Strengthening the National Institute of Justice (2010) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 The Research Program Offices
3 The Research Program Offices
Pages 45-104
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 45... ...
Two of the changes, mentioned in Chapter 2, are the shift from a broad program of research to research that is more heavily focused on criminal justice administration and short-term solutions to crime prevention and reduction. The second change is reduced resources for social science research and greater support for technology research and technology assistance.
|
From page 46... ...
The topics assigned by NIJ are relatively similar across the years, although some categories have shifted from those reflecting program goals to those describing criminal justice functions and issues. Also, NIJ modified its categories in years when it received allocated funds for specific work, such as violence against women and DNA backlogs and research.
|
From page 47... ...
The funding trends show that, over this period, NIJ allocated less to research (about $870 million) than to capacity-building efforts (about 3Such awards include the Forensic Casework DNA Backlog Reduction Program Formula Grants, the Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants, and the DNA Capacity Enhancement Program Formula Grants.
|
From page 48... ...
STRENGTHENING THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE BOX 3-1 ORE and OST Research Areas RESEARCh AREAS Of INTEREST MANAgED By ORE Violence and Victimization Research Division • Hate crime • Responding to domestic violence offenders • Stalking • Intimate partner violence • Sexual Violence Research Program • Child maltreatment • Victims and victimization • Teen dating violence • Identity theft • American Indian and Alaska Native crime and justice • Research and evaluation • Drugs and crime • Elder mistreatment research program Crime Control and Prevention Division • Police operations • Police organization • Gangs and violence • Firearms and violence • Juvenile delinquency/juvenile justice • Forensic policy research • Mapping and analysis for public safety • Situational crime prevention • Data Resources Program • Police use of force • Eyewitness identification • Response in Indian Country and the Southwest border Justice Systems Research Division • Prison re-entry • Prisoner substance abuse treatment • Community corrections • Mental health and corrections • Prison rape • Women offenders • Children whose parents are under criminal justice supervision • Corrections health care (medical) • Inmate work and ex-offender employment/re-entry
|
From page 49... ...
• Biometrics • Body Armor • Communications • Community corrections • Court technologies • DNA forensics • Electronic crime • Explosive device defeat • General forensics • Information led policing • Institutional corrections • Less lethal technologies • Modeling and simulation • Operations research • Personnel protection equipment • Pursuit management • School safety • Sensors and surveillance SOURCE: Pulled from presentations by Thomas Feucht and John Morgan made to the com mittee at a meeting on December 20, 2007.
|
From page 50... ...
All figures represent program monies and do not include NIJ staff salaries.
|
From page 51... ...
In general, a decline in funds allocated for research grants is reflected in a decline in actual grants awarded. But this decline has not occurred across the board in all catego
|
From page 52... ...
. 400 Figure 3-1 R01756 350 editable vectors 300 Total Number of Awards 250 Social Science Research Science and Technology Research 200 Technology Assistance and Program Support 150 Forensic Capacity Building 100 50 0 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Year FIguRE 3-2 Number of awards by category, 1995-2008.
|
From page 53... ...
The increase in solicitations reflects the growth of the OST program, in particular the increased emphasis on technology development5 as well as a doubling of the forensic capacity-building solicitations from 4 to 8. In addition, there are increases in solicitations for social science research and program evaluations of legislative initiatives, such as the solicitation for Social Science Research on Emerging Issues in Forensic Science, with ties to the President's DNA Initiative.
|
From page 54... ...
40 Base Budget Appropriated Funds Interagency Transfers Total 30 20 10 0 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Year FIguRE 3-3 ORE funding history, 1994-2008 (in constant 2008 dollars)
|
From page 55... ...
Other examples of large research efforts funded with transferred funds include multiyear evaluations of the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative, the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program, and adult and juvenile drug courts. The net effect of these trends has been to erode the discretion of ORE in allocating funds, to reduce the level of funding available for many research areas, and to change the type of studies funded.
|
From page 56... ...
We then narrowed these down to areas in which multiple projects were funded over a number of years: policing; drugs and crime; violence against women; firearms and violence; and crime mapping. We also picked a single study, the Program on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, because it is the largest longitudinal study ever funded by NIJ, both in terms of dollar value and the length of time it was supported.
|
From page 57... ...
