The Department of Justice Canada (JUS) began a review of the criminal justice system (CJS) in 2015 to support the mandate of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (Office of the Prime Minister, 2015). The performance of the system was a key focus. The State of the Criminal Justice System Framework (the Framework) was developed by JUS as the first performance monitoring framework for Canada’s CJS. The purpose of the Framework is to increase our overall ability to monitor, and therefore understand, how the CJS is doing in terms of achieving its multifaceted objectives.
The Framework currently includes nine broad expected outcomes for the CJS that are measured by 41 national indicators. Performance on these outcomes is monitored through an online interactive Dashboard, and the State of the Criminal Justice System Report. This paper explains the methods used to create the State of the Criminal Justice System performance monitoring Framework, Dashboard, and Report and provides as an overview of the methods planned to update and analyse the framework data in coming years.