Title: National Institute of Justice 1997 Annual Report to Congress. Series: Annual Report Author: National Institute of Justice Published: August 1998 Subject: Funding resources 135 pages 240,000 bytes ------------------------------- Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420 (877-712-9279 for TTY users). ------------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice National Institute of Justice 1997 Annual Report To Congress ------------------------------- Letter of Transmittal To the President, the Attorney General, and the Congress: I have the honor to transmit the National Institute of Justice's annual report on research, development, and evaluation for fiscal year 1997, pursuant to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act (as amended) and the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Respectfully submitted, Jeremy Travis Director National Institute of Justice Washington, DC ------------------------------- National Institute of Justice 1997 Annual Report To Congress August 1998 ------------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, DC 20531 Janet Reno Attorney General U.S. Department of Justice Raymond C. Fisher Associate Attorney General Laurie Robinson Assistant Attorney General Noel Brennan Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jeremy Travis Director, National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov National Institute of Justice World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Office for Victims of Crime. NCJ 171679 ------------------------------- Table of Contents Message From the Director Part 1: NIJ in Brief Part 2: Overview of the Year Part 3: Selected Highlights Creating Safer Streets Community Policing in Chicago: An Evaluation Observing Policing in Neighborhoods Reducing Officer Stress Breaking the Links Between Drugs and Crime Experimenting With Mandatory Treatment for Drug-Involved Offenders Helping Identify Drug Use Patterns Evaluating Corrections-Based Treatment Programs Reducing Substance Abuse Relapse Through Aftercare Understanding the Nature of Violence Homicide in Eight Cities Stalking: Findings From a National Survey Family Violence: A Vigorous Research Agenda Working to Prevent Crime Preventing Delinquency: Evaluation of the Children-at-Risk Program Evaluating a Comprehensive Approach to Safer Communities What Schools Are Doing to Prevent Delinquency Applying Technology to Reduce Crime Regional Centers Offer Technical Assistance Supporting Investigative and Forensic Sciences Helping to Protect the Public from Terrorism Innovative Devices Help Control Crime Computerized Mapping: High-Tech Crime Analysis Tool Appendixes Appendix A: Awards Made in Fiscal Year 1997 Criminal Behavior Crime Control and Prevention Criminal Justice System Technology Research and Development Information Dissemination and Technical Support Appendix B: Documents Published in Fiscal Year 1997 ------------------------------- Message From the Director For the National Institute of Justice, fiscal year 1997 was characterized by continued growth, collaboration, and intellectual stimulation. The partnerships created over the last several years with bureaus and offices of the U.S. Department of Justice, other Federal agencies, and private foundations are flourishing. This Annual Report to Congress summarizes the Institute's major activities during fiscal year 1997 and describes 18 of the year's key projects and programs. Several of the 18 relate to the priorities and programs spelled out in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act). The Department of Justice offices established to administer Crime Act funds allocate to NIJ up to 5 percent of their funds for research and evaluation of Crime Act programs and priorities. In fiscal year 1997, transfers from Crime Act offices totaled $51.1 million. The resources available have bolstered research, evaluation, and development in key areas. Many of these areas relate to strengthening community efforts to control and prevent crime. Research has shown that comparable communities can vary in the type of crime they experience and in their reaction to it. Healthy communities are a powerful crime prevention "program"; they can magnify and sustain the impact of interventions and innovations. Understanding how innovations affect communities not only adds to the knowledge base and helps ensure accountability of public funds but also allows communities to make midcourse corrections and learn from one another. Developing tools, especially the tool of knowledge, and communicating findings will continue to be priorities as NIJ works to understand how public policies can control crime and achieve justice. Jeremy Travis Director ------------------------------- Part 1: NIJ in Brief The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), a component of the Office of Justice Programs, was created by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended. NIJ is authorized to support research, evaluation, and demonstration programs; technology development; and both national and international information dissemination. Specific mandates of the Act direct NIJ to focus its efforts on strengthening and improving criminal justice and on reducing and preventing crime and delinquency. The Institute's Director, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, establishes the Institute's objectives guided by the needs of the criminal justice field and the priorities of the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice. This report summarizes NIJ's role, operation, and overall achievements during fiscal year 1997 in three parts: o Part 1: NIJ in Brief, describes the Institute's organization, funding, and growth. This introduction to the Institute contains budget figures and explanations and an organization chart. o Part 2: Overview of the Year, uses broad brush strokes and brief examples to explain how NIJ accomplished its goals. It contains a list of the Institute's strategic challenges, descriptions of partnership activities with Federal agencies and private foundations, and a reporting of outreach and dissemination efforts. o Part 3: Selected Highlights, is a cross section of NIJ's research and development activities. It presents 18 notable programs and projects in more depth. Space limitations prevent the inclusion of more than a sampling of the important activity the Institute undertook during the fiscal year. The 18 programs and projects fall into five main sections: policing, drugs and crime, crime prevention, violence, and technology. Appendix A lists the awards the Institute made during the fiscal year. Appendix B lists the documents published. ------------------------------- NIJ's Organization, Funding, and Growth Fiscal year 1997 marked the fourth consecutive year of remarkable growth and achievement for the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. Higher levels of congressional funding, greater use of partnering arrangements with Federal agencies, and increased staffing enabled NIJ to expand the breadth and depth of its research and development activities to address key strategic challenges. NIJ's Organization NIJ conducts business through its four main components or offices (see exhibit 1). Each office is responsible for carrying out specific aspects of the Institute's mission. o The Office of the Director sets policy for the Institute, shapes its efforts, directs its research and development agenda, and guides its direction. The Office identifies priorities for the agency, oversees management and administrative activities, initiates and fosters collaboration with other Federal agencies and private foundations, coordinates the Institute's interaction with its partners, develops and implements the Institute's strategic plans, and supervises the Institute's budget. The Director reviews all solicitations for research and development and approves all grant awards, cooperative agreements, contracts, and publications. o The Office of Development and Communications seeks out emerging ideas and promising new practices and brings them to the attention of the field, implements demonstrations of innovative approaches to controlling crime, and conducts studies of pressing operational issues. The Office disseminates information about research findings and technology innovations in multiple ways: through traditional and electronic means of publication in a variety of formats, by providing opportunities for criminal justice professionals to meet and exchange ideas, and by encouraging the exchange of ideas regarding transnational issues. Priority is given to the needs of State and local officials and criminal justice practitioners. o The Office of Research and Evaluation develops, conducts, directs, and supervises comprehensive research and evaluation activities through two integrated vehicles: extramural research, which involves outside researchers who often collaborate with criminal justice practitioners, and intramural research, conducted by Office staff. Such research and evaluation cuts across a wide array of distinct topics that exist within the Institute's charter. Substantive areas include violence, drug abuse, criminal behavior, organized crime, gangs, corrections, prosecution, sentencing, victimization, policing, drug testing, crime prevention, and crime mapping. The Office identifies priority issues and builds knowledge that informs policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and members of the public. o The Office of Science and Technology provides Federal, State, and local law enforcement and corrections agencies access to the best technologies available and helps them develop capabilities essential to improving efficiency and effectiveness. One of the primary mechanisms through which the Office accomplishes this mission is its network of regional technical assistance centers--the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers. The Office also supports the development of new technologies to serve the needs of law enforcement and corrections agencies, while avoiding unnecessary and expensive overlap and duplication. NIJ's Funding and Growth NIJ's total funding topped $100 million in fiscal year 1997, compared to $23.5 million in 1994 (see exhibit 2). The major source of funds in 1997, as well as in 1996, was transfers from program offices [1] established under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act). Exhibit 3 indicates NIJ's spending pattern in fiscal year 1997. The primary expenditure component was awards made under the Crime Act. How the Institute allocated Crime Act funds is shown in exhibit 4. Concomitant with the more than quadrupling of NIJ's funding during the 1994-1997 period, the Institute's portfolio of research and development projects and programs also grew substantially. As indicated in exhibit 5, the research portfolio approximately doubled during the period, both in terms of the number of awards made each year and in terms of the number of awards active during a given year. The dollar value of active awards more than tripled over the 4-year period. To manage its rapidly increasing workload, NIJ almost doubled the size of its staff, to 96 in fiscal year 1997 from 50 in 1994. Growth Factors As noted above, the additional funds infused into the agency by the 1994 Crime Act led to major enlargement of the Institute's research and development portfolio. Not to be overlooked, however, are several other factors that also played an instrumental role in portfolio growth and continue to do so: o Greater emphasis on partnerships with other public agencies and private foundations. o Advances in technology and the interest in adapting or transferring technology developed by the military to State and local law enforcement and corrections agencies. o A heightened interest in international crime. o A reinvigorated intramural and extramural research agenda. Partnerships. Crime affects all aspects of a community, and the criminal justice system operates in conjunction with other public services. It is logical then that NIJ collaborates with private and public agencies and organizations dedicated to improving public health, housing, and other community services. Advances in Technology. Many of the advances in the development of law enforcement and corrections technology have been supported by Crime Act funding. For example, NIJ's strong program to develop dual-use technologies (technologies that benefit both national defense and local law enforcement) is supported in large part by Crime Act funds. Much of the technology research and development involves interaction between Federal laboratories, NIJ staff, and organizations that turn research and development efforts into commercial products. International Criminal Justice. The Institute's links with the international community are being strengthened through membership in the United Nations network of criminological institutes; participation in developing the U.N. Criminal Justice Information Network; sponsorship of two World Wide Web-based global electronic information resources (UNOJUST, the U.N. Online Justice Clearinghouse, and the Rule of Law [2]); and the establishment of an International Center within NIJ's Office of Development and Communications. Reinvigorated Research Agenda. Beginning in 1994, NIJ's research and evaluation staff and program development staff have refocused their efforts and infused them with new vision and energy. For example, in fiscal year 1997, NIJ's research and evaluation program explored key issues in community policing, violence against women, sentencing reform, the nexus between drugs and crime, and specialized courts, such as those devoted exclusively to drug offenses and family violence. Key intramural analyses completed by agency staff included: o Homicide in eight cities (see Part 3, "Homicide in Eight Cities" for a complete description). o The purchase and use patterns of crack, powder cocaine, and heroin. o Methamphetamine use among arrestees. o Development of a risk classification system for probationers. o Drug use in prisons. o The impact of a controversial televised arrest on citizens' satisfaction with the police. o Examination of crime prevention through design in the Washington, D.C., subway system. o The incapacitative and deterrent effects of police use of oleoresin capsicum (pepper spray). ------------------------------- 1. Corrections Program Office, Drug Courts Program Office, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), and Violence Against Women Grants Office. Except for COPS, they are located in the Office of Justice Programs. 