Police agencies

Police use of force, while infrequently used, is a tremendous concern to public safety in the United States when officers employ it excessively or inappropriately, causing injury or death and eroding public trust in law enforcement. This plenary from the 2023 NIJ Research Conference describes the Integrating, Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) de-escalation training program developed by the Police Executive Research Forum to guide officers in defusing critical incidents.

This plenary featured three significant areas of NIJ research investment that have had a tremendous impact on both the research community and the field of practice: advances in forensic DNA, police body armor standards, and place-based analyses of public safety. Each topic was explored by a collection of people representing the researcher, practitioner, policymaker, and advocacy perspectives, exploring how evidence generation resulted in changes that improved public safety and yielded more equitable criminal justice outcomes.

Nearly one in six of women experience stalking victimization at some point during their life, and most are stalked by someone who they know—typically current or former intimate partners. Given the escalation of violence and potential harm that an individual may commit while stalking someone, it is important to bring more attention to this issue. This brown-bag session highlights a panel of scholars to share what the field currently knows about stalking behaviors and victims, including a focus on intimate partner violence, non-partner relationships, and police response.

Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) is a DOJ-sponsored initiative to reduce violent crime, particularly gun crime, by fostering cooperation by criminal justice agencies and local partners to develop and implement strategic approaches.

On February 16-18, 2021, the National Institute of Justice hosted the Virtual Conference on School Safety: Bridging Research to Practice to Safeguard Our Schools. This video includes the following presentations: 

On February 16-18, 2021, the National Institute of Justice hosted the Virtual Conference on School Safety: Bridging Research to Practice to Safeguard Our Schools. This video includes the following presentations: 

In recent years, NIJ invested in several research projects to advance understanding and inform prevention of public mass shootings.

In 2004, the National Institute of Justice created the social science research on forensic sciences (SSRFS) research program to explore the impact of forensic sciences on the criminal justice system and the administration of justice. Much of the early research from the SSRFS program focused on DNA processing and the use of DNA in investigations and prosecutions.