The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the nation's primary resource for advancing scientific research, development, and evaluation on crime and crime control and the administration of justice in the United States. Headed by a presidentially appointed director, it is one of the major units in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under its authorizing legislation, NIJ awards grants and contracts to a variety of public and private organizations and individuals. At the request of NIJ, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice assesses the operations and quality of the full range of its programs. These include social science research, science and technology research and development, capacity building, and technology assistance. The book concludes that a federal research institute such as NIJ is vital to the nation's continuing efforts to control crime and administer justice. No other federal, state, local, or private organization can do what NIJ was created to do. Forty years ago, Congress envisioned a science agency dedicated to building knowledge to support crime prevention and control by developing a wide range of techniques for dealing with individual offenders, identifying injustices and biases in the administration of justice, and supporting more basic and operational research on crime and the criminal justice system and the involvement of the community in crime control efforts. As the embodiment of that vision, NIJ has accomplished a great deal. It has succeeded in developing a body of knowledge on such important topics as hot spots policing, violence against women, the role of firearms and drugs in crime, drug courts, and forensic DNA analysis. It has helped build the crime and justice research infrastructure. It has also widely disseminated the results of its research programs to help guide practice and policy. But its efforts have been severely hampered by a lack of independence, authority, and discretionary resources to carry out its mission.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the nation's primary resource for advancing scientific research, development, and evaluation on crime and crime control and the administration of justice in the United States. Headed by a presidentially appointed director, it is one of the major units in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under its authorizing legislation, NIJ awards grants and contracts to a variety of public and private organizations and individuals. At the request of NIJ, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice assesses the operations and quality of the full range of its programs. These include social science research, science and technology research and development, capacity building, and technology assistance. The book concludes that a federal research institute such as NIJ is vital to the nation's continuing efforts to control crime and administer justice. No other federal, state, local, or private organization can do what NIJ was created to do. Forty years ago, Congress envisioned a science agency dedicated to building knowledge to support crime prevention and control by developing a wide range of techniques for dealing with individual offenders, identifying injustices and biases in the administration of justice, and supporting more basic and operational research on crime and the criminal justice system and the involvement of the community in crime control efforts. As the embodiment of that vision, NIJ has accomplished a great deal. It has succeeded in developing a body of knowledge on such important topics as hot spots policing, violence against women, the role of firearms and drugs in crime, drug courts, and forensic DNA analysis. It has helped build the crime and justice research infrastructure. It has also widely disseminated the results of its research programs to help guide practice and policy. But its efforts have been severely hampered by a lack of independence, authority, and discretionary resources to carry out its mission.
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), passed by Congress in 1993, requires that federal agencies write five-year strategic plans with annual performance goals and produce an annual report that demonstrates whether the goals have been met. The first performance reports are due in March 2000. Measuring the performance of basic research is particularly challenging because major breakthroughs can be unpredictable and difficult to assess in the short term. This book recommends that federal agencies use an "expert review" method to examine the quality of research they support, the relevance of that research to their mission, and whether the research is at the international forefront of scientific and technological knowledge. It also addresses the issues of matching evaluation measurements to the character of the research performed, improving coordination among agencies when research is in the same field, and including a human resource development component in GPRA strategic and performance plans.
Although billions of dollars have been spent on crime prevention and control programs during the past decade, scientifically strong impact evaluations of these programs are uncommon in the context of the overall number of programs that have received funding. Improving Evaluation of Anticrime Programs is designed as a working guide for agencies and organizations responsible for program evaluation, for researchers who must design scientifically credible evaluations of government and privately sponsored programs, and for policy officials who are investing more and more in the concept of evidence-based policy to guide their decisions in crucial areas of crime prevention and control.
This report expands on the work of an earlier National Research Council panel whose report, Understanding Violence Against Women, was published in 1996. The report is based on the presentations and deliberations of a workshop convened in January 2002, at the request of Congress, to develop a detailed research agenda on violence against women. While some of the research recommendations in the earlier report have been funded and carried out, the workshop demonstrated that important gaps remain. For example, prevalence and incidence data are still inadequate to measure trends or to reveal whether interventions being designed under federal programs are, in fact, working. Among its primary recommendations, the committee underscored the importance of strengthening the data and research infrastructure in this area, especially the need for better prevalence data and longitudinal data to determine the causes of violent victimization of women and the impact of interventions.