2. Visit UNOJUST at http://www.unojust.org and the Rule of Law at http://www.rol.org. ------------------------------- Part 2: Overview of the Year In 1997, crime rates continued to decline in many localities across the Nation. This is good news, although the reasons are not completely clear and severe problems persist in many jurisdictions. Nonetheless, the overall picture spurs optimism. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics 1997 report on crime victimization, the violent crime rate is the lowest since the early 1970s. [3] To ensure that its activities will have maximum impact on crime's overall decline, NIJ developed--within the context of its legislative mandate--a blueprint for research, evaluation, and development to help generate the knowledge that will inform criminal justice policy as the Nation approaches and enters the next century. The blueprint consists of five strategic challenges: o Rethinking justice and the processes that create just communities. NIJ is committed to finding new ways to operate the justice system that result in fair, efficient, and effective outcomes. For example, Criminal Justice 2000 is a multiyear NIJ program seeking to foster a national dialogue on the justice system with the goal of understanding where it is now and where it is heading as we approach the 21st century. o Understanding the nexus between crime and its social context. NIJ seeks to identify the links between crime and other social phenomena by illuminating the relationships between criminal activity and the context in which it occurs. o Breaking the cycle of crime by testing researched-based interventions. The Institute designs and evaluates experiments that focus on breaking identified linkages between crime and certain social conditions, such as drug abuse. o Creating the tools and technologies that meet the needs of practitioners. NIJ is developing, testing, and evaluating new and transferable techniques, practices, and technologies, such as crime mapping and DNA testing. o Expanding the horizons through interdisciplinary and international perspectives. The Institute looks beyond traditional geographic and intellectual boundaries to develop a fuller understanding of crime and justice issues through its International Center and its exploration of how other disciplines, such as economics, can be applied to those issues. Many of NIJ's projects and programs address these challenges. [4] This overview reviews those and other NIJ activities in fiscal year 1997 under four broad NIJ endeavors: putting crime in context, testing big ideas, collaborating with others, and extending the influence of research and development. ------------------------------- 3. Taylor, B.M., National Crime Victimization Survey: Changes in Criminal Victimization 1994-95, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 1997. NCJ 162032. 4. See National Institute of Justice, Building Knowledge About Crime and Justice, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1997. NCJ 167570. ------------------------------- A Review of Projects, Programs, and Activities Fiscal year 1997 was one of continued intense activity across a wide spectrum of programs and projects spawned by the Institute's legislative mandate. One way to view that spectrum is to envision it as a blend of four major, complementary components: o An emphasis on the value of examining in communities the social conditions and other characteristics that define the context in which crime occurs. Such a focus on context contributes to a better understanding of the links between crime and such factors as drug abuse, firearms use, and economic status. o Ongoing support of experimental programs and approaches that test what could be referred to as "big ideas" for controlling and preventing criminal activity by severing identified links between crime and certain community conditions. o Continuation of forging new, and solidifying previous, partnerships with other government agencies and with private foundations whose goals intersect in varying degrees with those of the Institute, an approach that leverages the resources and productivity of all parties and promotes coordination of effort. o Widespread dissemination of the results of NIJ's research and development to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and the general public to maximize the influence and impact of the Institute's work. Putting Crime in Context Crime does not occur in a vacuum--an obvious but often underappreciated fact. The context in which crime occurs includes socioeconomic and other characteristics of a community. To identify and better understand them is to gain insight into the links that may exist between those characteristics and crime--often an essential first step in developing effective interventions to control and prevent criminal activity. For example, part of NIJ's reinvigorated intramural research program focused on understanding and explaining factors affecting homicide rates in eight cities. The research included an examination of the social context within which homicide and other violence occurs, such as demographics, employment rates, and educational attainment of residents. Among other findings, the study showed that the nature of homicide differs from city to city, suggesting a need for community responses that are local and based on data that reflect specific local--not necessarily national--trends. (For more on this study, see "Homicide in Eight Cities" in Part 3.) Such findings lend credibility to indications that many promising approaches to preventing violence capitalize on and link community resources and are configured with the community's characteristics in mind. Part of the context in which crime occurs is drug use. One way many communities learn about its extent and nature involves testing arrestees to determine what drugs are being used, what crimes they are linked to, and what types of offenders are buying which drugs. NIJ's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) system opens a window into the drug cultures of arrestees and helps the criminal justice system monitor the types of drugs being used in a community and then make appropriate responses. For example, ADAM data indicate that powder cocaine is a problem associated mostly with offenders age 36 years and older. In contrast, marijuana use among arrestees is disproportionately concentrated among youthful offenders. ADAM data also indicate that drug use varies from one community to another. In San Diego, for example, more arrestees test positive for methamphetamine than cocaine; in eastern cities such as New York and Washington, methamphetamine barely registers on the scale. In Baltimore, the drug problem centers on heroin; in Washington, the drug problem is crack cocaine. (For more about ADAM, see "Helping Identify Drug Use Patterns" in Part 3.) Other social characteristics that affect crime rates are being investigated by researchers with the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, another major NIJ effort to understand the relationship between community and crime. The Chicago neighborhoods study, which is cofunded with other Federal agencies and the MacArthur Foundation, is an ambitious, long-term inquiry into the relationship between community, crime, delinquency, family, and individual development. Researchers with the Chicago neighborhoods project hypothesize that residential stability is an overlooked feature of relatively safer neighborhoods and have set out to better understand the community factors that contribute to interpersonal violence. The project has surveyed more than 8,700 adult residents in 343 neighborhoods throughout Chicago and has identified 80 neighborhoods as the focus for a longitudinal cohort study to be conducted over the next 8 years. As part of the first wave of this longitudinal study, researchers have conducted interviews with 6,000 children and adolescents and their primary care givers. The Chicago neighborhoods project has found that cohesion within a community--labeled "collective efficacy" and defined as mutual trust and a willingness to intervene in the supervision of children and the maintenance of public order--offers a deeper understanding of the social mechanisms that have linked neighborhood poverty and instability with a neighborhood's high crime rates. A neighborhood's active and shared willingness to monitor children's play groups, help one another, and intervene in preventing acts such as juvenile truancy or street-corner loitering are key examples of collective efficacy. Another example of assessing the social context is the formation of community acceptance panels, which NIJ has assembled to obtain opinions and flesh out issues and concerns about the introduction of various technologies designed to combat crime. Consisting of representatives of community advocacy and public interest groups, the panels are ongoing and their composition changes with the nature of the technology scrutinized. One panel, for example, explored the use of closed-circuit television within a business district and gunshot detection technologies. Members of the panel included representatives from the National Rifle Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Miami's Independent Review Panel, the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood Safety, the Kansas City Crime Commission, United Neighbors Against Drugs, and the California Community Foundation. ------------------------------- Testing Big Ideas NIJ supports the implementation of innovative ideas, such as experiments that intervene to break links between crime and certain social and community conditions. In Boston, NIJ supported attempts to curb juvenile violence. Community officials knew they would need to disrupt the city's illegal gun market; they also knew that young gang-involved, repeat offenders were victimizing each other at high rates and that youth homicides were concentrated in certain neighborhoods. An interagency working group was formed to deter violent behavior by these chronic gang offenders. The police department sought the cooperation of the clergy and enlisted probation officers, community workers, educators, and school police to identify potential "hot spots" of gang trouble. The working group initiated a deceptively simple operation that made use of a wide variety of traditional criminal justice tools, but assembled them in some fundamentally new ways. The working group reached out directly to gangs, set clear standards for their behavior, and backed up the message by pulling every lever legally available when those standards were violated. Swiftness and sureness of response was critical. Probationers were quickly punished for violations, warrants were served expeditiously, the streets swarmed with law enforcement officers (including a Federal presence), and disorder offenses, such as drinking in public, were pursued. The effort was effective. Between 1990 and 1994, 155 young people age 21 years and under were killed in Boston; 84 percent of these deaths were due to firearms. Of the 155 deaths, 37 were juveniles under age 16. Between 1995 and 1997, there was one homicide among juveniles under 17. In addition, Boston has experienced a 60-percent decrease in firearm homicides among victims under age 24. NIJ is currently supporting another major idea--an experiment that aims to break the cycle of drugs and crime. In Birmingham, Alabama, NIJ is supporting a demonstration program and evaluation called "Breaking the Cycle," which is testing the hypothesis that drug testing, mandatory treatment, and social service interventions, if applied across the board to all adult drug-abusing offenders, would reduce crime. (Read more about Breaking the Cycle in "Experimenting With Mandatory Treatment for Drug-Involved Offenders" in Part 3). Collaborating With Others In the last several years, the Institute has reached out to develop partnerships with numerous government agencies and foundations. Among the many projects on which such partnerships focus are these: o The causes, treatment, and prevention of violence against women and violence within the family. o The development of technology for law enforcement and corrections. o