User Guide

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This page provides information about how to use and interpret the dashboard and its insights.

About the Data

The Polk County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council has developed a Polk County Jail Population Dashboard to allow users to explore various aspects of the Jail population. The dashboard extracts data from the inmate Jail Management System (JMS) which is the data repository used to store information about the individuals booked and released in its facility.

The dashboard provides a snapshot view covering the previous month’s activities; along with an historical view of the yearly total population over the past three years. The charts and graphs contained within the dashboard allow the user to view various metrics such as race, gender, age, custody status, top charge groups, current status, and length of stay. The Jail Population Dashboard represents the best understanding of who is incarcerated and why in a particular month. The data extraction occurs at the end of each month at which time the data is refreshed. Please note that data entry errors entered into the JMS can result in the reported data being incorrect.

Current Default Display

Represents the latest full month of information. So if the current calendar month is October, the data shown on the dashboard is from the previous month, in this case September, unless marked otherwise on a specific view, chart, table, or other element of a dashboard section.