全球智库信息集成服务系统

• The response rates achieved in our three pilot email surveys of SRTB criminal justice agencies were broadly comparable to those observed in other email-based surveys. They were somewhat lower than response rates reported by high-profile panel surveys of individuals and households (such as the RAND American Life Panel) and somewhat lower than some panel surveys of professionals and organizations (such as the RAND Educator Panels).
• The deployment of a web-based survey demonstrated that it was possible to use a technological solution that could automate numerous tasks and improve privacy arrangements without any concomitant losses in respondent engagement.
• The test of three methods to recruit panel participants yielded very poor results. The most successful method, email, resulted in a response rate of 7 percent, with even lower rates achieved via mail and phone. These low values capture only the percentage of respondents who agreed to join the panel, without any guarantee that they would respond to any subsequent panel surveys. To address these challenges, appropriate incentives for respondents may merit exploration.
• Recruitment activities for any future SRTB panel must either pursue a probability sampling strategy or not. The option of probability sampling is hampered by the fact that there are currently no readily available sampling frames for small, rural, and border courts and community corrections agencies.

Given the potential for technology to improve the work and outcomes of small, rural, tribal, and border (SRTB) criminal justice agencies, the collection of information on how technology is currently used in the field would enable a better understanding of how best to provide support to these agencies. This report describes a feasibility study conducted by the Justice Innovation Center (JIC) to establish a survey panel of SRTB criminal justice agency representatives. The JIC survey panel would send out a short questionnaire each month to representatives to collect rapid feedback about what technology is being used in the field, how and why it was selected, the challenges and barriers departments face when using it, and where it is viewed as effective.

Such a panel would enable researchers and policymakers to rapidly solicit practitioners' views on various topics of interest and thus collect up-to-date information on priorities and challenges in the field.

To determine whether this idea is feasible, the JIC conducted several tasks across multiple phases. First, we used a convenience sample of agencies that we had interviewed for a previous assessment of SRTB technology needs to conduct a few months of surveys. Next, we developed and tested an online platform to collect and analyze data. Finally, we conducted an experiment to compare different recruitment methods to inform our future panel enrollment efforts. This report summarizes each of these research activities and provides an assessment of future directions for a survey panel.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Defining Our Target Population

• Chapter Three

  Email Survey of a Convenience Sample

• Chapter Four

  Web-Based Survey of a Convenience Sample

• Chapter Five

  Test of Varied Recruitment Methods

• Chapter Six

  Future Directions

• Appendix A

  Strategies Used to Improve Response Rates in National Panel Surveys

• Appendix B

  Results from the Email and Web-Based Surveys