International crime control and counterterrorism. o Firearms use and programs to prevent related violence. All of NIJ's partnership programs engage practitioners in identifying the research agenda, linking knowledge to program implementation and change, and heightening the awareness of the dynamic nature of program development and evaluation. Interdisciplinary research helps all the partners look at the issues through a different lens and see implications that a narrower focus might miss. Technology Partnerships. The substantial Federal effort devoted to technology-related research and development requires a considerable degree of coordination. The Attorney General established the Technology Policy Council to coordinate and maximize the Federal investment in technologies related to law enforcement and corrections. Fifteen Federal agencies from five cabinet-level departments meet every 6 to 8 weeks to discuss ongoing research and development and coordinate future activity. NIJ serves as executive agent, and the Deputy Attorney General chairs the Council. To help NIJ understand and respond to State and local law enforcement and corrections agencies, the Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Advisory Council (LECTAC) helps guide NIJ's technology agenda. Highly experienced law enforcement and corrections practitioners constitute LECTAC. They make recommendations about user requirements and priorities for developing technologies that are affordable, effective, and meet the special needs of the law enforcement and corrections communities. NIJ translates these priorities into an agenda for funding technology research and development programs. NIJ is also collaborating with these agencies: o U.S. Department of Defense--to conduct research and development in a number of areas, including counterterrorism and concealed weapons detection. o U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology--to develop standards and test equipment for law enforcement and corrections personnel. o U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration-- to develop an advanced law enforcement patrol vehicle. (Read more about technology-related activities in "Applying Technology to Reduce Crime" in Part 3.) Locally Initiated Research Partnerships. Partnerships between researchers and practitioners enhance NIJ's efforts to make research applicable to the field. When practitioners who know their community issues firsthand become partners with researchers who know how to measure, quantify, and analyze, both gain insight and citizens benefit. In 1997, NIJ and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) continued to support partnerships between researchers and police practitioners, an effort initiated in fiscal year 1995. This effort has developed a remarkably creative collection of collaborations--from those involving individual researchers and police departments to those between groups of police agencies and consortia of universities. The topics of interest have also varied widely, from conducting analysis of needs and problems to developing problem-solving strategies to enhance crime mapping as a tool in crime analysis. In the area of law enforcement, NIJ supports more than 35 local research partners. The Lexington, Kentucky, Police Department, for example, is collaborating with scholars at Eastern Kentucky University to learn how the police might better measure the effectiveness of their services. Arizona police departments are working with Arizona State University to assess each department's community policing program. NIJ has also funded a national evaluation of these locally initiated research partnerships. The evaluation involves case studies, telephone interviews, review of grant products, and informal interaction at partnership gatherings. In the area of corrections and substance abuse treatment, NIJ is partnering with the Corrections Program Office of the Office of Justice Programs to evaluate the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment programs for inmates in State and local correctional institutions. The program, called Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) for State prisoners, involves collaboration among researchers, corrections officials, and program administrators. (Read more about RSAT in "Evaluating Corrections-Based Treatment Programs" in Part 3.) Crime Act Partnerships. The Crime Act was the stimulus for a great many of the Institute's partnerships with Federal agencies. Immediately after the Act became a law, NIJ began to form partnerships with the Crime Act offices and develop strategies for conducting the research and evaluations that are essential to determining the extent to which innovations outlined in the Act are working. The primary strategy involves collaboration between the Crime Act offices, which develop and fund the programs, and NIJ, which studies and evaluates them. For each of the four program areas identified by the Act (community policing, corrections, violence against women, and drug courts), NIJ takes a three-pronged research and evaluation approach: o National evaluations of the overall effectiveness of the program. o Evaluations of selected local implementations. o Research based on partnerships between practitioners and researchers. For example, COPS funds the hiring of community police officers and supports extensive community policing programs throughout the Nation. In partnership with COPS, NIJ is supporting an extensive array of research and evaluation studies on many aspects of community policing, as well as police-researcher partnerships and efforts to provide technology to community policing programs. Through another Crime Act partnership, with the Corrections Program Office (CPO), NIJ is conducting a wide array of sentencing and corrections initiatives involving CPO's Violent Offender Incarceration/Truth in Sentencing activities as well as the Residential substance Abuse Treatment program mentioned previously. NIJ and the Drug Courts Program Office are collaborating to examine a framework for describing the operational aspects of drug courts and to evaluate their effectiveness. Drug courts, which are special judicial proceedings generally used for nonviolent drug offenders, use the coercive power of the judiciary to control and alter behavior through a combination of early and continual judicial supervision, sanctions, incentives, mandatory drug testing, treatment, and aftercare. NIJ is also collaborating with the Violence Against Women Grants Office on a host of research and evaluation projects undertaken in conjunction with the STOP Violence Against Women grants program. Among the studies under way are examinations of the effectiveness of antistalking efforts, the impact of police domestic violence training, the use of medical records as legal evidence in domestic violence cases, and the relationship between alcohol use and domestic violence. Other Federal Partnerships. Federal research partners also include: o Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--investigating the incidence and prevalence of family violence and the effectiveness of intervention programs, and conducting research about public health in corrections facilities. o Office of National Drug Control Policy--implementing and evaluating a demonstration program in Birmingham designed to break the cycle between drugs and crime, and analyzing drug purchase and use patterns in six U.S. cities. o U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development--evaluating the implementation and effectiveness of HUD's Public Housing Drug Elimination Program, and linking public housing agencies with local researchers in new locally initiated research partnerships. o U.S. State Department--establishing and maintaining the United Nations Online Crime and Justice Clearinghouse (UNOJUST) through which NIJ shares technical assistance and empirical research with the 14 criminal research institutes affiliated with the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network. Foundation Partnerships. A number of foundations have a keen interest in supporting social science research. During fiscal year 1997, NIJ collaborated with several foundations to further criminal justice research. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is supporting the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods; the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation helped launch the "Perspectives on Crime and Justice" lecture series, described below; the Kauffman Foundation is supporting an evaluation of the sales tax levied by Kansas City, Missouri, to fund broad-based antidrug efforts; and the National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University is heavily involved in two major studies described in Part 3--the Children at Risk program's comprehensive and integrated approach to preventing delinquency and the Opportunity to Succeed program, which provides an array of support services to former drug abusers. ------------------------------- Extending the Influence Of Research and Development NIJ reaches out to its constituents in a number of ways, including lectures and presentations, conferences and planning meetings, an international clearinghouse of information, and electronic and print publications. Reaching Out Through Lectures and Presentations. NIJ launched the Perspectives on Crime and Justice lecture series during fiscal year 1997. This well-attended series brings nationally recognized academics to Capitol Hill to discuss research perspectives on the challenges of contemporary crime issues faced by policymakers. Approximately 900 people attended the 1996-97 series, which featured: o James Q. Wilson, University of California at Los Angeles, "What If Anything Can the Federal Government Do About Crime?" o Peter Reuter, University of Maryland, "Can We Make Prohibition Work Better? An Assessment of American Drug Policy." o Mark H. Moore, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, "The Legitimation of Criminal Justice Policies and Practices." o Cathy Spatz Widom, State University of New York at Albany, "Child Victims: In Search of Opportunities for Breaking the Cycle of Violence." o Norval Morris, University of Chicago Law School, "Crime, the Media, and Our Political Discourse." Every month NIJ also brings scholars and researchers to Washington, D.C., to discuss findings from their research in progress. Videotapes of presentations of their preliminary findings bring the latest research in a timely fashion to practitioners, researchers, and students. The presentations are designed to encourage discussion of ongoing analysis and stimulate the re-evaluation and re-examination of findings and policy implications. Reaching Out Through Conferences and Meetings. Gatherings of professionals stimulate thinking and generate new ideas. Conferences provide the opportunity for two-way communication between researchers and practitioners. Recipients of NIJ grants present their findings to researchers and practitioners, and NIJ staff have a chance to get firsthand feedback from the field. NIJ's planning meetings and technical working group meetings help the Institute focus its research agenda as it relates to a particular topic. At these meetings, invited experts from the field discuss the most pressing issues of the day, emerging trends, the proper role of government, and what specific actions NIJ can take. (See "NIJ-Sponsored Conferences During Fiscal Year 1997.") Reaching Out Through an International Clearinghouse. NIJ, its OJP partners, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy sponsor the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), the primary source of information about national and international criminal justice issues. In 1997, NCJRS distributed close to 1.4 million documents via mail; more than 600,000 documents were downloaded from the NCJRS World Wide Web site at http://www.ncjrs.org. (See "Getting the Word Out: Fiscal Year 1997.") At its Web site, NCJRS provides an online virtual library containing the full text of more than 1,000 documents. At its physical location in Rockville, Maryland, NCJRS maintains a traditional library of more 148,000 justice-related Federal, State, and local government documents, books, reports, journal articles, program descriptions, and evaluations. These 148,000 documents are abstracted and indexed in the NCJRS abstracts database, which went online (at http://www.ncjrs.org/database.htm) during fiscal year 1997. Reaching Out Through the Internet. NIJ rebuilt its World Wide Web page during the year and officially unveiled it in November 1997. The new page (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij) is easier to use and organizes the agency's services into discreet sections: programs, funding opportunities, publications and products, and contacting NIJ, as well as "What's New" and "About NIJ" sections. ------------------------------- Part 3: Selected Highlights To develop its research, evaluation, and development agenda, NIJ regularly consults with practitioners and researchers to ascertain their needs and priorities and then adds elements of the Institute's strategic plans to create an integrated, comprehensive mix of research, evaluation, and development. The essays in Part 3 reflect the Institute's wide range of topics and the knowledge accumulated from its vigorous agenda: o "Creating Safer