Project Name:
Modeling the Criminal Case Process with State and Local Data
Contractor: RTI International
Lessons Learned
Technical Feasibility Is Not the Primary Constraint
Discussions with BJS and NSF confirmed a shared understanding that PPRL techniques are technically mature and reliable. The central question for this project is not whether PPRL works algorithmically, but whether criminal justice agencies have the operational capacity, infrastructure, and institutional readiness to implement these methods.
Impact on Project
This insight shifted the project’s emphasis away from validating technical performance in ideal conditions toward understanding implementation feasibility in realistic agency environments.
Administrative and Governance Processes Shape Timelines and Outcomes
Negotiating data-use agreements, legal review, IRB approval, and internal agency sign-off were identified as major drivers of timelines. These processes vary widely across jurisdictions and can delay or prevent execution even when technical capacity exists.
Impact on Project
Administrative and governance processes are being systematically documented as analytic findings.
Data Readiness and Identifier Quality
Preliminary assessment of candidate datasets suggests substantial heterogeneity in identifier availability, formatting, consistency, and documentation across criminal justice agencies. Variability in identifier persistence over time, cross-system alignment, and governance practices potentially introduces uncertainty into linkage planning that cannot be resolved through privacy-preserving methods alone. These observations reinforce the importance of early data readiness assessments to determine whether PPRL is appropriate, and to identify cases where improvements in data management or documentation would be required prior to any linkage effort.
Impact on Project
Early data readiness assessment has been incorporated into engagement and site vetting activities.
Constraints and Non-Execution Are Informative Outcomes
As the project advances into agency engagement, it is increasingly clear that instances in which data acquisition or linkage cannot proceed—due to administrative delays, governance constraints, limited infrastructure, or data limitations—are themselves informative implementation outcomes. Documenting these non-execution pathways provides critical insight into the conditions under which privacy-preserving record linkage is unlikely to be feasible, directly supporting the government’s interest in understanding practical adoption constraints rather than technical performance alone.
Impact on Project
The project now treats stalled or incomplete engagements as analytic cases to be documented. This insight supports the government’s interest in understanding the practical conditions under which privacy-preserving technologies add value, rather than assuming uniform applicability across criminal justice systems.
Clear Communication Enables Trust and Engagement
As the project moves into active agency engagement, it is clear that structured outreach materials—such as “What to Expect” briefs, readiness assessments, and clear descriptions of data protections—will be essential for establishing trust and facilitating productive conversations with potential partners. Agencies vary widely in their familiarity with privacy-preserving technologies, and early, transparent communication about project goals, expectations, and burdens is likely to shape both willingness to participate and the efficiency of subsequent engagement.
Impact on Project
Development of engagement materials has been prioritized as core project infrastructure. Potential documents needed to assist criminal justice agencies to implement PPRL include:
- Agency Engagement Roadmap for Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage
A step-by-step roadmap describing how criminal justice agencies can progress from initial interest to potential implementation of PPRL. The roadmap will outline key phases (e.g., exploratory discussions, data readiness assessment, governance review, technical preparation), typical decision points, and common challenges observed during engagement.
- “What to Expect” Guide for Participating Agencies
A plain-language document describing project goals, roles and responsibilities, data protections, anticipated staff time commitments, and the types of information agencies may be asked to provide. This document is intended to support informed decision-making by agencies considering participation.
- Agency Readiness and Capacity Assessment Tool
A structured assessment instrument to help agencies and researchers evaluate readiness for privacy-preserving linkage. Topics will include data systems, identifier quality, staffing capacity, governance structures, and secure computing environments.
- Data and Identifier Inventory Template
A standardized worksheet for documenting available datasets, identifier fields, data quality issues, and documentation gaps. This tool will support early feasibility assessment and help determine whether PPRL is appropriate for a given agency context.
- Governance and Approval Pathway Checklist
A checklist identifying common legal, administrative, and institutional approvals required for data sharing and linkage projects. The checklist will document typical sequencing, dependencies, and anticipated timelines.
- Implementation Barriers and Lessons Log
A structured log for documenting challenges encountered during engagement, including delays, constraints, and non-execution pathways. This document will serve as a key input into lessons learned and roadmap development.
