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4 Research Operations and Staffing Resources
Pages 105-144

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From page 105...
... , several upswings and downturns in funding, and a shift from support for a predominantly social science research program to one in which the majority of funding is expended on technology-related activities. In an effort to better understand these changes and their ramifications, the committee examined NIJ's research operations and staffing resources.
From page 106...
... For our analysis of research operations, the committee reviewed written OJP guidelines and policies (Office of Justice Programs, 2007c) and also relied heavily on interviews with former and current staff as to how these processes worked in reality and over time.
From page 107...
... The courts and corrections groups were convened less frequently but also assisted in identifying critical research needs.2 Through the years, NIJ staff have also participated heavily in conferences and meetings held by national criminal justice practitioner organizations, such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the American Correctional Association; research organizations, such as the American Society of Criminology and the Justice Research and Statistics Association; and meetings convened by other federal agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NIJ relies heavily on these meetings to exchange information and to generate interest in its activities.3 Until the mid-1990s, planning was conducted and coordinated by a director of planning who headed the Analysis, Planning and Management staff and reported directly to the NIJ director.
From page 108...
... 5 Inresponse to the committee's request for this plan, we received a memorandum dated August 15, 2002 prepared by Sarah Hart, then director of NIJ, to Deborah Daniels, assistant attorney general. According to the memo, NIJ's initial attempt to develop a strategic plan was insufficient, and the revised plan was being submitted as part of the document.
From page 109...
... After 2000, this kind of annual document signaling NIJ priorities to the research community was discontinued, until 2009, when NIJ released High Priority Criminal Justice Technology Needs (National Institute of Justice, 2009a) , a document that describes how NIJ sets its research agenda.
From page 110...
... NIJ relies heavily on these "strategic planning" meetings to articulate new or emerging knowledge needs; to assess and evaluate a body of recently matured research findings; or to describe options and priorities for further research in a given area.7 The list of various meetings covering 2001-2008 is available online, along with many of the meeting agendas, participant lists, and summaries.8 Of the 27 meetings listed, 12 focused on sexual violence, victimization, and violence theory; 4 were on policing; 4 were related to forensic science, including 2 on DNA evidence; 2 were on drugs and crime; 2 were on terrorism; and single meetings were held on pretrial research, hate crime, and human trafficking. With one or two exceptions, most of the meetings involved a mix of researchers and practitioners, with the number of practitioners dominating a majority of the meetings.
From page 111...
... The NIJ director then makes decisions on what particular research and programs will help accomplish the missions, with some consultation with the office directors and to some extent from senior management of OJP and the offices of the attorney general. The interviews with current NIJ staff reveal considerable differences in their knowledge of the steps in the planning process as well as the quality of the process itself.
From page 112...
... Corrections • Less-Lethal Technologies • Modeling and Simulation • Personnel Protection • Pursuit Management • School Safety • Sensors and Surveillance Enforcement and Corrections Technology Advisory Council (LECTAC) ,11 a group of approximately 40 senior-level representatives from federal, state, and local criminal justice agencies; labor organizations; and international criminal justice organizations.
From page 113...
... . Most, if not all, TWG members are criminal justice practitioners appointed by the OST deputy director and approved by the NIJ director.
From page 114...
... The elaborate advisory structure is used more often to inform the broader federal research community of the technology needs of criminal justice practitioners and to define NIJ's dissemination and outreach practices regarding technological capabilities than to define its technology research and development agenda. Thus, while the OST process is standardized and more formalized than the ORE process, the OST process shares some major deficiencies.
From page 115...
... that call for research studies and other kinds of activities to solve problems related to adoption and use of new technologies by criminal justice agencies. The solicitations are usually structured in two phases: submission of a concept paper, followed by a full proposal if the concept paper is approved.
From page 116...
... Graduate Research Fellowship. This list reflects a mix of sustained effort in which the criminal justice field can expect NIJ to support: (a)
From page 117...