Streets" contains two essays on the effects of community policing and one on innovative programs that address the stress in the lives of law enforcement officers and their families. o "Breaking the Links Between Drugs and Crime" discusses the state of the research on the relationships between drug-abusing offenders and crime. o "Understanding the Nature of Violence" contains essays on homicide, stalking, and family violence. o "Working to Prevent Crime" covers crime prevention innovations in schools and communities. o "Applying Technology to Reduce Crime" describes briefly the Institute's energetic program of forensic science and law enforcement and corrections technology. Sometimes quantifying a problem is the first step in the process of solving the problem. The essays in Part 3 highlight NIJ's efforts to measure, test hypotheses, apply experimental techniques, and take risks. The challenges inherent in such activities are worth embracing. Creating Safer Streets The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act) requires the Attorney General to substantially increase the number of law enforcement officers who interact directly with members of the community, provide law enforcement officers with training to enhance their problem-solving skills, and encourage innovative programs to permit members of the community to assist officers in preventing crime in the community. [5] Since passage of the Crime Act, NIJ has strengthened its policing partnerships, especially with the Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (the COPS office). NIJ and the COPS office have collaborated to develop and assess strategies for achieving the goals established by the Crime Act. With funds transferred from the COPS office through fiscal year 1997, NIJ has awarded 129 grants totaling $34 million for community policing research. This section highlights three efforts that are representative of NIJ's response to the Crime Act mandates. Both the evaluation of Chicago's community policing program and the systematic observation of policing in St. Petersburg and Indianapolis are contributing to a deeper understanding of how community policing works and why. The third highlighted effort, "Reducing Officer Stress," responds to the Crime Act's mandate to study the effects of stress on law enforcement personnel and family well-being and provide technical assistance and develop training programs that foster stress reduction and family support for State and local law enforcement agencies. [6] ------------------------------- 5. See Title I: Public Safety Partnership and Community Policing Act of 1994. 6. See Title XXI: State and Local Law Enforcement; Subtitle B: Law Enforcement Family Support. ------------------------------- Community Policing in Chicago: An Evaluation Chicago is attempting to reinvent policing through its Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS), a flagship community policing effort initiated in 1993. CAPS is distinguished by the extent to which the police mandate has been broadened to include promoting community safety through new tasks ranging from hosting community meetings at the beat level, to assisting residents' organizing efforts, to coordinating delivery of city services. Almost everywhere community policing is tried, the effort involves hard work by dedicated police officers, community relations personnel, and local political and community leaders. Chicago has accomplished a great deal during the first years of its experiment with community policing. Whether Chicago provides a paradigm for the rest of the country remains an open question, but it does illustrate how difficult--and potentially rewarding--reinventing policing can be. Results of an Evaluation When Chicago decided to adopt a community-oriented, problem-solving approach to policing in 1993, NIJ committed to supporting an evaluation of the implementation and effects of the program. (See "Key Elements of CAPS in Action: 1993-97.") At the program's inception, researchers conducted an indepth evaluation of CAPS in five districts that reflect a broad cross section of the city's neighborhoods. The districts vary in their demographic and socioeconomic profile, type and extent of problems, and resources to deal with problems. In a quasi-experimental approach, researchers also collected data from a set of matched comparison districts. The evaluation evidence shows the following accomplishments: o Crime is going down. CAPS appears to have contributed to a significant decline in crime-related problems in three districts, declines in drug- and gang-related problems in two districts, and a significant decrease in physical decay in two districts. o Perceptions of the police have improved. Residents in all five districts reported more favorable perceptions about the police, although perceptions among Hispanics showed the least change as a result of community policing. Most residents in the five districts found the police more responsive to community concerns, and perceptions of police misconduct [7] generally declined, especially among African-Americans. Before the program began, African-Americans and Hispanics were less satisfied than now with how police treated people in their neighborhood. Despite the subsequent improvement in perception, class and race differences persisted; minorities and those with less education were still more apt to view the police as out of line or corrupt. o Police are more visible. Residents in the five districts reported seeing police more often than residents in comparison districts, as the visibility of foot-patrol officers, neighborhood patrolling, and informal contacts with citizens all increased. Many elements of routine policing showed no change. There was no evidence of change in the quality of routine police services or the rate at which people contacted the police and were stopped by them. Because the extent of community policing's effects varied in each district vis-a-vis comparison districts, researchers report that the evidence on the effectiveness of CAPS is somewhat mixed. The most consistent evaluation finding to date is that community policing improves public assessments of police performance. Citizen Perceptions About the Police One part of the CAPS evaluation was a special 12-month study of the citizens most involved with CAPS throughout the city. This study found citizens highly optimistic about progress under CAPS. They were the most satisfied with beat community meetings, their district commanders' efforts to implement CAPS, program marketing efforts, and the quality of service being delivered by beat officers. Another 12-month assessment involved a survey of citizens who came in contact with the police about some matter. Of these respondents, close to three-fourths reported being "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the outcomes of their contacts. Of those who were stopped for traffic offenses, about 62 percent thought they were treated fairly, 58 percent thought they were treated politely, and 61 percent were satisfied with the outcome. Males, African-Americans, and poorer residents expressed less satisfaction than others. More than 62 percent of those surveyed thought police misconduct was not a problem, 24 to 28 percent indicated that it was "some" problem, and 10 to 13 percent believed misconduct was serious. When asked about perceptions of police corruption (bribes and drug trade involvement), responses were very similar to those for general misconduct. Key Role of Leadership Researchers determined that what stood out as having the greatest impact on CAPS' effectiveness was the performance of the beat team leader, usually a sergeant, who monitors officers' problem-solving activities and attends beat community meetings. Researchers found that when these beat team leaders (usually a sergeant) supported CAPS and expected officers to do the same, the beat officers were more likely to work on problems identified as priorities, use the problem-solving model, and develop nontraditional ways to tackle problems. When beat team leaders did not support and promote CAPS, officers were much less likely to function as problem solvers. In a separate indepth study of 15 beats, researchers found that 4 beats had made excellent progress in implementing CAPS, 5 had made good progress, 2 were struggling, and 4 had made little progress. A key evaluation question was whether CAPS is effective in beats that need and use police services the most, or whether it is strong only in better-off areas that have traditionally worked well with police. Researchers found that about half the beats with great need for police services had strong, well- organized programs; in the other half, CAPS was poorly implemented. Differences appear to be attributable primarily to the quality of leadership exercised at the beat level. Strengths and Weaknesses The evaluation identified a number of strengths and weaknesses associated with the implementation of CAPS. They include the following. Strengths. Beat meetings are one of the most innovative and visible features of CAPS. Many cities hold occasional public meetings. In Chicago, beat meetings are held regularly all over the city with residents and police who patrol their neighborhood. Making the meetings an effective means of communication between police and citizenry can be challenging. Yet, attendance at beat meetings has increased steadily over the 4 years, and police and residents interact cooperatively and without confrontation. Many beat team-leader sergeants and their officers have begun to identify as a team. Requests to other city agencies for service (e.g., to tow abandoned cars or demolish abandoned buildings) have become commonplace, and requests are acted on in a timely manner. Weaknesses. Beat team leaders find their workload heavy and resent the added paperwork. Problem analysis and strategy development by police teams on many beats are weak. Although interaction between citizens and police can be high, interaction that involves joint problem solving is not common. In spite of the police department's stated commitment to involving the entire organization in community policing, there has been limited accomplishment in the 4 years toward implementing community policing in divisions other than patrol units. Although civilians involved in the program are enthusiastic about it, they report being unclear about the exact nature of their role. On balance, citizens expressed high levels of confidence in and satisfaction with Chicago's police. The evaluation also shows that many officers have accepted community policing as the norm, and police- community partnerships continue to form, strengthen, and grow at the neighborhood level. ------------------------------- For More Information Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium. Community Policing in Chicago, Year Four: An Interim Report. Chicago: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 1997. Skogan, W.G. and S.M. Hartnett. Community Policing, Chicago Style. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Publications on various aspects of CAPS are available at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Studies World Wide Web site: http://www.nwu.edu/IPR/publications/policing.html. ------------------------------- 7. Measures of misconduct were gleaned from responses to three questions about police practices in respondents' neighborhoods: Do police stop too many people on the streets without good reason? Are police too tough on people they stop? Are police using excessive force; that is, being verbally or physically abusive to people in your neighborhood? ------------------------------- Observing Policing in Neighborhoods Community policing aims to increase interaction and cooperation between local police and neighborhoods served. It strives to build police- community partnerships and employs problem-solving techniques to enhance neighborhood safety and reduce fear. Obtaining data on how this relatively new approach affects the behavior and attitudes of police and residents is essential. With funds provided by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the National Institute of Justice is sponsoring the Project on Policing Neighborhoods. Researchers are using a combination of methodologies to obtain detailed data on police-citizen interactions and related issues in St. Petersburg, Florida, which initiated citywide implementation of community policing in 1990, and in Indianapolis, Indiana, which began the approach in 1992. (See "Project Methodologies.") Data from the ongoing project will provide a rich resource for examining a variety of issues. Highlighted here are some of the study's initial findings. Officers' Views on Police Role One would expect that officers who work in a community policing context would conceive the police role in fairly broad terms and would include a wider range of functions and tasks than law enforcement alone. In both Indianapolis and St. Petersburg, all but a tiny fraction of interviewed officers agreed that assisting citizens is as important as enforcing the law; however, more than 80 percent said that enforcing the law is by far a patrol officer's most important responsibility. Almost all interviewed officers agreed that a good patrol officer will try to find out what residents think the problems are in their neighborhood; however, about 25 percent of respondents said