For purposes of this discussion, policing research includes research aimed at improving law enforcement policies and operations. It includes research on community policing but not research on specific crime issues, such as firearms and drugs.
|
From page 58... ...
, and criminal justice practitioners gained greater understanding of the complexities of those kinds of interventions following seven replications of the original study that NIJ sponsored in 1986 (Blumstein and Petersilia, 1994)
|
From page 59... ...
. NIJ research is largely credited for important conclusions emerging from this line of research, including the finding that directed patrols, proactive arrests, and problem solving at high-crime hot spots can be effective in preventing crime in both the hot spot and in the surrounding area (Sherman et al., 1997)
|
From page 60... ...
These studies include grants on police use of force, police fatigue and officer performance, performance measures for multijurisdictional task forces, evidence-based model programs for cold case units, an evaluation of multijurisdictional task forces, a randomized experiment of license plate recognition technology, and homicide clearance initiatives. According to NIJ, this mixed portfolio is a result of heavy reliance on the investigator-initiated Crime and Justice solicitation and the Research on Policing and Public Safety Interentions, the latter a targeted policing solicitation.
|
From page 61... ...
A guiding thesis behind this research has been that drug users are disproportionately likely to engage in criminal activity and that criminal justice agencies can reduce crime by identifying and treating drug abusers. Identifying Drug-using Offenders Beginning in 1984, NIJ-sponsored urinalysis research on pretrial releasees in Washington, DC, showed high usage of drugs and high recidivism rates (Toborg and Bellassai, 1988; Toborg, Yezer, and Bellassai, 1988)
|
From page 62... ...
. Treatment supervised within the criminal justice system could reduce drug use and a reduction in drug use decreases criminality, even among chronic drug abusing offenders (Lipton, 1996)
|
From page 63... ...
Breaking the Cycle was designed to resolve B problems that arise at a particular stage of criminal justice processing, only to find that an offender has moved on and the consistency of the intervention cannot be maintained. The key system reforms were early intervention, judicial oversight, graduated sanctions and incentives, and justice and treatment system collaboration.
|
From page 64... ...
. These findings provided the rationale for victim assistance programs and guidelines for improving criminal justice policies related to treatment of rape victims (Blumstein and Petersilia, 1994)
|
From page 65... ...
Early research funding was limited to specific areas, with the objective of evaluating projects funded by the legislation. Other studies examined coordinated responses to domestic violence by prosecutors, courts, and other criminal justice agencies.
|
From page 66... ...
. NIJ's evaluation of STOP, a major program to improve prosecutorial and police handling of violence against women, found that the funding was a successful way to improve criminal justice services to woman (Burt et al., 2001)
|
From page 67... ...
This category of funding includes such subtopics as specific populations, violence against women and welfare, domestic violence and children, commercial sexual exploitation of children, drug and alcohol use and criminal histories, and context and life course. The third most highly funded category is program evaluations ($17.1 million)
|
From page 68... ...
Most NIJ-funded research has delved deeply into the design and implementation of programs aimed at reducing firearm violence through enhanced enforcement strategies. For example, a program evaluation of the Boston Gun Experiment indicated some effectiveness toward reducing juvenile homicide following implementation of a multiagency supply and demand reduction program targeting illegal firearms markets to gangs (Kennedy, 1997; Braga et al., 1999; Tita et al., 2005)
|
From page 69... ...
funding of a project evaluating the long-term impact of the federal assault weapons ban; and 7. a cooperative agreement to provide research-based training and technical assistance to the Justice Department–ATF Project Safe Neighborhoods initiative to reduce gun violence in all 93 U.S.
|
From page 70... ...
By far the largest of these grants is the result of an earmark ($3 million to Georgia State University to continue work to improve the collection and dissemination of criminal justice data across jurisdictions)
|
From page 71... ...
NIJ has done a good job of making GIS technologies available to criminal justice agencies, promoting their use through the crime mapping listserv, providing training (available training programs are regularly listed on the MAPS website) , and encouraging user conversation.
|
From page 72... ...
In terms of criminology and criminal justice research, social environment and geography have long been important approaches to the study of crime. What has changed in the last decade or so has been the development of new GIS tools that have allowed the use of more detailed data measuring the spatial distribution of crime.
|
From page 73... ...
