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Webinar: NIJ Research Assistantship Program Informational Webinar

This recorded webinar, originally held September 28, 2023, provides information on NIJ’s Research Assistantship Program, which offers highly qualified doctoral students the opportunity to bring their expertise to NIJ to work across offices and program areas to obtain a practical and applied research experience. The program is a research focused professional development opportunity for doctoral students from all academic disciplines. NIJ...

Inclusive Research: Engaging People Closest to the Issue Makes for Better Science & Greater Impact; 2023 NIJ Research Conference Plenary

August 2023

This panel will discuss what inclusive research is, how to conduct it, and what issues and challenges exist about engaging in it. “Inclusive research” has its history as a participatory research method designed to ensure people closest to the issue or problem under study are authentically engaged in the research process rather than simply being “research subjects.” While community-based participatory research has begun to take on greater prominence in the criminal justice realm, such efforts are largely confined to qualitative research inquiries.

In Acceptance of the SEARCH 2022 Justice Policy Leadership Award

NIJ Director Nancy La Vigne, Ph.D., gives acceptance speech at 2022 SEARCH Meeting
NIJ Director Nancy La Vigne, Ph.D.

Thank you, Dave, and thanks to the SEARCH Board for choosing me as this year’s recipient of the Justice Policy Leadership Award. I am tremendously honored. I also want to thank the wait staff here for taking such good care of us this evening — please join me in thanking them all!

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that SEARCH has awarded...

The Hidden Costs of Reentry: Understanding the Barriers to Removing a Criminal Record

May 2022

NIJ hosted a webinar to discuss under-researched aspects of reentry: expungement of criminal records and the impact of those records. This webinar includes a presentation of ongoing research projects examining the impact of legal aid for expungement and past research projects studying the accuracy and permanency of criminal records and the prevalence of collateral consequences of conviction. A Q&A session will conclude this webinar.

Desistance: It’s a Process, Not an Event

April 2022
Desistance is the process of individuals ceasing engagement in criminal activity. It may sound simple but it is quite complex, and the more we understand it, the better equipped we are to help accelerate the process before people are incarcerated or once they leave prison or jail. NIJ Journal Editor Beth Pearsall hosts a conversation on this topic with Senior Social Science Analyst Marie Garcia, Senior Advisor Ben Adams, and Social Science Research Analyst Kaitlyn Sill.

NIJ-Funded Research on Firearms Violence in Urban Cities Advancing Scientific Evidence to Inform Practice

December 2021

In this full thematic panel, renowned experts will present a series of papers summarizing the newest findings of NIJ-funded research projects on criminal offenses with firearms in urban areas. Researchers used various criminological and other theories, including routine activity theory, socio-ecological and socio-environmental perspectives, and advanced mixed-study methods, including surveys and spatio-temporal designs, to produce scientific evidence to inform practice.

Promising Practices in Police Recruitment, Selection, Training, and Retention

March 2020

Antoinette Tull, Human Resources Division Chief, Richmond (VA) PD, discusses how law enforcement recruitment and retention strategies have changed in recent years, new retention strategies to attract millennial recruits, what retention strategies budget restricted agencies can consider implementing, and how NIJ can play a role in researching or evaluating strategies for recruitment and retention.

Antoinette Tull was a participant on an NIJ Saturday Session panel at IACP 2019.

Benefit-Cost Analysis for Crime Policy

February 2011

How do we decide how to allocate criminal justice resources in a way that minimizes the social harms from both crime and policy efforts to control crime? How, for that matter, do we decide how much to spend on the criminal justice system and crime control generally, versus other pressing needs? These questions are at the heart of benefit-cost analysis.

Just Wrong: The Aftermath of Wrongful Convictions

October 2017

The strength of our criminal justice system depends on its ability to convict the guilty and clear the innocent. But we know that innocent people are sometimes wrongfully convicted and the guilty remain free to victimize others. The consequences of a wrongful conviction are far-reaching for the wrongfully convicted and the survivors and victims of the original crimes.