Collecting Data From the Criminal Courts

Abstract

Because court policies and programs must be evaluated, the relationship between researchers and the staff members overseeing court data is an essential part of the process. Past research indicates that researchers commonly believe that their efforts are hampered by court staff members, who, accordingly, often have suspicions about the agendas of researchers. The present study examines an alternative viewpoint—the perspectives of court staff members who oversee the data requests of researchers. Specifically, 30 county-level and 30 state-level court staff members were interviewed about their relations with researchers in the data collection process, and the strategies they believe researchers can use to make the process more efficient. The authors find that staff members do not view their relations with researchers to be as problematic as the researchers perceive. The authors also discovered that there are several approaches that both sides can use to establish a better data collection process.