... There have been a few examples of a regular solicitation lagging from its regular release date: the Crime and Justice Research solicitation release date has varied from October to February; the Data Resources Program solicitation release date has varied from November to April; and the Social Science Research in Forensic Science solicitation release date has varied from November to February. In the absence of a publicly available research agenda, the timing of solicitation announcements and their posting times are critically important factors in determining the level of response from researchers.
From page 118...
... These awards for the period 2005-2008 address a range of issues, from understanding criminal behavior and victimization to examining the effects of a state's program or policy. NIJ argues that open research solicitations create the most diversity and allow for innovative research and unanticipated research knowledge.18 This objective appeared to be reflected in the FY 2008 Crime and Justice Research solicitation, which called for "any social and behavioral research and evaluation topic relevant to State and/or local criminal and juvenile justice policy and 15 These included Sexual Violence in Prisons, Criminal Justice Technology Ealuation, Social Science in Forensics, Justice Systems Reponses to Violence Against Women, American Indian/Alaskan Natie Criminal Justice Systems and Criminal Justice Technology, Crime Preention and Gangs, Pretrial and Jail Research and Ealuation, Research on Trafficking in Persons, Policing/Public Safety Research and Ealuation, Terrorism Research, and Elder Abuse Research and Ealuation.
From page 119...
... Solicitations were signed off by the NIJ director, prepared for publication, and then disseminated by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service using its mailing lists. In some years, the solicitations were published in full or as a summary announcement in the Federal Register.
From page 120...
... Peer Review and grant Award Selection Peer Reiew NIJ developed its first peer review process in direct response to the recommendations of the earlier NRC committee (National Research Council, 1977)
From page 121...
... Guidance is also provided by NIJ to its peer reviewers.22 This guidance describes in more detail the various steps leading up to the preparation of a final recommendation memorandum and includes a description of specific responsibilities before and during the peer-review panel, of the lead 21 NIJ argued against this requirement when it was proposed on the grounds that video- or teleconferenced peer reviews were not as effective in discussing research applications and arriving at consensus around complex issues (memorandum to Regina B Schofield from Glenn Schmitt, acting director, NIJ, December 21, 2005)
From page 122...
... We were particularly interested in the various steps of the review process and the extent to which the recommendations of peer-review panels are followed at the division level and to what extent the recommendations are used by the NIJ director. This decision process is not detailed in the OJP grants management system, although it does exist manually in the documents forwarded to the NIJ director.
From page 123...
... In our review of the OJP order and NIJ guidelines, the committee notes several features that deserve further scrutiny: the use of practitioners on panels, the scoring and ranking system, and the process for making individual peer reviews available. These are discussed further below.
From page 124...
... The practice of using practitioners on peer review panels is not mentioned in the formal guidelines and appears to have originated with NIJ directors. According to NIJ staff, some directors were more insistent on it and, in fact, one recent NIJ director believed that practitioners should not be excluded from serving as the lead technical reviewer, the person responsible for drafting the consensus review.
From page 125...
... During the period of this study, four different persons served as the final arbiter of grant award decisions at NIJ, and it is possible that each one used different criteria and a different in-house process to make his or her decision. An example of the decision-making process was provided by an NIJ director who explained that in the FY 2008 funding cycle, he lumped all the applications from several solicitations that were recommended for funding consideration into one large pool and selected those from the pool that he had sufficient funding for and felt were most appropriate for funding.26 Obviously, this kind of selection process sends a very mixed and confusing message to the research community, which is under the impression that it is competing against similarly themed research projects rather than against an entire pool of candidates.
From page 126...
... Once the reviews are completed and a decision is made to recommend some form of dissemination other than archiving the report, the report is sent to the NIJ Editorial Review Board. A recommendation is then made to the NIJ director, who has the final approving authority.
From page 127...
... As with other research operations, NIJ needs to ask the questions: How can this process be used by NIJ to ensure quality in its research? Does this process contribute to NIJ's stature as a science agency?