they have reason to be distrustful of most citizens. Most officers in both cities accepted responsibility for handling disputes all or much of the time and extended their role to dealing with businesses that cause problems for neighbors. More than two-thirds of interviewed officers identified handling calls for service as one of the top two goals. That view reflects a traditional incident-driven focus, as does the importance attributed to making arrests, issuing citations, and seizing drugs and guns. But one-third of the officers in St. Petersburg and one-quarter in Indianapolis recognized the value of problem solving to reduce repeat calls. The researchers note that officers' support for goals that are aligned with community policing tenets as well as goals consistent with a more reactive, traditional approach is not unusual in agencies that are moving toward a community and problem- solving orientation. Of particular interest in St. Petersburg was the difference in perceptions of the police role by patrol officers assigned to special community policing tasks and by patrol generalists (911 officers). Compared with 911 officers, community policing officers expressed, as a group, the following: o Stronger agreement that assisting citizens is as important as enforcing the law. o Stronger support for seeking out the views of neighborhood residents. o Stronger disagreement that police have reason to be distrustful of citizens. Community policing officers were much more likely to believe that police should always or "much of the time" handle problems involving neighbor disputes, public nuisances, parents who do not control their children, and litter and trash. Two-thirds of the community policing officers in St. Petersburg indicated that reducing the number of repeat calls for service was one of their most important goals; 60 percent said that one of the most important goals was to involve the public in improving the neighborhood. Allocation of Officer Time Differences between community policing officers and their 911 counterparts in St. Petersburg were also apparent in how they spent their time. About 83 percent of community policing officers reported some involvement in community policing projects during the previous year, compared with 57 percent of 911 officers. Most projects took at least 2 months to complete and typically focused on a geographic area no larger than a block. Individual officers tended to take responsibility for identifying problems, planning the response, and carrying out the plan. Community policing officers were more likely to use nontraditional strategies, such as working with community organizations or other agencies, whereas 911 officers were more likely to use traditional strategies, such as increased surveillance and visibility. Based on systematic observation, the researchers found that 911 officers spent more time on general patrol, on violent and nonviolent crime, and in face-to-face encounters with the public than did community policing officers. Community policing officers spent more time than did 911 officers on administrative activities, information gathering, disorders, and information exchange with the public. In general, 911 officers spent more time dealing with problems associated with traditional police work, while community policing officers spent more time on activities that community policing advocates have identified as worthy of attention. Police-Citizen Interactions in Face-to-Face Encounters Researchers found that citizens showed high levels of cooperation during face-to-face encounters. In Indianapolis police fulfilled at least partially the requests of about 8 of every 10 citizens making a request. When officers made requests of citizens, almost 90 percent fulfilled or promised to fulfill all or some of officers' requests. A similar pattern was found in St. Petersburg. Disrespect between police and public was observed infrequently. Citizens were about twice as likely to show disrespect to police as were police to display disrespect to citizens. In both cities, the most common threat to maintaining order during an encounter was the presence of citizens with elevated emotions. Such citizens far outnumbered other threats to order and safety, such as intoxication, weapons possession, fleeing police, or threatening or assaulting police. Indianapolis officers encountered about four citizens with elevated emotions per average work shift; St. Petersburg officers averaged between five and six, depending on the nature of the job assignment. Training and Knowledge In Indianapolis and St. Petersburg, interviewed patrol officers appear to have had ample training in conventional police topics and consider themselves knowledgeable in those areas. Officers have received training in concepts and principles of community policing and feel moderately knowledgeable about it. But they reported having received little or modest training in some skills that presumably are necessary to practice community policing. For example, most officers reported neither training nor knowledge in organizing community groups and using crime data to analyze neighborhood problems. Findings on supervisors' training and knowledge follow a pattern similar to that found among patrol officers. Officer and Supervisor Attitudes Toward One Another In both St. Petersburg and Indianapolis, researchers found that officers held their supervisors in high regard, and supervisors also thought well of their subordinates. Officers regarded supervisors as experienced, supportive, and motivating. Supervisors characterized their subordinates as motivated more by intrinsic factors (desire to work hard and do well) than by extrinsic factors (a concern for job security or punishment), and more by supervisors' and other officers' approval than by tangible organizational rewards. Community policing calls for changes in the way officers are supervised-- that is, shifting from controlling subordinates to supporting them and facilitating their efforts. In Indianapolis, supervisors considered supportive activities (helping officers develop sound judgment, providing feedback on their performance, and helping them work on problems in their beats) more important than those emphasizing control (enforcing rules, disseminating information on departmental directives, and monitoring officers' completion of reports). A similar analysis for St. Petersburg is under way. Such conditions may provide fertile ground for the transition to the kind of supervision community policing advocates prescribe. Neighborhood Resident Satisfaction And Cooperation With Police In both Indianapolis and St. Petersburg, a high percentage (77 percent and 85 percent, respectively) of interviewed residents said that they were very or somewhat satisfied with police services in their neighborhood. Even in highly distressed neighborhoods in Indianapolis, 70 percent of residents expressed satisfaction with police. In neighborhoods with comparable problems, black respondents were slightly more likely to express satisfaction than were their white neighbors. In St. Petersburg, 86 percent of interviewed residents said they strongly or somewhat agreed that police were trying to provide services that people in their neighborhoods wanted. Among blacks, satisfaction with their neighborhood police was quite high, at 76 percent. In both cities, about two-thirds of surveyed residents said that police were excellent or good at working with people in their neighborhoods to solve problems and that more than half of their neighbors would cooperate with police. In Indianapolis, researchers found that as cooperation between police and citizens in solving problems increased, residents felt more secure in their neighborhoods. ------------------------------- For More Information Mastrofski, S., R.B. Parks, and R.E. Worden. Community Policing in Action: Lessons From an Observational Study. Research Preview. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, June 1998. FS 000199. Reiss, A.J., Jr. Patterns of Behavior in Police-Citizen Transactions: Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1966. NCJ 117744. ______. Attitudes and Perceptions of Police Officers in Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1966. NCJ 117743. Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's World Wide Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800)851- 3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- Reducing Officer Stress Law enforcement and correctional officers of all ranks are subjected to more occupational stress than people in most other occupations. Stress takes a toll on officers' physical and mental health, as well as the effectiveness of law enforcement and corrections agencies. This stress is associated with alcoholism, divorce, and suicide among officers. Work- related stress often affects officers' family members--people who ideally would be a source of support for officers. Recognizing this problem, Congress established the Law Enforcement Family Support (LEFS) program under Title XXI of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Congress authorized the U.S. Attorney General to research the effects of stress, identify effective support services, and provide stress reduction information and training to State and local agencies. Research was to be conducted by the National Institute of Justice and grant recipients. Review of Stress-Reduction Programs NIJ commissioned a review of stress-reduction programs now operating in law enforcement agencies and published the findings in Developing a Law Enforcement Stress Program for Officers and Their Families. The report discusses several stress-causing factors, including shift work, labor/management tensions, perceptions of favoritism or poor management, inadequate career advancement opportunities, periods of either too much or too little work to do, and the inherent dangers of police work. Also discussed are childcare needs, media scrutiny, public criticism, threats of lawsuits, inadequate equipment or training, and the contribution of stress to incidents of excessive use of force and police corruption. Although the report found limited empirical research about correctional officers' stress, it is clear that stress may be caused by chronic understaffing and overtime work, shift work, confusion over officers' roles, threat of or actual inmate violence, low public recognition, low pay, and poor employee relations. Findings suggest that stress-reduction programs need to address all stressful conditions in a way that is agreeable to the varying concerns of police and corrections management, labor organizations, and family members. NIJ also conducted a study to determine the nature and extent of police stress in one geographic region of the U.S. The study's findings were still under analysis in fiscal year 1997. Besides the two studies mentioned above, NIJ awards LEFS grants to police and corrections agencies or law-related organizations (such as officer unions). The grants support research into the nature and extent of law enforcement and corrections stress as well as demonstration and testing of innovative treatment and training programs. Among the topics addressed by the grants are these: debriefing and stress management for officers involved in critical incidents; police organizational change; development of training methods for stress-management; and development of networks of psychological services for police officers. Grantees are providing stress reduction services to officers while increasing the Nation's understanding of treatment for police stress. Fifteen grants had been awarded through the end of fiscal year 1997. (See "Law Enforcement and Family Support Grantees.") NIJ has developed comprehensive plans to increase national awareness of law enforcement officer and family stress. The plan includes a national survey of the extent of stress prevention and treatment programs in law enforcement and correctional agencies; establishment of a national referral system for information and treatment of family and officer stress issues; and an online network and forum to enable the exchange of information and support systems for ameliorating officer and family stress. Collaboration and Program Expansion NIJ is also collaborating on stress issues with other agencies within the Office of Justice Programs, specifically the Corrections Program Office, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Working with these organizations will contribute toward a better understanding of stress issues and result in communication to a wide audience. NIJ's long-term goal is to expand its program beyond understanding the nature, causes, and consequences of stress issues. Eventually, NIJ will understand and demonstrate how to actually prevent stress throughout policing and corrections. This goal could involve large-scale policy development and training. Toward that end, NIJ is actively seeking input from other branches of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and law enforcement and corrections officer or family public interest groups. Such information would help NIJ coordinate its efforts with other programs in DOJ and improve its LEFS program in general. ------------------------------- For More Information Additional information about the Law Enforcement Family Support program is available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij. Click on "Programs." Finn, P. and J.E. Tomz. Developing a Law Enforcement Stress Program for Officers and Their Families. Issues and Practices. