After an overview of the goal of the National Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) Corrections Technology Program, this Fact Sheet summarizes current NIJ Corrections Technology Program projects.
The goal of the Corrections Technology Program is to improve corrections operations of State, local, tribal, and Federal agencies. Within this broad goal, the Technology Program focuses on improvements in four areas. One area is the safety of the public, staff, offenders, and visitors within correctional agencies. A second area is the safety and efficacy in community corrections through improved offender reentry. A third area targeted for improvement through technology is the allocation of resources within correctional agencies in order to reduce costs, improve staff management, and reduce injuries to staff, offenders, and visitors. A fourth area addressed for technological improvements pertains to collaboration among State, local, tribal, and Federal correctional agencies and other criminal justice agencies through the integration of technology information. Current NIJ Technology Program projects briefly described are a research program on non-toxic drug detection and identification aerosol technology; correctional operational trend analysis system; and an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections' current use of its global positioning systems monitoring and development of a geographic information system toolkit. NIJ also sponsors an annual technology institute for corrections practitioners to learn about and discuss technology initiatives and issues affecting the corrections community. Eight other technology-oriented programs are also briefly described.