From page 128...
... and evaluation awards that had the potential to produce final research reports or equivalent articles in peer-reviewed journals. These grants had been awarded to a range of academic institutions, research foundations, and, to a lesser extent, local criminal justice agencies.
From page 129...
... Among the skills that are required to perform these tasks are substantive knowledge of a research area and research methodology. Because NIJ is a funding agency, program staff are also required to oversee the grant application and the review and award processes and, once grants are funded, to ensure that grantees comply with administrative and programmatic requirements.
From page 130...
... NIJ's staffing resources are described in the following sections and serve as an important context for this report.27 Staff Size Compared with budget NIJ's level of staffing resources has shifted dramatically in the past 10 years. From FY 1994 to FY 2000, the size of NIJ's staff mirrored the rise and fall of its budget.
From page 131...
... . SOURCE: Adapted from figures sent from National Finance Center (for staff totals)
From page 132...
... . SOURCE: Adapted from figures sent from National Finance Center (for budget totals)
From page 133...
... This program provides for the temporary assignment of personnel between the federal government and state and local governments, colleges and universities, Indian tribal governments, federally funded research and development centers, and other eligible organizations. These individuals serve as visiting scientists and in some cases have managed specific programs, such as NIJ's International Center and OST's forensic science activities.
From page 134...
... According to a different source, information on NIJ staffing reflects that, during a 5-year period from January 1, 2002, to November 24, 2007, approximately 76 persons separated or transferred out of NIJ, many of whom held management positions.33 The 76 included 12 division director positions distributed among 9 different divisions, 2 deputy director positions (OST and ORE) , an NIJ director, and an NIJ deputy director.34 Turnover is to be expected during changes of administration.
From page 135...
... Among the reasons they cited for leaving were lack of leadership, lack of opportunity to use their methodological expertise, and lack of a culture in which substantive expertise was highly valued and could be nurtured (see the discussion on intramural research later in this chapter)
From page 136...
... Prior to filling a vacancy, the NIJ director must seek approval from the assistant attorney general, OJP, through the Human Resources Division, Office of Administration. NIJ managers informed us that they were not allowed to move ahead with vacancies.
From page 137...
... The committee notes that other science agencies, including NIH and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have staff actively engaged in conducting research. In the 1970s and 1980s, NIJ had a division specifically devoted to intramural research.
From page 138...
... . Since then, some staff members have continued to engage in intramural research, but this activity is not offered as a selling point to attract qualified staff, nor does there appear to be any incentives for it.
From page 139...
... Although it is difficult to document the psychology, experiences, and values that comprise organizational culture, a fairly consistent picture emerged from our interviews with former and current NIJ staff as well as from a summary of findings from an in-house survey of NIJ's staff conducted in September 39 See http://www.opm.gov/qualifications/standards/IORs/gs1500/1515.htm [accessed March 9, 2010]
From page 140...
... those who believe program administration is at the heart of their work and most important and (2) those who believe that the substantive work of knowledge development, dissemination, and other service to the criminal justice field is most important.
From page 141...
... R In reviewing NIJ's research operations, the committee was struck by the limited role that researchers currently play in the planning, peer-review, and report review processes. NIJ has never used an advisory infrastructure to help with planning or to provide feedback in a focused and consistent way.
From page 142...
... Once these perceptions are formed, they are difficult to change. The committee also encountered considerable difficulty in obtaining documentation for NIJ's research operations as well as other kinds of administrative information.
From page 143...
... • JP's oversight of various aspects of NIJ's research operations O and administrative functions is incompatible with NIJ's role as an independent research organization. The committee identified at least two research operations in which OJP plays a heavy hand: the approval of solicitations and the peer-review process.
From page 144...
...  STRENGTHENING THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE in an effort to improve its operations and become more transparent, and needs the authority and capacity to make the changes. Key among these is for NIJ to ensure the proper role of science in its decisions and to involve the research community in a more meaningful way in accomplishing its mission.


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