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, March 1997. NCJ 163175. Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800) 851-3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- Breaking the Links Between Drugs and Crime This section highlights four projects and programs illustrative of NIJ efforts to break the nexus between drugs and crime. Those efforts encompass the spectrum from arrest to incarceration to postrelease. NIJ's Breaking the Cycle demonstration project tests certain arrestees for drugs and requires court-supervised treatment if test results are positive. The Institute's ADAM program screens arrestees at many sites nationwide for a variety of drugs and other health threats; resulting data help State and local policymakers better understand and more effectively break the link between drugs and criminal activity. Descriptions of residential substance abuse treatment in correctional facilities and of probationer/parolee aftercare services conclude this section. Experimenting With Mandatory Treatment For Drug-Involved Offenders Criminal justice professionals are often the first to point out that they have been operating a "revolving door" by which drug-using defendants, left untreated, are sooner or later returned to their communities, only to fall back into the old patterns of behavior that originally contributed to their troubles. By contrast, use of treatment-oriented drug courts appears to convert arrests of drug-dependent individuals into opportunities to intervene, which can generate favorable outcomes if intervention is accompanied by accountability, treatment, encouragement, and support. In 1997, NIJ launched a demonstration project--Breaking the Cycle (BTC)--in Birmingham, Alabama, designed to apply research findings indicating that when the coercive power of the criminal justice system is used to reinforce substance abuse treatment, defendants are more likely to change their behavior. Funded by NIJ and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the project fully integrates systemwide drug testing, referral to treatment, judicial supervision of treatment, and graduated sanctions throughout pretrial and postconviction processes. In this way, BTC expands the criminal justice system's focus beyond the resolution of traditional legal issues. BTC deals with a factor discovered at arrest that commonly contributes to criminal behavior--substance abuse. The program illustrates NIJ's efforts to sever the linkages between crime and drug abuse. Intended Program Consequences and Objectives BTC is designed to answer a key question: What would be the impact on the incidence of drug use and crime in a given community if all arrested drug users could be identified early, assessed for their drug treatment needs, referred to appropriate drug treatment, monitored through regular drug testing, and sanctioned immediately if pretrial drug use occurs? Specific BTC objectives include the following: o Close collaboration between criminal justice and drug treatment professionals. BTC envisions that every drug-using defendant entering the criminal justice system--regardless of offense or likely case outcome--will be assessed by an organization that is an advocate for neither defense nor prosecution. Treatment is ordered by the court and individualized treatment plans are written. Judicial supervision takes the form of reviews of defendants' treatment participation or drug testing at each court appearance. o Early intervention. BTC calls for identifying eligible subjects for drug treatment immediately after arrest, perhaps the most propitious moment to intervene. Prearraignment drug testing is followed by clinical assessment and placement in appropriate treatment shortly afterwards. o Judicial oversight. BTC involves regular drug tests and close judicial oversight of drug treatment. Judges have broad authority to impose and enforce pretrial conditions that address public safety. This requires that judges have speedy access to compliance information, so they can review drug test results and treatment participation at each scheduled court hearing. o Use of graduated sanctions and incentives. Judges review the progress of drug-abusing offenders and steadily apply leverage--both sanctions and incentives--to keep offenders in treatment and off drugs. Sanctions are graduated, and certainty in their application is more important than severity of consequences. They are imposed as soon as possible after a violation of judicial orders occurs. Putting the Program Into Action As it implemented BTC, Birmingham confronted significant problems in expanding its drug monitoring and treatment services. Like most courts in the United States, Birmingham's faced huge caseloads and backlogs. The county jail, built to hold 750 inmates, was housing more than 1,200 when BTC was proposed, limiting its ability to provide staff as well as space for screening, urine testing, and jail-based treatment. The probation staff was shorthanded. To overcome those obstacles, the city made major procedural changes and substantial investments to upgrade its basic infrastructure. These upgrades included changes in the physical facility, better case management techniques, and a state-of-the-art management information system. To build a system capable of intervening with substantial numbers of offenders in need of treatment, Birmingham began a multipronged strategy calling for: o Collaborative planning. Implementing BTC required input and support from all agencies involved to determine how the new drug system would operate and to identify the challenges facing various agencies and the resources available to deal with these challenges. Ongoing planning meetings with staff from the jail, district attorney's office, probation department, and other justice system agencies culminated in creation of a BTC policy board. The full board meets at least monthly to review progress and recommend changes. Smaller groups meet more often to focus on specific problems. o Early identification and intervention. Under the traditional Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) program for drug-involved offenders in Birmingham, intervention occurred when a defendant pled guilty and applied for probation. BTC has moved TASC intervention to arrest or shortly thereafter, drastically changing what it means to be a drug- involved offender on bond awaiting trial in Birmingham. Three district court judges have adopted a policy ordering all offenders charged with felony drug possession to appear at TASC within 48 hours of release on bond. This order is expected to be broadened soon to defendants facing other charges. o Computerized assessment and case tracking. BTC depends on building a case management and tracking system to facilitate timely exchange of information on an offender's legal status, treatment need and progress, and compliance with treatment. For every offender found to be drug involved, there is a case management plan and recommendations to the court. Supervision extends from pretrial all the way through probation and parole. o Expanded options for intervention. BTC addressed the need for more treatment and supervision options by developing a day reporting center where pretrial defendants can attend a drug education program, expanding an electronic monitoring program, instituting a cognitive behavioral training program to help drug-involved defendants learn to make better choices, contracting for additional drug treatment beds from community- based providers, and expanding intensive outpatient treatment. These steps have helped, but waiting lists for treatment have grown since BTC began. Early Indications BTC so far has admitted only drug cases at arrest and certain other cases further along in the system. Approximately 1,000 defendants are now enrolled in BTC. All participants receive case management services through TASC, and all are monitored by the court. BTC is being evaluated to determine its impact in four key areas: lowering drug use among offenders; reducing criminal behavior among offenders; improving indicators of social functioning, such as employment and health; and making more effective use of criminal justice resources, especially detention capacity. Preliminary findings suggest BTC has helped identify drug-abusing offenders and admit them to treatment much earlier and that pretrial supervision has improved dramatically. Retention rates in treatment programs are high, and 70 percent of defendants are in compliance with the rigorous BTC drug-testing protocol. During 1998, the program will expand eligibility to all noncapital felony offenders who test positive for drug use, and NIJ will award grants to implement BTC in two additional adult and two juvenile courts elsewhere in the United States. The program for juveniles will be adjusted for juvenile court proceedings and the special needs of the young people involved. ------------------------------- For More Information Harrell, A., F. Cook, and J. Carver. "Breaking the Cycle of Drug Abuse in Birmingham." NIJ Journal, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, forthcoming summer 1998. Harrell, A., S. Cavanagh, and E. Hirst. Breaking the Cycle in Birmingham: Implementation of Phase I. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute, forthcoming fall 1998. For more information about Breaking the Cycle, visit NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij. Click on "Programs." Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800) 851-3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- Helping Identify Drug Use Patterns Since its founding in 1987, NIJ's Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program has generated data at the local level that have played an important role in constructing the national picture of drug abuse. In major urban areas nationwide, the program's staff test and interview booked arrestees four times per year for recent drug use. The results help State and local policymakers as well as researchers understand the links between drugs and crime. Because of its 10-year success in generating trend data about drug use at 23 participating sites, DUF was redesign-ed and its mission expanded during 1997 and is now known as the ADAM program (Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring). Growth of ADAM Twelve sites will be added to the program in 1998, bringing the total to 35 in what is planned to be a 75-site ADAM system. (See "ADAM Sites.") The expansion will broaden our understanding of national drug abuse trends while, at the same time, providing additional local policymakers with an important tool to address specific, local substance abuse problems. As redesigned, ADAM is expected to be an increasingly valuable source for useful research because data collection and sampling methods have been broadened and strengthened. In addition, ADAM will permit testing for a broader range of substances and health threats by making additional drugs and certain sexually transmitted diseases part of the quarterly testing procedures or protocol. An international component is planned. Several countries have expressed interest in establishing programs modeled on ADAM. England has completed a pilot project, and Australia and Scotland are now moving forward with plans to adopt such a program. International sites could provide baseline information about substance abuse problems throughout the world and serve as a foundation for conducting comparative research on criminal justice policies and substance abuse. The international component would include NIJ technical assistance to participating countries. ADAM: Some Uses and Findings Using ADAM data, researchers can examine the relationship between drugs and violent crime, overdoses and other drug-related medical emergencies, gun use and attitudes toward guns among arrestees, and arrestees' need for drug treatment. Researchers have already used the program's data to analyze variations in the purchase and use of powder cocaine, crack, and heroin; access to and use of illegal firearms by arrestees; and the decline of crack use. Data from a number of participating ADAM jurisdictions were a key element in illuminating and analyzing the links between drug activity and homicide revealed in NIJ's "Homicide in U.S. Cities" project. (See "Homicide in Eight Cities" in this Part.) ADAM will accommodate the needs of local researchers and policymakers through specialized questionnaires (addenda or supplements to the standard questionnaire) developed for specific purposes. In this way, Federal agencies (such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse), U.S. Attorneys, and local organizations can collect addendum data on an array of timely questions from arrestees in specific areas or regions of the country. NIJ and researchers at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, are currently developing a supplemental questionnaire on gangs and gang activity. Among the findings gleaned from analyses of ADAM data are these: o About two-thirds of arrestees who are tested for drugs are found to be positive for at least one drug. o Drug use among arrestees is at high levels, with distinctive regional, age, and gender patterns. o Older arrestees are testing positive for cocaine at 2 to 10 times the rate of the younger arrestees. In Washington, D.C., and Detroit, for example, approximately 5 percent of 15- to 20-year-old arrestees test positive for cocaine compared with 50 percent for arrestees who are 36 years old and older. o Marijuana use among arrestees continues to be disproportionately concentrated among youthful offenders, but 1997 data also show that marijuana use among youthful arrestees is leveling off and in some cities decreasing noticeably. Generally, rates of positive test results for marijuana use among juvenile male arrestees/detainees who have left school without graduating range from 3 to 30 percentage points higher than rates for juvenile males still in school. o Methamphetamine use continues to be found primarily among arrestees in ADAM sites in the western United States. Local Outreach and Involvement Outreach components will also strengthen the value of the ADAM data. Each site will continue to collect quarterly data in the central cities but will now reach beyond the urban base. This will be done by collecting data annually from a targeted population, such as a suburban, rural, or Native American jurisdiction. Selection of outreach populations will change annually. By including areas beyond the central cities, ADAM will provide a more comprehensive vision of shifts in substance abuse and of emerging problems. At each ADAM site, NIJ will establish local coordinating councils that will use ADAM data and generate local research projects. The councils will identify issues of local interest that could become topics for questionnaire addenda, and they will play a prominent role in disseminating the site-based data to practitioners, public constituencies, researchers, and evaluators. ------------------------------- For More Information Decker, S.H., S. Pennell, and A. Caldwell. Illegal Firearms: Access and Use by Arrestees. Research in Brief. