NIJ’s Standards and Conformity Assessment Research Portfolio fosters development of equipment standards and related conformity assessment programs that specifically address the needs of law enforcement, corrections, and other criminal justice agencies.
Law enforcement and corrections officers rely on various types of equipment technologies to protect themselves and the public while performing their duties. NIJ helps ensure that officers have the equipment they need by developing equipment performance standards and effective and sustainable ways to assess equipment against those standards. The goal of the Standards and Conformity Assessment Research Portfolio is to ensure that equipment is safe and reliable and performs according to established minimum requirements. Among other variables, this work addresses product quality, product marketing, fit, physical burden, ergonomics, interoperability, cost, care, and replacement.
NIJ helps drive equipment innovation by continually modernizing equipment testing standards and performance requirements to meet emerging criminal justice challenges and keep pace with scientific innovation. This is accomplished through collaborative partnerships with public- and private-sector organizations in the United States and internationally who research, develop, manufacture, and test products to address the equipment needs of the criminal justice and military communities. NIJ develops its own standards and conformity assessment programs. When it is appropriate to do so, NIJ adopts existing standards or adapts them to the needs of the criminal justice community. NIJ also supports the development of standards and conformity assessment programs by other public- and private-sector standards organizations. NIJ’s standards are voluntary. Manufacturers are not required to follow them; however, NIJ standards are influential with manufacturers because the standards serve as best practices for the field, and they inform procurement and resource allocation decisions throughout the criminal justice community.
NIJ standards and the associated conformity assessment program are publicly available resources for comparing equipment performance information produced using standardized testing methods and minimum performance requirements. They enable the end user to compare products and gain a level of confidence in a particular product’s fitness for use. Produced in collaboration with stakeholders, NIJ standards and the other standards it supports articulate valid testing approaches that are repeatable and reproducible while reflecting the operational needs of field practitioners and associated performance levels for select tools and technology.
Research Priority 1: Determine the equipment needs of criminal justice practitioners.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 1.1 | What operational challenges are practitioners and agencies facing with their equipment? |
| Research Question 1.2 | How can standardization and conformity assessment help criminal justice agencies improve confidence in their equipment? |
| Research Question 1.3 | Which stakeholders should be convened to determine equipment performance requirements and achieve consensus? |
Research Priority 2: Assess the standards landscape to identify existing standards that could be useful for criminal justice practitioners.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 2.1 | Do appropriate equipment standards already exist for the equipment in question? Are there existing standards development organizations or standards setting organizations that publish related standards? |
| Research Question 2.2 | How many products and companies would be affected by equipment standardization? How mature is the specific industrial ecosystem? |
| Research Question 2.3 | How many criminal justice practitioners and agencies would benefit from standardization of the equipment in question? |
Priority 3: Assess the conformity assessment landscape to identify existing programs that could be useful for criminal justice practitioners.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 3.1 | Do appropriate conformity assessment schemes already exist? Are there existing conformity assessment bodies that test and certify related equipment products? |
| Research Question 3.2 | How much would conformity assessment cost manufacturers? How much would conformity assessment affect the costs of equipment for criminal justice agencies? |
| Research Question 3.3 | How many criminal justice practitioners and agencies would benefit from purchasing certified products for the equipment in question? |
Priority 4: Develop performance standards and associated conformity assessment schemes.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 4.1 | How will performance standards be developed? Which stakeholders should be convened to develop test methods for the equipment in question? Will an external standards development organization be used? Will NIJ publish the standard(s), or will an external organization publish them? What are NIJ’s resource requirements? |
| Research Question 4.2 | How will conformity assessment schemes be developed? Which stakeholders should be convened to develop a conformity assessment scheme for the equipment in question? What is the appropriate level of certification (e.g., first-party, second-party, or third-party certification)? Will NIJ conduct conformity assessment, or will an external conformity assessment body conduct it? What are NIJ’s resource requirements? |
| Research Question 4.3 | How will consensus be achieved? What is the strategy to gather feedback from the affected public on draft documents? How will standards be validation tested? |
Priority 5: Implement conformity assessment and publish informational resources for criminal justice practitioners regarding standardized equipment.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 5.1 | How will conformity assessment be implemented in practice? |
| Research Question 5.2 | What are the best communication channels to reach criminal justice practitioners and in what formats? |
| Research Question 5.3 | How does NIJ measure whether dissemination efforts are successful and whether informational resources are impactful? |
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