Anyone who needs to gather and analyze data concerning various jail-related issues will find this manual useful. This document provides guidance on how information can fuel policy decision making. Chapters comprising this guide are: introduction; good management requires good information; information that should be collected; preparing for the data collection; how to locate and capture information; how to put it all together; how to analyze information; how to interpret information; sharing information with others; and getting the most from your information system. Appendixes include: a glossary of statistical terms for non-statisticians; annotated bibliography; manual data collection procedures and sample forms; inmate profile data collection; incident data code book sample; transport data collection; tables for determining sample size; simple random sampling; calculating the standard deviation; calculating Chi Square; and manual data display.