Although no recorded documentation of the origins of this partnership exists, the accounts of several participants indicate that it was brokered by key figures in the Justice Study Group who convinced NIJ leadership and senior MacArthur Foundation officials of the merits of the effort. According to former NIJ staff, the project's prospects for identifying early life predictors of high-rate offending and for providing timely and ongoing policy-relevant research on criminal careers were the basis for NIJ's support.
|
From page 74... ...
The MacArthur Foundation has supported a grant to the ICPSR to promote the distribution and use of the data assembled as part of the project. NIJ currently supports secondary 16 Internal memorandum from Christy Visher, an NIJ staff member, sent to Jeremy Travis, dated June 24, 1999, entitled "Program Review: Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, 1990-2001" given to the committee by NIJ.
|
From page 75... ...
. Progress in Cumulative Knowledge building The preceding sections have described collections of grants across broad criminal justice categories.
|
From page 76... ...
The products guide practitioners and policy makers and can, when sufficiently grounded in theory, inform the science of criminology. For many decades, ORE has invested heavily in evaluations of criminal justice programs and policies.
|
From page 77... ...
Programs of interest to specific criminal justice agencies, including police, corrections, and courts, were the major focus of two dozen outcome evaluations. A third of these evaluations looked at programs for using new technologies in criminal justice agencies.
|
From page 78... ...
Pressure to increase support for outcome evaluations with strong experimental or quasi-experimental designs has come from other reviews of NIJ evaluations (Sherman et al., 1997; Visher and Weisburd, 1997; Garner and Maxwell, 2000)
|
From page 79... ...
This is an important way ORE brings research knowledge to the practitioner. In this model, NIJ supports researchers who partner with local criminal justice agencies on issues of mutual interest.
|
From page 80... ...
, it changed action research. In this model, the researchers and the criminal justice agency share responsibility and collaborate on all steps of the research process, from design to interpretation of findings (McEwen, 1999)
|
From page 81... ...
NIJ has therefore taken the role of fulfilling special technology needs for state and local law enforcement and fostering technology R&D when it otherwise will not occur. A focus on the development of new or improved technologies was included as part of the original charge to the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (NILECJ)
|
From page 82... ...
OST was tasked with providing federal, state, and local law enforcement and corrections agencies with access to the best technologies available and supporting the development or adaptation of advanced technologies that will increase efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. In November 2002, Congress mandated the establishment of OST in the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
|
From page 83... ...
Center system to support technology R&D for the entire criminal justice community, not just those agencies benefiting from time to time from direct technology assistance" (National Institute of Justice, 2004b, p.
|
From page 84... ...
These centers include NLECTC–Northwest in Anchorage, Alaska; the Border Research and Technology Center in San Diego, California, and Austin, Texas; and the Rural Law Enforcement Technology Center in Hazard, Kentucky. The NLECTC system is not the result of top-down planning and design.
|
From page 85... ...
The additional funding can stem from OST discretionary funds, transferred funds from other agencies, or additional earmarks.21 The centers existing prior to 2007 serve as the initial point of entry for technology information and generalized technology assistance. Their task is to focus on criminal justice agencies in their respective regions or domains (i.e., rural or border agencies)
|
From page 86... ...
small, rural, tribal, and border law enforcement, and (3) larger criminal justice agencies in states, major cities, and counties; five COEs; and the existing NLECTC–National and the Office of Law Enforcement Standards.
|
From page 87... ...
In leveraging other agencies' investment, OST is able to spend its limited money where it is needed most by law enforcement. For example, it invests less in explosive detection because there is already significant investment in it by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense; it invests more in remote weapons detection because there is not.
|
From page 88... ...
What became known as the 1401 Technology Transfer Program formalized NIJ's efforts to leverage military technology for criminal justice applications. The 1401 program is an agreement among DOD, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
|
From page 89... ...
