NIJ’s Technology Research and Development Portfolio funds research and evaluation to help criminal justice agencies better understand how to implement technology. It also funds research and development of innovative technologies to help bring affordable new equipment to market.
NIJ’s Technology Research and Development Portfolio addresses criminal justice challenges in law enforcement and policing, institutional and community corrections, and courts. In recent decades, vendors of technologies such as in-car computers, body-worn cameras, license plate readers, city-wide camera systems, gunshot detection systems, unmanned aircraft systems (“drones”), contraband and weapons detection systems, telepresence systems, data analytics software, and cloud-based information technology systems have cultivated the law enforcement community as avid consumers of increasingly complex and expensive technology deployments. More recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has infused technology with even more possibilities for agencies to explore and has stimulated questions about appropriate uses of it within the criminal justice system.
Recognizing that law enforcement agencies together have amassed a great deal of cumulative exposure to and experience with various technologies, NIJ’s Technology Research Portfolio addresses ongoing fundamental questions of whether new technologies have led to better outcomes, what the actual returns on investments are, and what the best practices are for deploying new capabilities. This work also addresses technology as a potential solution to operational challenges, such as recruitment, retention, training of sworn and nonsworn personnel, and other staffing issues. NIJ’s work considers the challenges faced by agencies with different levels of capacity, with an understanding that larger agencies with greater budgets and more operational responsibilities can deploy technology differently than midsize or smaller agencies with fewer resources.
NIJ’s Technology Research and Development Portfolio produces research findings and best practices for implementing technology in criminal justice agencies. NIJ disseminates this information to various stakeholders, including criminal justice practitioners at small, midsize, and large agencies in urban, suburban, and rural environments; policymakers; researchers; federal partners; and private industry. NIJ funds projects through annual competitive grant opportunities and supports the Criminal Justice Technology Testing and Evaluation Center, which provides testing, evaluation, and other activities to support the safety, effectiveness, efficiency, and efficacy of technologies in use or adaptable by criminal justice and juvenile justice communities. NIJ also collaborates with other federal agencies on research and development projects of mutual interest.
Research Priority 1: Determine the technology needs of criminal justice practitioners.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 1.1 | What operational challenges are practitioners and agencies facing? |
| Research Question 1.2 | Can technology help criminal justice agencies with their operational challenges? |
| Research Question 1.3 | Which technologies would be most appropriate to use? |
Research Priority 2: Assess the technology landscape to identify technologies that could be useful for criminal justice practitioners.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 2.1 | Does the necessary technology exist? If not, how much research and development would be required to create a practical solution? |
| Research Question 2.2 | How many products, services, and companies are offering the technology solution? How mature is the specific industrial ecosystem? |
| Research Question 2.3 | Are criminal justice agencies already using the technology? If so, how many and for how long? |
Priority 3: Test and evaluate technologies of interest by criminal justice practitioners.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 3.1 | What is the most effective technical way to test and evaluate the technology of interest? Do test and evaluation methods already exist, or do new ones need to be developed? |
| Research Question 3.2 | What are the performance metrics and how is success defined? |
| Research Question 3.3 | What are the costs associated with testing and evaluation? What is the most economical way to test and evaluate the technology of interest? |
Priority 4: Evaluate implementation of technology by criminal justice agencies in the field.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 4.1 | What is the best way to evaluate how criminal justice agencies are implementing the use of the technology of interest? |
| Research Question 4.2 | What are the performance metrics and how is success defined? |
| Research Question 4.3 | What is the total cost of ownership of the technology of interest? What is the return on investment of the technology? |
Priority 5: Publish informational resources for criminal justice practitioners regarding technology.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 5.1 | What information would be useful to provide to practitioners and in what format? |
| Research Question 5.2 | What are the best communication channels to reach criminal justice practitioners? |
| Research Question 5.3 | How does NIJ measure whether dissemination efforts are successful and whether informational resources are impactful? |
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