- During the January–March 2026 quarter, the MCCP project conducted a systematic assessment of county-level data from the National Pretrial Reporting Program (NPRP) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to understand which counties have the data infrastructure needed to support Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage (PPRL). This work confirmed that counties vary widely in how well their data systems are positioned for record linkage, using privacy enhancing technologies. A key takeaway is that “data readiness” cannot be assumed; it should be assessed systematically and treated as a prerequisite to any privacy-preserving data integration effort.
- Coordination with the Integrated Justice Information Systems (IJIS) Institute (an independent organization formed to undertake many activities that an ad-hoc group could not participate in because of its lack of a legal structure) to arrange facilitated information-sharing sessions with criminal justice data asset holders has reinforced a consistent lesson that trust-building is as important as technical preparation. The project developed structured session materials, including discussion guides and data readiness prompts, designed to make agency conversations more productive and to document what agencies need to know before they can meaningfully participate in data linkage efforts.
- A persistent finding across this quarter is that the barriers to privacy-preserving record linkage in criminal justice settings are institutional, administrative, and technical. Legal agreements, internal approval processes, and governance structures consistently shape whether and how quickly data sharing can proceed, independent of whether the underlying technology is sound. The project has responded by documenting these processes as substantive findings.
- A future National Secure Data Service should aim to help support the integration of data from different agencies, jurisdictions, and systems. The MCCP project’s county classification framework, developed by assessing how well NPRP and NIBRS data align across nearly 200 counties, offers a replicable model for evaluating data readiness before attempting cross-agency linkage. An NSDS could adapt this approach to assess readiness for data integration w, flagging gaps in identifier quality, data completeness, and governance capacity that would need to be addressed first.
- Linking data across criminal justice agencies will need a robust engagement infrastructure, including clear guidance for participating agencies, standardized materials explaining what data sharing entails, and established processes for documenting agency capacity and constraints. The engagement materials developed for MCCP, including discussion guides, readiness prompts, and data inventory frameworks, could inform the development of standard NSDS onboarding tools for new data contributors.
- The finding that governance and administrative complexity are barriers to data integration has direct implications for how an NSDS could be structured. An effective national secure data service cannot rely solely on technical privacy protections; it also needs clear legal frameworks, streamlined approval pathways, and governance structures that agencies at every level can navigate. The MCCP project is generating documentation of where and why data-sharing processes break down across criminal justice agencies. This evidence base can directly inform the governance design of a future NSDS, helping policymakers anticipate institutional barriers and build in the support structures needed to make broad participation feasible.
- During the April–June 2026 quarter, the MCCP project shifted from assessing data readiness to producing its final deliverable materials, the PPRL technical roadmap and accompanying toolkit. Once lesson learned is that turning technical privacy-preserving record linkage concepts into practitioner-ready guidance is inherently iterative work. Drafts that were clear to the technical team were not always accessible to the criminal justice practitioners who are the intended audience, and several revision cycles were needed to close that gap. A key takeaway is that deliverables meant for operational use should be planned with an inter-disciplinary team rather than a single author.
- Integrating the technical content developed by Datavant into the practitioner-facing roadmap and toolkit surfaced a recurring lesson about coordinating across teams with different expertise. Aligning Datavant’s technical sections with the broader materials took effort to ensure the combined product read as a single coherent resource rather than separate documents. Establishing a shared structure early and revising toward it kept the technical and practitioner-facing content aligned as the drafts developed.
- Feedback from the NSDS team and from a learning session with criminal justice record management system professionals proved essential to refining the materials. Direct input from reviewers and practitioners identified where guidance needed to be clearer or more concrete, reinforcing that materials intended for real-world use benefit from review by their intended audience before they are finalized.
- Coordinating specialized technical content from a partner such as Datavant with practitioner-facing guidance highlights that a national secure data service will often depend on multiple contributors with different expertise. An NSDS would benefit from establishing shared structures and coordination processes early, so that technical and user-facing content can be integrated into coherent, unified resources rather than disconnected documents.
- An NSDS that develops standards, guidance, or tools for contributing agencies should build in mechanisms for both expert and end-user feedback, ensuring that materials are tested against real-world needs.
Disclaimer: America’s DataHub Consortium (ADC), a public-private partnership, implements research opportunities that support the strategic objectives of the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) within the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). These results document research funded through ADC and is being shared to inform interested parties of ongoing activities and to encourage further discussion. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed above do not necessarily reflect the views of NCSES or NSF. Please send questions to [email protected].