Competitiely Awarded Grants During the period FY 2005 to FY 2008, solicitations were issued for research and technology development in the following areas: biometrics, body armor, communications, concealed weapons detection, crime scene tools, defeat of improvised explosive devices, electronic crime, forensic DNA research, forensic anthropology and odontology, forensic toxicology, geospatial, general forensics, information-led policing, corrections, less lethal weapons, modeling and simulation, personal protective equipment, pursuit management, school safety, and sensors and surveillance. In addition, there were a few calls for specified technology development, such as fast capture fingerprint/palm print technology (FY 2005)
|
From page 90... ...
. Funds were transferred to NIJ from FBI/Criminal Justice Information Services division, the Justice Management Division, and the Department of Homeland Security to support three different technological approaches in separate grants.
|
From page 91... ...
• cademic and training programs, such as the Marshall Univer A sity Forensic Science Center and the model technology-delivered training programs in DNA education tested and evaluated by the National Forensic Science Technology Center. • pgraded operations, such as the Technology Improvement Project u for the Middle Rio Grande Region of Texas, which replaced com munications systems to facilitate information sharing among the small and rural agencies in this region.
|
From page 92... ...
Overview of the Total budget The committee received financial data with OST expenditures summarized as discretionary versus nondiscretionary as well as split into four categories (R&D; testing, evaluation, and standards; technology assistance; and capacity building)
|
From page 93... ...
Although the R&D budget for developing technologies has increased greatly since 1994, OST has less control over that money and the direction of its research portfolio. Contributions from R&D Investments Through its investment in science and technology R&D, NIJ has made significant contributions to improving the safety as well as the efficiency of criminal justice operations.
|
From page 94... ...
At the same time, NIJ supported a parallel effort to develop performance standards for the body armor, which is described in Chapter 5. Today, much of the investment with regard to body armor goes to support the compliance testing program and standards revisions.
|
From page 95... ...
DNA Technology Support of DNA technology began in 1986 (National Institute of Justice, 1987, 1992; Sensabaugh, n.d.) , as techniques for mapping and sequencing the human genome, developing in both basic biology and medicine, began to be seen as having applicability to forensic science.
|
From page 96... ...
Some of the accomplishments of this research portfolio, according to NIJ, include the following: • he development of a testing system that can generate a DNA t profile from aged, degraded, or damaged samples, such as skeletal remains; 28 The President's DNA Initiative is the cornerstone of the 2004 Justice for All Act. It provided over $1 billion over a 5-year period to improve the use of DNA in the criminal justice system and to ensure that this technology reaches its full potential.
|
From page 97... ...
concluded that the level of support has fallen short of what is needed by the forensic science community. There are a number of open research questions, particularly for forensic techniques that receive less attention than DNA technologies (see National Research Council, 2009c, as well as a summary of that report's research recommendations in Appendix E)
|
From page 98... ...
establishing a strategy based on accurate data on the forensic science community, for the efficient allocation of available funds to give strong support to forensic methodologies and practices in addition to DNA analysis; (f) funding state and local forensic science agencies, independent research projects, and educational programs as recommended in this report, with conditions that aim to advance the credibility and reliability of the forensic science disciplines; (g)
|
From page 99... ...
. With a modest budget, the less lethal technology portfolio can be characterized as leveraging past R&D of other agencies or modifying existing weapons to offer improved tools to law enforcement (National 31 These less lethal technologies were identified in the 2006 program plan for the less lethal technology portfolio provided to the committee by NIJ, April 2008.
|
From page 100... ...
CONCLuSIONS This chapter describes how NIJ has gone about fulfilling its research mission over the past 14 years. It focuses primarily on its research grantmaking role and excludes other supporting activities, such as technology assistance, capacity building, and dissemination.
|
From page 101... ...
NIJ-sponsored research has often led the way and served as the foundation for researchers to build on and for practitioners to learn from. There is some evidence that NIJ research has influenced criminal justice practice and policy, particularly in the areas that have been sustained over time -- such as hot spots policing, violence against women, drugs and crime, and crime mapping, on the social science side, and body armor, less lethal technologies, and DNA analysis, on the technology side.
|
From page 102... ...
• The NIJ research function is greatly diminished. The ORE budget, which primarily supports social science research and program evaluations, has been declining for the past 6 years.
|
From page 103... ...
In the next two chapters we address other aspects of NIJ's capacity to support research. In Chapter 4, the committee examines the agency's operations and staff resources for managing its research portfolios and other activities.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.