2021, increasing 34% from the 2020 count. For drug/alcohol crime, the drop in 2020 was 45%, followed by a 97% increase in 2021. Counts of four other crime types (robbery, burglary, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence) did not experience significant changes during the stay-at-home order.

Similarly, total reported crime during the stay-at-home order decreased significantly in mostly urban and mostly rural counties (28% and 34% respectively), and subsequently rebounded to normal levels in the same six-week period in 2021. Although completely rural counties also experienced a 28% drop in crime during the same period in 2020, the drop was not statistically significant.

The results of this study provide valuable context for recent crime trends, particularly the disconnect between the sustained long-term decrease in total reported crime across the state that has continued for nearly 20 years and the public perception that crime spiked after the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining crime data on a weekly basis, as opposed to the more common annual analyses, illuminated effects of public policy on crime trends that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. These results also serve as a reminder that 2020 was not a normal year even in the criminal justice system, and comparisons between 2020 and any other year of data should be made with caution. Additionally, this study is one of the first in the nation to analyze data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS; the nation’s flagship source for data on reported crimes) using interrupted time series analysis to explore how crime patterns at the state level change in response to a change in state policies. The success of this approach provides researchers with a new tool that can be used to identify and explain the impact of policy changes on crime trends in a wide range of contexts.

The full report is available online in the ISAC Publication Library.

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ISAC Updates STOP Accomplishments Dashboard
April 4, 2023

ISAC is pleased to announce the release of the annual update to its STOP Accomplishments dashboard. The update includes data on activities and victim services during calendar year 2022 that were funded through Idaho’s STOP program.

Administered on the state level by the Planning, Grants & Research (PGR) Department of the Idaho State Police (ISP), the STOP (Services, Training, Officers, and Prosecutors) program is a federal pass-through grant program authorized by the U.S. Congress as part of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). STOP funds originate in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women and are passed through to local agencies to support communities in their efforts to develop and strengthen effective criminal justice strategies to address domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence and develop and enhance victim services in cases involving these crimes.

Some highlights from 2022:

• A total of 14 agencies across 9 counties and 5 ISP districts reported STOP-funded activities to PGR.
• STOP funding paid for over 35,000 hours of staff time to work with victims/survivors of VAWA crimes (sexual assault, domestic/dating violence, and stalking), enabled 167 community-focused educational events on VAWA crimes, and funded 59 professional development trainings for 681 law enforcement officers, health care workers, court staff, victim advocates, and other justice system professionals who work with victims/survivors of VAWA crimes.
• Agencies using STOP funding to provide direct services to victims/survivors of VAWA crimes served 2,351 victims/survivors, 61% of which were victimized by a current or former intimate partner. The most commonly used STOP-funded services were victim advocacy (provided to 55% of victims/survivors), crisis intervention (43%), and criminal justice system advocacy/court accompaniment (33%).
• Prosecution units funded by the STOP program received 48 cases, 85% of which were accepted for prosecution. Of the cases accepted for prosecution, 57% of cases resulted in a conviction or guilty plea.

See more data from Idaho’s STOP program on ISAC’s STOP Accomplishments dashboard.

Learn more about Idaho’s STOP program on PGR’s STOP VAWA page.

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ISAC Releases One Research Brief, Two Evaluation Reports
November 14, 2022

The Idaho Statistical Analysis Center (ISAC) is pleased to announced the release of one new research brief on the subject of domestic violence, as well as two new evaluation reports on JAG-funded programs.

The research brief Law Enforcement Response to Domestic Violence Post-Clarke Decision presents an analysis of Idaho Incident-Based Reporting System (IIBRS) data on incidents of domestic violence reported to law enforcement between 2017 and 2021. Results indicate that in the 10 quarters after the Idaho Supreme Court issued its decision in State of Idaho v. Clarke in June 2019, there were sizable differences in the outcomes of domestic assault incidents compared to the 10 quarters preceding the Clarke decision. Notably, the percentage of incidents classified as aggravated domestic assaults increased about five percentage points, the percentage of simple domestic assault incidents in which an arrest was made decreased almost 15 percentage points, and the percentage of arrests that were citations (as opposed to physical arrests, when the offender is booked into jail) increased by more than 28 percentage points.

ISAC serves as the Byrne Evaluation Unit for Idaho’s Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) program, which is administered by the Idaho State Police’s Planning, Grants and Research Department. The two evaluation reports examine one current Byrne JAG program and one inactive program.

Reducing the Burden of Fees: An Evaluation of Twin Falls County Adult Misdemeanor Probation’s Substance Abuse Treatment Voucher Program highlights a current Byrne JAG program that, since 2007, has enabled those on adult misdemeanor probation for drug- or alcohol-related convictions to access substance abuse treatment services they would be otherwise unable to afford. Since ISAC began data collection in October 2018, Twin Falls County has used Byrne JAG funding to fund more than 2,600 hours of substance abuse treatment services for nearly 100 clients, and boasts a 66% graduation rate as well as a lower recidivism rate for graduates when compared to other similar probationers who are not enrolled in the program.

Establishing Continuity of Care: A Report on the Terry Reilly Health Systems Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program examined an effort to implement a Mentally Ill Offender Community Transition Program (MIO-CTP) in the Boise area. Although the program is now inactive, the program provided mental health services and referrals to more than 460 clients transitioning out of the state prison system between June 2017 and October 2020, less than a quarter (23%) of which had a verified mental health diagnosis before entering the program. Nearly all clients (94%) were provided with referrals to other services, while 59% obtained at least one service directly through the MIO-CTP. More than a quarter (27%) of clients were successfully discharged from the program, and 3% completed the full program. The remainder of those who were successfully discharged (24%) were transferred to other programs or moved away from the service area.

All three reports are available online in the ISAC Publication Library.

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ISAC Staff

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