Justice Data Lab Joint winners of the RSS 2014 Excellence in Official Statistics Award RSS Professional Statisticians' Forum Meeting Georgina Eaton & Tillie.

Justice Data LabJoint winners of the RSS 2014 Excellence in Official Statistics Award

RSS Professional Statisticians' Forum Meeting

Georgina Eaton & Tillie Paul, Ministry of Justice

25th March 2015

What will be covered

• Aims and history of the Justice Data Lab

• How does the Justice Data Lab work?

• Key outcomes

• Developments

• Lessons learnt

Aim of the Justice Data Lab

Launched in April 2013

..to improve the evidence base on successful rehabilitation..

..by giving organisations working with offenders secure and legal access to aggregate re-offending data

..enabling them to better assess the impact of their work on re-offending

Why do we have the Justice Data Lab?

In 2012 we identified that charitable organisations in particular found it difficult to access re-offending data on their clients…

… this meant that they could not understand how effective their services were at rehabilitating offenders…

… and they were therefore unable to understand how their services could be improved, or have the evidence for further funding

It soon became clear that there was intense interest in this initiative from both public and private sector organisations too

Project timeline

2013 2014

April 2013:

One year pilot goes live

Justice Data Lab Pilot

December 2012: Announcement that Justice Data Lab would be piloted

October 2013:

First publication of Justice Data Lab products

January 2012:

Ministerial Approval to look into the feasibility of the Justice Data Lab

2012: Feasibility

Spring 2014:

Pilot extended for further year and announcement of improvements to the service

December 2011:

NPC approach MoJ about Data Lab idea

2012

How does the Justice Data Lab work?

Individual level data sent securely to MoJ

Provider organisation

MoJ

Analysis and Matching

Aggregate data return

What is provided to Justice Data Lab users?

• One year re-offending rate

• Frequency of re-offending

• Time to re-offending

• Information on characteristics of both the treatment and control groups

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

WYJS Participants (82offender records)

Matched ControlGroup (41,403 offender

records)

On

e ye

ar p

rove

n r

e-o

ffen

din

g r

ate

The best estimates for the one year proven re-offending rate for offenders who received an intervention from WYJS, and a matched

control group.

Key outcomes

Of the 123 reports published so far:

• 28 reports indicated statistically significant reductions in re-offending on the one year proven re-offending rate

• 88 reports indicated insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion about the effect on the one year proven re-offending rate

• Of these 88, 11 reports detail statistically significant reductions in the frequency of re-offending

• 7 reports indicated a statistically significant increase in re-offending on the one year proven re-offending rate

14

2

5

82

1

8

1

7

1

2

4

0

4

19

0

0

0

0

0

1

3

0

0

4

0

0

0

0

0

0

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Accommodation

Arts

Education / Learning

Employment

Problem Solving

Mentoring

Health and Wellbeing

Relationship Building

Restorative Justice

Youth Interventions

Number of Published Requests

Inte

rven

tion

Typ

eJustice Data Lab results by intervention type, published to date (the effect on the one

year proven re-offending rate)

Statistically significant increases Statistically significant decreases Total number of published findings

Justice Data Lab results by sector type, published to date (the effect on the one year proven re-offending rate)

7

22

32

27

1

6

10

11

4

3

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Educational Institution Private Public Voluntary Community SectorSector Type

Num

ber o

f Pub

lishe

d R

eque

sts

Inconclusive Result Significant Decrease in Re-Offending Significant Increase in Re-Offending

Developments from Spring 2014

• Providing greater detail on the matching process within reports

• Account for regional data and prison establishments when matching the treatment and control groups

• Within a request, giving the re-offending outcomes by different demographic profiles where possible

• An assessment of the statistical power within each published request

• Further re-offending measures e.g Frequency of re-offending, time to re-offending

Developments from Spring 2014

• Improving the Data Upload Template

• Communicating with customers on a more regular basis

• Keeping our underlying data up to date

• More efficient processing of a request

• Improving monthly Official Statistics publications

Developments in Progress

• Providing additional information on the re-offending outcomes, such as severity of re-offending

• Enhancing understanding of the criminogenic needs of individuals – through the use of Offender Assessment (OASys) data

• Understanding more about individuals that are not matched in an analysis

• Official Statistics publication review

• Supporting other government departments on potential Data Labs

Lessons Learnt• Having internal and external support

• Availability and quality of internal and external data

• Complications can easily arise

• Communicating statistical techniques and results to non-statisticians

• Explaining transparency to customers

• Encouraging feedback

• Continual development work

• Time and resource

• Promoting the service and engaging with users

Contact Details

Email: [email protected]

Accessing the Justice Data Lab service:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/justice-data-lab

Published reports:www.gov.uk/government/collections/justice-data-lab-pilot-statistics