Human trafficking has many names and can take many forms - pimp control, commercial sex, exploitation, forced labor, modern slavery, child labor, and several others - and the definitions vary greatly across countries and cultures, as well as among researchers. In the United States, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) is the cornerstone of counter-trafficking efforts. It provides guidance for identifying and defining human trafficking, and it authorizes legislation and appropriations for subsequent counter-trafficking measures both within and outside of the federal government. First enacted in 2000, the TVPA has since been reauthorized by three administrations, and it includes a directive for the President to establish an Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking. The subsequent Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2018 also includes provisions for victim services and plans to enhance collaboration efforts to fight trafficking abroad. To explore current and innovative sampling methods, technological approaches, and analytical strategies for estimating the prevalence of sex and labor trafficking in vulnerable populations, a 2-day public workshop, Approaches to Estimating the Prevalence of Human Trafficking in the United States, was held in Washington, D.C. in April 2019. The workshop brought together statisticians, survey methodologists, researchers, public health practitioners, and other experts who work closely with human trafficking data or with the survivors of trafficking. Participants addressed the current state of research on human trafficking, advancements in data collection, and gaps in the data. They discussed international practices and global trends in human trafficking prevalence estimation and considered ways in which collaborations across agencies and among the U.S. government and private-sector organizations have advanced counter-trafficking efforts. This proceedings summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.
As requested by Congress and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), this report assists federal agencies in crafting plans and reports that are responsive to the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), OMB Guidance, and agency missions. Using a case study approach, the report identifies best practices used by individual agencies to evaluate the performance and results of their science and technology programs. The report takes into account individual agencies' missions and how science and technology programs and human resource needs are factored into agency GPRA plans. Specific applications of recommendations are included from COSEPUP's earlier report entitled Evaluating Federal Research Programs: Research and the Government Performance and Results Act.
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), passed by Congress in 1993, requires that federal agencies write five-year strategic plans with annual performance goals and produce an annual report that demonstrates whether the goals have been met. The first performance reports are due in March 2000. Measuring the performance of basic research is particularly challenging because major breakthroughs can be unpredictable and difficult to assess in the short term. This book recommends that federal agencies use an "expert review" method to examine the quality of research they support, the relevance of that research to their mission, and whether the research is at the international forefront of scientific and technological knowledge. It also addresses the issues of matching evaluation measurements to the character of the research performed, improving coordination among agencies when research is in the same field, and including a human resource development component in GPRA strategic and performance plans.
Adolescence is a distinct, yet transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. A key function of adolescence is developing an integrated sense of self, including individualization, separation from parents, and personal identity. Experimentation and novelty-seeking behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, unsafe sex, and reckless driving, are thought to serve a number of adaptive functions despite their risks. Research indicates that for most youth, the period of risky experimentation does not extend beyond adolescence, ceasing as identity becomes settled with maturity. Much adolescent involvement in criminal activity is part of the normal developmental process of identity formation and most adolescents will mature out of these tendencies. Evidence of significant changes in brain structure and function during adolescence strongly suggests that these cognitive tendencies characteristic of adolescents are associated with biological immaturity of the brain and with an imbalance among developing brain systems. This imbalance model implies dual systems: one involved in cognitive and behavioral control and one involved in socio-emotional processes. Accordingly adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulations because the brain system that influences pleasure-seeking and emotional reactivity develops more rapidly than the brain system that supports self-control. This knowledge of adolescent development has underscored important differences between adults and adolescents with direct bearing on the design and operation of the justice system, raising doubts about the core assumptions driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the late decades of the 20th century. It was in this context that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to conduct a study of juvenile justice reform. The goal of Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach was to review recent advances in behavioral and neuroscience research and draw out the implications of this knowledge for juvenile justice reform, to assess the new generation of reform activities occurring in the United States, and to assess the performance of OJJDP in carrying out its statutory mission as well as its potential role in supporting scientifically based reform efforts.
This report provides an assessment of NIH's programs for increasing the participation in biomedical science of individuals from underrepresented minority groups. The report examines, using available data and the results of a survey of NIH trainees, the characteristics and outcomes of programs at the undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and junior faculty levels. The report provides recommendations for improving these programs and their administration. It also recommends how NIH can improve the data it collects on trainees in all NIH research training programs so as to enhance training program evaluation.
This volume looks at the administration of research and service programs in the U.S. Public Health Service to determine whether these programs fare better when administered jointly or through separate agencies. It uses case studies and analyses of programs and administrative processes, together with the results of more than a hundred interviews with top-ranking government officials and representatives of concerned organizations. The book also focuses on the extent and effects of program and project duplication, replication, and complementarity in the research activities of the National Institutes of Health and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration.