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, January 1997. NCJ 163496. Feucht, T.E. and G.M. Kyle. Methamphetamine Use Among Adult Arrestees: Findings From the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) Program. Research in Brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1996. NCJ 161842. Golub, A.L. and B.D. Johnson. Crack's Decline: Some Surprises Across U.S. Cities. Research in Brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, July 1997. NCJ 165707. Lattimore, P.K. et al. Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities: Trends, Context, and Policy Implications. Research Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, December 1997. NCJ 167262. National Institute of Justice. 1996 Drug Use Forecasting Annual Report on Adult and Juvenile Arrestees. Research Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, June 1997. NCJ 165691. Reardon, J.A. The Drug Use Forecasting Program: Measuring Drug Use in a "Hidden" Population. Issues and Practices. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1993. NCJ 144784. Riley, K.J. Crack, Powder Cocaine, and Heroin: Drug Purchase and Use Patterns in Six U.S. Cities. Research Report. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice and Office of National Drug Control Policy, December 1997. NCJ 167267. Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800) 851-3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- Evaluating Corrections-Based Treatment Programs Many incarcerated offenders have a history of drug use that has often contributed to criminal behavior resulting in imprisonment. Designed to help "break the cycle" between drugs and crime, residential substance abuse treatment (RSAT) in correctional facilities seeks to motivate and help these offenders overcome drug involvement and thereby reduce subsequent criminal behavior. Several past evaluations of corrections-based substance abuse treatment provide evidence of significant reductions in recidivism rates among chronic drug-abusing felons. In reviewing the effectiveness of treatment for drug abusers under criminal justice supervision, one researcher noted that such treatment is propitious because many of those receiving it would be unlikely to seek treatment on their own. [8] NIJ is developing a portfolio of projects to evaluate residential substance abuse treatment in State and local correctional institutions. (See "Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Grantees.") Funding for these NIJ evaluation projects is provided by the Office of Justice Programs' Corrections Program Office (CPO), which administers the 1994 Crime Act's RSAT Formula Grant Program and has contributed to the planning and development of NIJ's RSAT evaluation portfolio. (See "Origin and Nature of the RSAT Program.") The NIJ/CPO partnership reflects both agencies' commitment to fostering practitioner/researcher partnerships, building a relevant and timely knowledge base, and improving corrections and other related programs. Local RSAT Evaluations An important element of NIJ's RSAT evaluation portfolio consists of local evaluations of individual RSAT programs. Requiring collaboration among researchers, corrections officials, and program administrators, 20 local RSAT process evaluations were under way in 1997 in 17 States. [9] NIJ anticipates funding additional local evaluations in fiscal years 1998 and 1999. Local evaluations initially focused on process--the implementation and operation of RSAT programs--by collecting information on such topics as program design and integrity of implementation, custodial setting for the program, number and characteristics of clients, and level of participation. Independent local evaluators in partnership with corrections officials will be able to compete for additional funding to study the RSAT program, especially its impact on substance use and criminal behavior. Though funding for each evaluation is relatively modest, local evaluations are expected to provide, in aggregate, extensive information about the local programs and corrections-based RSAT in general. Obtaining a National Perspective NIJ's overall RSAT evaluation effort also includes a national evaluation, designed to augment and complement the local evaluations. The national evaluation has a broader focus than the evaluations of specific RSAT programs and includes surveys of all State corrections officials, institutional administrators, and RSAT program directors. The national assessment should provide broad information on how RSAT funds were spent and to what effect. In addition, the national evaluation will enhance local evaluations by helping to develop common data collection instruments and by facilitating coordination, information sharing, and problem solving. The national project may also identify for further study RSAT programs not included in the local evaluations. Collaboration, Coordination, And Partnerships NIJ and CPO have held "cluster conferences" to bring together local evaluators and the national evaluation team to share information and resources, develop an information-sharing network, and foster comparability across sites. At two cluster conferences, held in spring and fall 1997, program sites reported on progress, shared various implementation problems and solutions, and described their data collection instruments and sources. At the conferences, the national evaluation team explained to program administrators and State corrections officials its research plan and the survey instruments, which were developed in conjunction with local RSAT evaluators. The national team and local evaluators discussed coordination and collaboration of their respective efforts. As the RSAT evaluation portfolio grows and matures, future meetings will address emerging research concerns. To expand and deepen partnerships between researchers and corrections practitioners and officials, NIJ and CPO will sponsor a workshop in spring 1998 to support the formation of effective partnerships and encourage the development of promising research applications for NIJ funding. Disseminating Findings To share knowledge gained from the RSAT evaluations, NIJ has coordinated conference presentations by local and national evaluators at annual meetings of professional associations. As the evaluations proceed and the knowledge base grows, NIJ will continue to coordinate and host presentations and disseminate reports of RSAT evaluation findings. Presentations and reports will take advantage of the richness of the RSAT evaluation portfolio, synthesizing information from a variety of programs, including those for juveniles or adults and those operating in local jails and State prisons. Such information will greatly enhance our understanding of RSAT in correctional settings and of the RSAT program in particular. Special attention will be paid to developing policy suggestions based on solid empirical research. ------------------------------- For More Information Gorski, T.T., J.M. Kelley, and L. Havens. Relapse Prevention and the Substance Abusing Criminal Offender. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 1993. DHHS Publication No. (SMA) 95-3071. Gorski, T.T., and J.M. Kelley. Counselor's Manual for Relapse Prevention with Chemically Dependent Criminal Offenders. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1996. DHHS Publication No. (SMA) 96- 3115. Tunis, S., J. Austin, M. Morris, P. Hardyman, and M. Bolyard. Evaluation of Drug Treatment in Local Corrections. Research Preview. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice. June 1996. FS 000173. Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800) 851-3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- 8. Lipton, Douglas S., The Effectiveness of Treatment for Drug Abusers Under Criminal Justice Supervision, Research Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1995, NCJ 157642. 9. California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. ------------------------------- Reducing Substance Abuse Relapse Through Aftercare The Opportunity to Succeed (OPTS) program is designed to reduce substance abuse relapse and criminal recidivism by providing comprehensive aftercare services to adult probationers and parolees. Developed by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, the program model assumes that various risk factors typify the lives of substance-involved offenders, predisposing them to repetitive episodes of substance use and criminal activity. OPTS is designed to reduce risk factors and facilitate a smooth transition to responsible social roles by sustaining and building upon the gains offenders achieved through their participation in prerelease treatment programs. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and NIJ are supporting a national evaluation of OPTS implementation and impact evaluations in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Tampa. (See "Evaluation Methodology and Goals.") Final results are expected in late 1998. OPTS Goals and Operation The specific goals of OPTS include reducing the prevalence and frequency of substance abuse and associated criminal behavior; strengthening the positive ties of probationers and parolees to work, family, and community; increasing participants' involvement in social service programs and primary health care; and enhancing the coordination and integration of parole and probation agencies and social service providers. Offenders returning to targeted neighborhoods are eligible for OPTS participation if they must serve a minimum of 1 year of probation or parole, have a history of substance abuse, have completed a substance abuse treatment program while incarcerated or in a residential facility (in lieu of jail), have felony convictions, and are 18 years of age or older. OPTS is structured around case management with collaborative partnerships between a lead service agency and the local probation and parole office. Research indicates that a high proportion of substance abusers lead disadvantaged lives, characterized by low educational attainment, poverty or income instability, family dysfunction, and serious health and mental health problems that are undertreated. The OPTS intervention therefore pairs intensive supervision with the following five aftercare services: o Substance abuse treatment, ranging from 12-step programs through intensive residential placements, is the only one of the five services in which offenders must participate to remain in the program. o Employability training includes services to assist clients in finding and maintaining legitimate employment. Gainful employment is a requirement of probation and parole. OPTS services include assessment of client skills and career interests; basic job search skills and training, including developing resumes, filling out applications, identifying job openings, and learning interviewing techniques; and job referral and placement. Some agencies offer additional services, such as GED courses, vocational skills training, and apprenticeship programs or other opportunities for on-the-job training. o Housing is a central concern of probation and parole supervision because incarcerated offenders cannot be released without a home plan indicating that satisfactory living arrangements have been designated. Housing services include placement in drug-free, supportive environments (e.g., halfway houses, group houses, and apartments to share), as well as other related emergency services such as crisis assistance if a domestic situation suddenly