IDS’s ability to make data-driven decisions to guide its planning and assess its past decisions is an agency success story. The Systems Evaluation Project (“SEP”) is an ongoing IDS project to measure indigent defense system performance at the county, district, and statewide levels. The long-term goal of SEP is to enhance IDS’s ability to evaluate the programs that provide indigent defense services across the state, from public defender offices, to private rostered attorney systems, to attorney contractual agreements. SEP’s goal is to provide empirical evidence and data to identify best practices and systemic barriers to providing quality services, inform policy decisions, and propel change where needed. SEP has developed Key Performance indicators (KPIs) for adult criminal and juvenile delinquency work, and is currently finishing the development of KPIs for parent representation.
IDS’s research department maintains an archive of reports generated to guide the IDS Commission and staff in evaluating services provided and to identify ways to improve quality, increase efficiency, and control costs.
For questions about IDS research capabilities, or to access archived reports, please contact our research director Margaret Gressens at Margaret.A.Gressens@nccourts.org.