The index is designed to provide a framework for analyzing large amounts of data simultaneously, identifying the components of jail management, and evaluate more fully and quickly the effects of various policy decisions. The index was developed through a process in which issues were identified, data collected, and each indicator weighted to construct the overall index. The analysts used the relative correlations of each variable as the basis of their weighting. Of the three categories, staff indicators had the heaviest combined weight, followed by indicators for security and service provision. The base value of the index was the average of all the time periods under study. Two methods were used: calculation of the average value for each indicator for each jail and calculation of the average value for each indicator for all the jails to allow comparisons between jail rankings. While several validity tests were performed, others need to be derived before researchers can feel confident in the index values.