U.S. research-doctorate programs in the social and behavioral sciences were assessed by a committee of the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils. Attention was focused on 639 research-doctorate programs in seven disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences: anthropology, economics, geography, history, political sciences, psychology, and sociology. The effectiveness of these programs in preparing students for research careers was assessed. Indices that might be relevant to program quality were examined, and information was provided to evaluators on the names of faculty members involved with each program to be rated and the number of research doctorates awarded in the last 5 years. After describing the background to the study and the research methodology, survey findings are presented for each discipline. In addition to extensive statistical findings and analyses, the following appendices are presented: the Survey of Earned Doctorates, the instrument used in the reputational survey, the ARL Library Index, data on faculty research support and research and development expenditures, data on publication records, and lists of planning committee members and participants of the Conference on the Assessment of Quality of Graduate Education Programs. (SW)
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is one of the smallest of the U.S. principal statistical agencies but shoulders one of the most expansive and detailed legal mandates among those agencies. Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics examines the full range of BJS programs and suggests priorities for data collection. BJS's data collection portfolio is a solid body of work, well justified by public information needs or legal requirements and a commendable effort to meet its broad mandate given less-than-commensurate fiscal resources. The book identifies some major gaps in the substantive coverage of BJS data, but notes that filling those gaps would require increased and sustained support in terms of staff and fiscal resources. In suggesting strategic goals for BJS, the book argues that the bureau's foremost goal should be to establish and maintain a strong position of independence. To avoid structural or political interference in BJS work, the report suggests changing the administrative placement of BJS within the Justice Department and making the BJS directorship a fixed-term appointment. In its thirtieth year, BJS can look back on a solid body of accomplishment; this book suggests further directions for improvement to give the nation the justice statistics-and the BJS-that it deserves.
Driven by community-based organizations and supported by a growing body of literature, the environmental justice movement contends that poor and minority populations are burdened with more than their share of toxic waste, pesticide runoff, and other hazardous byproducts of our modern economic life. Is environmental degradation worse in poor and minority communities? Do these communities suffer more adverse health effects as a result? The committee addresses these questions and explores how current fragmentation in health policy could be replaced with greater coordination among federal, state, and local parties. The book is highlighted with case studies from five locations where the committee traveled to hear citizen and researcher testimony. It offers detailed examinations in these areas: Identifying environmental hazards and assessing risk for populations of varying ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds, and the need for methodologies that uniquely suit the populations at risk. Identifying basic, clinical, and occupational research needs and meeting challenges to research on minorities. Expanding environmental education from an ecological focus to a public health focus for all levels of health professionals. Legal and ethical aspects of environmental health issues. The book makes recommendations to decision-makers in the areas of public health, research, and education of health professionals and outlines health policy considerations.
In the United States, health among racial and ethnic minorities, as well as poor people, is significantly worse than the overall U.S. population. Health disparities are reflected by indices such as excess mortality and morbidity and shorter life expectancy. Examining the Health Disparities Research Plan of the National Institutes of Health is an assessment of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Strategic Research Plan and Budget to Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities. It focuses on practical solutions to remedy the state of the current health disparity crisis. The NIH has played the leading role in conducting extensive research on minority health and health disparities for more than two decades. Although additional research is critical to facilitating a better understanding of the overarching social, economic, educational, and environmental factors that predispose groups to specific diseases and conditions, there is also a great need to translate the existing and new information into best care practices. This means increasing communication with affected populations and their communities. Examining the Health Disparities Research Plan of the National Institutes of Health presents solutions to improving the health disparities nationwide and evaluates the NIH strategy plan designed to actively correct and combat the ongoing health disparities dilemma.
This report is the twelfth assessment of the National Institutes of Health National Research Service Awards program. The research training needs of the country in basic biomedical, clinical, and behavioral and social sciences are considered. Also included are the training needs of oral health, nursing, and health services research. The report has been broadly constructed to take into account the rapidly evolving national and international health care needs. The past and present are analyzed, and predictions with regard to future needs are presented.
Reports of mistreated children, domestic violence, and abuse of elderly persons continue to strain the capacity of police, courts, social services agencies, and medical centers. At the same time, myriad treatment and prevention programs are providing services to victims and offenders. Although limited research knowledge exists regarding the effectiveness of these programs, such information is often scattered, inaccessible, and difficult to obtain. Violence in Families takes the first hard look at the successes and failures of family violence interventions. It offers recommendations to guide services, programs, policy, and research on victim support and assistance, treatments and penalties for offenders, and law enforcement. Included is an analysis of more than 100 evaluation studies on the outcomes of different kinds of programs and services. Violence in Families provides the most comprehensive review on the topic to date. It explores the scope and complexity of family violence, including identification of the multiple types of victims and offenders, who require different approaches to intervention. The book outlines new strategies that offer promising approaches for service providers and researchers and for improving the evaluation of prevention and treatment services. Violence in Families discusses issues that underlie all types of family violence, such as the tension between family support and the protection of children, risk factors that contribute to violent behavior in families, and the balance between family privacy and community interventions. The core of the book is a research-based review of interventions used in three institutional sectors--social services, health, and law enforcement settings--and how to measure their effectiveness in combating maltreatment of children, domestic violence, and abuse of the elderly. Among the questions explored by the committee: Does the child protective services system work? Does the threat of arrest deter batterers? The volume discusses the strength of the evidence and highlights emerging links among interventions in different institutional settings. Thorough, readable, and well organized, Violence in Families synthesizes what is known and outlines what needs to be discovered. This volume will be of great interest to policymakers, social services providers, health care professionals, police and court officials, victim advocates, researchers, and concerned individuals.
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