Office on Violence Against Women (OVW)

Stacy Lee Reynolds and Christine (Tina) Crossland continue their discussion of tribal crime, justice, and safety, including how Native American persons experience crime victimization at higher rates than non-Native people and the jurisdictional complexities in responding to tribal crime, justice, and safety. Read the transcript.

Listen to the first half of Stacy and Tina’s discussion.

Research indicates that Native American persons experience crime victimization at higher rates than non-Native people. Furthermore, the unique position of American Indian and Alaska Native tribes as both sovereign nations and domestic dependents of the U.S. creates jurisdictional complexities in responding to crime, justice, and safety. Senior social and behavioral scientist Christine (Tina) Crossland discusses NIJ’s research on these topics, especially on the prevention of violence towards American Indians and Alaska Natives. Communications Assistant Stacy Lee Reynolds hosts. 

The National Academies conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the National Institute of Justice. This panel provides an overview of the evaluation and NIJ's response to it. NIJ has accepted many of the recommendations in the NRC report, and you will learn what the agency is doing to implement them. A few of the recommendations were challenging and created considerable debate within NIJ. Plans to address these thorny issues also are discussed.

Panelists will present findings from a comprehensive study of domestic violence shelters in eight states. Data were collected from 3,410 residents in 215 domestic violence shelters — 81 percent of the shelters. The first of its kind, this descriptive study seeks to fill a gap in current knowledge about the needs and experiences of domestic violence survivors who turn to shelters for help and the type of help they receive. Implications for policy and programming will also be addressed.

Panelists will summarize the progress and results of sexual violence research since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994. The panel will also examine how research has contributed to policy, assess current knowledge gaps and discuss research needs.

Panelists will examine practices, beliefs and recommendations of professional and custody evaluators in domestic violence cases. Panelists will discuss current NIJ studies that use both qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the impact of personal attitudes and beliefs on custody evaluation.

Since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, a majority of the more than 250 research and evaluation studies funded by NIJ examined domestic violence issues. This research has been collected in the Compendium of Research on Violence Against Women, which includes an abstract of each grant and the results of completed studies.