Multimedia Listing

In this interview, Professor Aileen Wiglesworth, University of California, Irvine and Detective Cherie Hill of the Anaheim Police Department, discuss how research on elder abuse can impact how law enforcements pursue abuse cases.

This video provides information about CrimeSolutions.gov, a site that uses rigorous research to inform practitioners and policy makers about what works in criminal justice, juvenile justice, and crime victim services. Captured in the video are scenarios of how the site can be of use to justice professionals and practitioners who are working to address criminal activity in their communities. Also captured are testimonials from actual CrimeSolutions.gov users, highlighting how the site has proven to be beneficial in meeting their needs.

Dr. Laub discusses fusing NIJ's dual mission through translational criminology, questions that guide NIJ's approach to translational criminology and the role of 'trust' in translational criminology.

Dr. Campbell brings together research on the neurobiology of trauma and the criminal justice response to sexual assault. She explains the underlying neurobiology of traumatic events, its emotional and physical manifestation, and how these processes can impact the investigation and prosecution of sexual assaults. Real-world, practical implications are examined for first responders, such as law enforcement, nurses, prosecutors, and advocates.

A small number of offenders who are heavily involved in drugs commit a large portion of the crime in this country. An evaluation of a "smart supervision" effort in Hawaii that uses swift and certain sanctioning showed that heavily involved drug offenders can indeed change their behavior when the supervision is properly implemented.

With its criminal justice system in disarray following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans invited the Vera Institute of Justice to examine the city's court and jail operations. For five years, Vera has been tracking arrest-to-first-appearance time, custodial arrests versus summonses, the granting of pretrial release, and many other decision-making points. Based on analysis of these data, Vera is making policy recommendations to assist with the implementation of new procedures and to ensure performance monitoring.

Moderator: Brett Chapman, Ph.D., NIJ Social Science Analyst.

Panelists:

• Ambassador John Miller, U.S. State Department
• Mark Montigny, Massachusetts State Senator
• Norma Hotaling, Founder of the SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation) Project

What has been important is still with that data showing the actors in New Orleans, the Criminal Justice Leadership Alliance. For example, how long it takes a detainee to even get charged in the city, for the DA to file a formal charge.

Mary Louise Kelley, Director of the Family Violence Prevention Services program at the Department of Health and Human Services, is joined by Anne Menard, Director of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, and Eleanor Lyon, the principal investigator to discuss a study focused on nonresidential domestic violence services.

Geoff Barnes, Ph.D., and Jordan Hyatt, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Jerry Lee Center of Criminology

Watch two experts talk about developing a computerized system that successfully predicts — with a high degree of accuracy — which probationers are likely to violently reoffend within two years of returning to the community.

Drs. Barnes and Hyatt teamed up with the Philadelphia Adult Probation & Parole Department in an NIJ-funded project. Here they discuss:

Opening Plenary Panel
When researchers and practitioners work side by side, they can maximize their problem-solving abilities. The research partner can focus on the data and the science; the practitioner can focus on interpreting the findings and applying them in the field. In the plenary panel, panelists described the benefits, challenges and pitfalls of researcher-practitioner partnerships with a focus on the financial benefits to the practitioner.

Moderator: John H. Laub, Director, National Institute of Justice

Panelists:

NIJ has funded a study examining the impact of wrongful convictions on crime victims. The study is looking at the impact on the original victim of the crime to get a better understanding of what their service needs are, and how we can better serve them both in terms of policy and practice.

Each year, 100-200 law enforcement officers die in the line of duty. Last year, 177 lost their lives — a 16-percent increase from 2010. As Attorney General Eric Holder noted, this is a devastating and unacceptable trend. NIJ has developed a robust research portfolio to improve officer safety and wellness and, ultimately, save lives. This panel discussed some of NIJ's most promising work to reduce shooting and traffic-related fatalities — consistently the leading causes of officer line-of-duty deaths — and improve officer wellness, which is inextricably linked with officer safety.

In this interview, Deanna Rivard discusses how agencies can get help funding body armor, work on improving the fit of body armor and the importance of wearing it.

NIJ Conference Keynote Address

The recent declines in U.S. prison populations have caused many reformers to suggest that America's experiment with mass incarceration is ending. But current prison downsizing policies may well backfire if we fail to heed the lessons learned from the intermediate sanctions movement of the 1990s. In the event attendees rated highest, Dr. Petersilia summarizes these lessons and discussed why we must consider them if we want to reverse — for good — four decades of prison expansion.

Research tells us that a relatively small fraction of individuals experience a large proportion of violent victimizations. Thus, focusing on reducing repeat victimization might have a large impact on total rates of violence. However, research also tells us that most violent crime victims do not experience more than one incident during a six-month or one-year time period. As a result, special policies to prevent repeat violence may not be cost-effective for most victims.

The criminal justice system encounters and supervises a large number of drug abusing persons. Punishment alone is a futile and ineffective response to the problem of drug abuse. Addiction is a chronic brain disease with a strong genetic component that in most instances requires treatment. Involvement in the criminal justice system provides a unique opportunity to treat drug abuse disorders and related health conditions, thereby improving public health and safety.

Expert Chat Webinar

The surge in incarceration since 1980 has been fueled in part by the mistaken belief that the population can be divided neatly into "good guys" and "bad guys." In fact, crime rates are not determined by the number of at-large criminals, any more than farm production is determined by the number of farmers. Crime is a choice, a choice that is influenced by available opportunities as much as by character. This perspective, drawn from economic theory, supports a multi-faceted approach to crime control. Dr.

Dr. Kirk discusses how Hurricane Katrina affected ex-prisoners originally from New Orleans and their likelihood of returning to prison. Kirk also discussed potential strategies for fostering residential change among ex-prisoners, focusing specifically on parole residency policies and the provision of public housing vouchers.

NIJ Conference

Interview

June 2011

John Laub, Director, National Institute of Justice, and Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University

Lawrence Bobo, Harvard University, delivers the Keynote Address at the NIJ Conference 2011. His speech "The Importance of Research on Race, Crime and Punishment" underscores the importance of continuing to undertake the research and policy-based efforts necessary to decouple the nexus of race, crime, and punishment that defines our social landscape.

In this interview conducted at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Conference 2011, Edward Davis, Police Commissioner of the Boston Police Department, Massachusetts, discusses action research, including the successful use of violence reduction teams, and building trust between the community and the criminal justice field.

The Federal Communications Commission delivered the National Broadband Plan in March 2010. As part of the plan, the FCC proposed a strategy for implementing a national public safety broadband network that would allow public safety responders anywhere in the nation to send and receive critical voice, video and data to save lives, reduce injuries, and prevent acts of crime and terror. How this strategy is implemented will have a significant impact on criminal justice and other public safety agencies nationwide, both with respect to operational capability and to resources.