The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) was created in 1981 as a division of Statistics Canada. The CCJS is the focal point of a federal-provincial-territorial partnership for the collection of information on the nature and extent of crime and the administration of civil and criminal justice in Canada. This partnership, known as the "National Justice Statistics Initiative", has become the international model of success on how to develop, implement and manage an effective national justice statistics program.

The Challenge – Fast, Accessible Data

The challenge the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) faced was to find a better way to communicate with their clients.

CCJS decided to create an extranet solution to a closed user group of 700 authorized users across Canada. The extranet site would include:

• Agendas for upcoming meetings, minutes of previous meetings, and other information items related to the activities of the Initiative.
• Electronic versions of CCJS products, both current and historical.
• Reference documents related to the Initiative, such as National Data Requirements and Survey descriptions.

When the extranet project began, CCJS recognized another problem - there was a real requirement for their clients to have online access to data as well. CCJS had traditionally addressed this need through their Information and Client Services unit, but the limits of business hours and resource requirements to address the requests for information were causing unacceptable delays in service delivery. CCJS needed a way for their clients to access business data on an extended basis.

The Solution – Beyond 20/20

CCJS chose the Beyond 20/20 solution to give their clients the ability to view, manipulate, and understand their data. Having the data available on their Web site with the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server gives their clients the information they need, to support their initiatives in many areas -police, courts, corrections, victims, and many others.

Most of the CCJS clients who need the data are research or policy analysts, and they find Beyond 20/20 answers all their requirements. It is easy to use, with no training required. Now CCJS clients have a better, more useful way to access data, both for management information purposes and for policy and program evaluation. This is the solution CCJS was looking for.

Sarah Lynch, (Research Analyst - Performance Measurement and Reporting, Alberta Justice and Alberta Solicitor General) who does environmental scanning and analysis, uses Beyond 20/20 for all her tasks. Before Beyond 20/20 it was a long process to find what she was looking for, and more often than not she would end up with too much information. Sarah says, "Beyond 20/20 is user friendly, and it's very fast to get to the information you're looking for. I took a course to learn about the advanced features, but I was able to use Beyond 20/20 without a course right from the beginning."

Jeanette Gorzkowski, (Statistician, Corporate Research and Evaluation Unit, Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General and Ministry of Correctional Services) receives requests from Ontario's three justice ministries, as well as members of the public, for justice related information. She says, "Before Beyond 20/20 I had to go through a long procedure that could take several days before I got the information I wanted. Beyond 20/20 saves time and makes the information readily available."

CCJS is getting a great response from their user community. Within the organizations that are registered to use the extranet, CCJS is seeing an average of 60 logins a day.

Now CCJS is providing clients with tabular reports that match those that were traditionally found in printed publications. This allows the client to have an interactive view of the data immediately upon its release.

The availability of the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server on a 7/24 basis is an important feature for CCJS. Now they can provide a full business day of core services to clients outside the Eastern time zone.

Greg Clarke, Statistics Canada's Acting Assistant Director of the Technical Assistance Directorate, uses Beyond 20/20 for the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Greg says, "Beyond 20/20 is an effective tool for us to provide service to our clients. It's easy to use and it provides useful information quickly, even for a novice user. Beyond 20/20's Web Data Server is an invaluable tool for us and our clients."

To find out more about Beyond 20/20, the data dissemination experts, who accelerate the delivery of cost effective and powerful solutions used successfully by the leading data information providers worldwide, please contact us at sales@beyond2020.com.