Research and Data Collection

The El Paso County Criminal Justice Coordination Department relies heavily on data and research to enhance pretrial justice and provide high-quality criminal justice services. Internal data tracking, research, and evaluation projects play a critical role in assessing the effectiveness of CJC initiatives and countywide pretrial efforts. The CJC measures its success through several primary outcomes:

• The use of empirically driven pretrial risk assessments, including evaluating law-abiding behavior and court appearance rates among defendants released during the pretrial period.
• The evaluation of pretrial recidivism and its relationship to the efficient and effective use of the jail.
• The percentage of defendants who remain on release through the end of the pretrial period without a warrant issued due to non-compliance.

The CJC conducts limited research and evaluation internally and also collaborates with external independent researchers. Current research efforts focus on validating the pretrial risk assessment tool for El Paso County and advancing long-term recidivism studies.