Welcome to the Maryland Justice Analysis Center (MJAC). The MJAC began operating in 1985 under the direction of Dr. Charles Wellford as one of the state level Statistical Analysis Centers coordinated by the Justice Research and Statistics Association. Since its creation, the MJAC has worked with State criminal justice agencies to coordinate and analyze criminal and juvenile statistics.

The MJAC continues to play an important role in the justice system within the State of Maryland. During the past year, our primary activity has been in support of a state appointed commission to study criminal sentencing and to recommend changes in our sentencing system. The Maryland Justice Analysis Center has completed a comprehensive analysis of sentencing practices in the State, and conducted a survey of state residents concerning their attitudes towards and understanding of sentencing practices in the State. The Maryland Justice Analysis Center will continue to play an important role in the commission's consideration of these data and the development of a final set of recommendations for the Governor and the General Assembly.

In addition, the MJAC has continued to provide statistical advice to a wide range of justice agencies, including the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, and local correctional and police agencies. This is an ongoing effort and involves a variety of activities during the past year.

The MJAC created a web site for the Maryland Criminal Sentencing Policy Commission. This web site has provided a useful outlet for the particular set of functions in our state. The MJAC, currently seeks to created a new web site that will incorporate uniform crime report data, sentencing data, and correctional data that are public domain data that will be available for analysis. We expect to provide summary results for each of these by incorporating reports that are routinely done by agencies of the Maryland State Police, the judiciary, and the correctional system into the web site. Manuals that describe the data sources will be provided so that interested individuals may make greater use of the data if they choose to conduct their own analyses.

Over the past year, the MJAC has analyzed the factors affecting the homicide clearance rate in several U.S. cities. The data collected include over 250 characteristics for almost 800 homicide cases. Our analyses have indicated several statistically significant relationships between many of the offender, victim, and police related factors. We expect that these results will assist police departments in how to organize homicide investigations to maximize their abilty to achieve clearance rates.

The MJAC welcomes comments about any current or past projects. We will attempt to respond to all requests in a timely fashion.