Social and Behavioral Science

This Crime File video presents a panel discussion of the biological causes and effects of drug addiction, with a focus on cocaine, and examines treatment principles and the characteristics of those most likely to benefit from treatment.

One of the series of videos from the 'Crime File' public affairs program, this video on neighborhood safety mainly uses a panel interview to describe, evaluate, and identify success factors for police-citizen crime prevention programs; programs considered include citizen patrol, block watch, police 'storefront' services, and police door-to-door contact with citizens.

1985

Using an interview panel format, this Crime File video focuses on the findings of an experimental program in Minneapolis, Minn., pertaining to the most effective police method for dealing with domestic assaults.

This video, in the Crime File series, delineates the issues associated with the insanity defense, with a particular focus on the John Hinckley, Jr., case. Three panelists are questioned by the moderator regarding the parameters of the insanity defense as it has been used and has recently been redefined in some States.

This Crime File video reviews three studies evaluating the effectiveness of policing strategies.

Cindy Southworth discusses how technology is a new tool that abusers are misusing in their harassment, threats and stalking.

1990

This Crime File video presents the portrayal of the nature and activities of juvenile gangs in Los Angeles; followed by a panel discussion of gang involvement in drug trafficking, sociological explanations of gangs, and strategies for countering gangs.

This Crime File video examines the development of new methods for restitution is providing sentencing alternatives to fines, probation, or imprisonment.

1990

This video, in the crime File series, presents a segment that describes the implementation of drug asset forfeiture law in Broward County, Fla., followed by a panel discussion of the pros and cons of forfeiture law.

This video, number 5 in the Crime File series, portrays a 3-member panel discussing the rate of rearrests among persons on pretrial release, features of the 1984 Federal bail law designed to prevent the pretrial release of dangerous persons, ways to reduce rearrests of pretrial releasees, and constitutional issues raised by preventive detention.

NIJ's Eric Martin discusses the Institute's ongoing evaluation of the HOPE program for drug-involved offenders. 

This Crime File video considers the relationship between alcohol abuse and deviant behavior, with particular attention to driving under the influence (DUI); a panel discusses the effectiveness of legislation and treatment in reducing alcohol abuse.

This video, in the Crime File series, portrays a three-member panel discussing prison conditions in Texas both before and after a 1980 court order for the reform of prison management practices, implications of the Texas experience for prison management, and lessons for prison management to be drawn from the experiences of the experimental Federal correctional facility in Butner, N.C.

NIJ Conference
Interview
June 2012
Amy Farrell, Northeastern University

NIJ has funded a study looking at the barriers that local communities face identifying, investigating and prosecuting human trafficking cases under new state human trafficking laws.

In this interview, Amy Farrell discusses that study.

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

This video, in the Crime File series, presents background material on some U.S. Supreme Court decisions pertinent to the use of the exclusionary rule in sanctioning illegal police searches and seizures (Mapp v. Ohio and Shepherd v. Massachusetts); the moderator, James Q. Wilson, poses questions to Professor Yale Kamisar, University of Michigan Law School, and D. Lowell Jensen, Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, designed to probe the controversial implications of the exclusionary rule.

This Crime File video shows three dramatized scenarios of police search and seizure tactics are critiqued as to their legality by a panel consisting of a police officer, a U.S. attorney, and a public defender.

Numerous states and hundreds of municipalities have laws restricting the location of a convicted sex offender's residence. Little is known about the effectiveness of these restrictions. Do they keep children safer or give a false sense of safety? Some people suggest these laws are driven by media attention to a few cases. Others believe they are not grounded in research.