deteriorates and requires immediate relocation, or emergency funds to cover unexpected expenses (e.g., unusually high utility bills). o Family intervention and parenting training includes such services as parenting classes, family counseling, anger management, and domestic violence counseling to help clients assume responsibility for their children and to end violent or destructive behaviors at home. o Health and mental health services, ranging from regular checkups to specialized care when needed, are envisioned because substance abusers often have a wide range of physical and mental health problems. Participants can receive OPTS services, on an as-needed basis, for a maximum of 2 years. Preliminary Findings And Policy Implications Although analysis of OPTS evaluation data is ongoing, a baseline survey underscored the importance of the link between full-time employment and a reduction in predatory and drug-dealing crimes. Hence, findings regarding employment are presented here while findings regarding other OPTS services are expected in late 1998. Being fully employed decreased the odds of committing a predatory crime by 46 percent, and the odds of committing a drug crime by 65 percent. [10] OPTS participants were more likely to be employed than the control group: 82 percent of clients, as compared with 73 percent of controls, had full-time jobs during the first year of supervision. Clients worked for an average of 6.4 months during their first year, as compared with 5.1 months for controls. In addition, more clients reported increased job search skills, and more clients reported improved work habits. Based on the preliminary analysis, several policy implications and lessons learned are evident. o Case managers can, and do, play a proactive role in helping clients find employment. They play a central role in delivering services and effectively serve as advocates for their clients. Managers' knowledge of their communities allows them to better serve their clients. o Many employment services are structured to serve the least skilled, least educated job seekers. Such agencies are generally unable to adequately serve the small but important group of clients with professional backgrounds or well-developed vocational or technical skills. As a result, programs that cultivate relationships with multiple employment service providers are more effective because they can cater to various clienteles with diverse skills and skill levels. o Centrally locating multiple agencies near one another benefits both clients and staff. When case managers, probation officers, substance abuse treatment, and employment services are colocated, effectiveness of services increases. ------------------------------- 10. Rossman, S.B., and S. Sridharan, "Using Survey Data to Study Linkages Among Crime, Drug Use, and Life Circumstances: Findings From the Opportunity to Succeed Program." Presentation at the Nineteenth Annual Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, Washington, D.C., November 1997. ------------------------------- For More Information Visit the OPTS Web site at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University at http://www.casacolumbia.org. Click on "Prevention and Treatment." ------------------------------- Understanding the Nature of Violence This section briefly describes NIJ-supported research pertaining to homicide, stalking, and family violence. The homicide study exemplifies not only work conducted within NIJ's intramural research program but also how the Institute addresses its strategic challenge of identifying links between crime and other social phenomena by illuminating the relationships between criminal activity and the context in which it occurs. Both the stalking and family violence research are illustrative of NIJ's efforts to build a comprehensive knowledge base for shaping more effective public policies on crime and justice. The research is also indicative of the many partnerships the Institute has forged with other agencies. Homicide in Eight Cities In recent years, homicide rates declined in many major U.S. cities. New York City, for example, experienced a 53-percent homicide-rate decline between 1991 and 1996. However, despite highly publicized dramatic decreases in homicides, such declines were not universal; some cities experienced increases and others little change. As part of its program of intramural research, which is conducted by NIJ staff rather than by outside researchers, the Institute launched a study in 1995 to identify factors affecting homicide rates in eight U.S. cities. Now completed, the study exemplifies how NIJ is addressing one of its strategic challenges: understanding the nexus, or link, between crime and other social factors, such as drugs, communities, and economic development. To maximize the study's analytic power, NIJ compared and contrasted cities with increasing, decreasing, and stable homicide trends from 1985 to 1994 (the most recent year for which data were available when the study began). (See "Scope of the Homicide Study.") Homicide Victims and Offenders: Findings Homicide trends varied greatly by age, sex, and race of victim and offender. Homicide victimization rates for 18- to 24-year-old black males greatly exceeded the rates for other groups and increased over the study period in all cities, even those experiencing overall declines. The victimization rate for 13- to 17-year-old black males also increased in most cities but at much lower levels. White males were murdered at uniformly lower rates than black males, although in Detroit, 18- to 24- year-old white males were murdered at rates approaching those of black males by 1994; the homicide rate among this group of white males increased fourfold from 1985 to 1994. Black females ages 18 to 24 experienced homicide rates roughly comparable to those experienced by white males ages 18 to 24 (except in Detroit) and far below those experienced by black males of the same age. Rates for 13- to 17-year-old black females were relatively low in general across cities from 1985 to 1994. White females experienced the lowest homicide rates of the groups studied. Generally, homicide perpetrators are younger than their victims; the age difference did not change greatly from 1985 to 1994. When analyzed by age bracket (0-17, 18-24, and 25+), victims were likely to have been murdered by offenders in the same age group. Murders by those in the youngest age group composed a relatively small portion of the total. Murders of black males by black males were predominant, often outnumbering murders in the other race/sex categories combined. Findings: Influence of Domain Factors on Homicides As noted in the accompanying sidebar, NIJ researchers studied three categories, or domains, of factors believed to affect homicide rates: environmental, situational, and criminal justice system domains. Environmental Domain. Researchers found some support for a hypothesized link between economic factors and homicide. Of the five cities with higher homicide rates in 1994 than 1985, census data showed a decline (1980 to 1990) in employment among black males in four cities (Atlanta, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and Richmond); data were unavailable for the fifth city (Indianapolis). Further supporting the hypothesis, Tampa showed decreased homicides and higher employment levels for all groups. In New Orleans, Richmond, and Indianapolis, poverty among blacks increased from 1980 to 1990, providing some support for a hypothesized link between poverty and homicide. On the other hand, at the city level, changes over time in income distribution, education level, and household type were not associated with homicide trends. Preliminary analysis of the spatial distribution of homicide in Washington, D.C., at the neighborhood level strongly suggests that homicide is more prevalent in high-poverty areas. Homicides between related or intimate individuals composed a small percentage of the overall homicides for the eight cities but represented a relatively high percentage of the homicides with female victims. In cases where the victim-offender relationship was reported, approximately 50 percent of female victims but less than 20 percent of male victims were killed by family or intimates. In three of the four cities with decreasing homicide trends, a disproportionately large part of the decrease occurred in intimate/family homicides; data were insufficient for an assessment of this trend in the fourth city. All eight cities reported improvements in emergency medical services (EMS), such as better technology and more extensive staff training. Because EMS improvements occurred in cities with increasing and decreasing trends in homicide rates, such improvements could not explain or account for the homicide trends. EMS directors noted that the increased use and power of guns made saving lives more difficult, offsetting improved EMS capabilities. Viewed more positively, EMS enhancements probably helped dampen what other-wise would have been even higher homicide rates. Situational Domain. In five of six cities for which Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) data were available, homicide rates generally rose and fell with increases and decreases in positive test rates among arrestees for cocaine, especially crack cocaine. In all study sites, crack use in particular was perceived by respondents as highly associated with violence. Drugs other than cocaine were not consistently associated with homicide trends by either respondents or through analysis of DUF and homicide data. The percentage of homicides involving guns increased over time in all eight cities, even where homicide rates decreased. Cities with the greatest growth in homicide rates had the highest percentage of homicides involving guns. Federal task forces and other efforts to fight gun violence were generally appreciated locally, as most cities lacked comprehensive gun violence prevention programs. Gangs did not appear to contribute significantly to homicide trends in the cities studied, but none was a "classic" gang city. Criminal Justice System Domain. Focusing on the influence of clearance rates (percentage of cases resulting in arrests) on homicide rates, researchers compared one year's clearance rate with the following year's homicide count. Lower clearance rates were followed by increased homicides the next year in cities that had experienced rapid homicide growth throughout the study timeframe (New Orleans and Richmond) or for part of the time, followed by decreases (Atlanta and Washington, D.C.). Homicide trends were loosely linked to inmate flows into and out of prisons: an increase in incarcerations was associated with a decrease in homicide rates and vice versa. Data were limited, however, and this conclusion is extremely tentative. Community- and problem-oriented policing strategies were operational in all study cities, but data were insufficient to link these strategies with homicide trends. This finding is due in part to such efforts being relatively recent. Conclusions Among the conclusions and policy implications of this study are the following: o In some cities, reductions in family/intimate homicides are contributing substantially to the overall decrease in homicides, supporting local beliefs that domestic violence programs are having an effect. o Guns played an increasing role in homicides, regardless of the underlying homicide trend. o Communities should study local factors, such as drug use at the community level, rather than relying on national statistics, which may not reflect local trends. o A potentially important but complicated relationship between homicide and clearance rates exists. ------------------------------- For More Information Lattimore, P.K., J. Trudeau, K.J. Riley, J. Leiter, and S. Edwards. Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities: Trends, Context, and Policy Implications. Research Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, December 1997. NCJ 167262. This report is summarized in A Study of Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities: An NIJ Intramural Research Project. Research in Brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1997. NCJ 167263. Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800) 851-3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- Stalking: Findings From a National Survey The past decade witnessed heightened interest in the crime of stalking. To gather much needed empirical data on the nature of stalking, NIJ and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cosponsored the National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey, a nationally representative telephone survey of 8,000 women and an equal number of men. This first- ever survey is illustrative of NIJ's efforts to build a comprehensive knowledge base for shaping more effective public policies on crime and justice. What Is Stalking? Legal definitions of stalking vary widely among States, but most require that the behavior be repeated and that it be harassing or threatening. The definition in the NVAW Survey closely resembles that in the model antistalking code for States developed by NIJ several years ago. The survey defined stalking as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that involves repeated visual or physical proximity, nonconsensual communication, or verbal, written or implied threats, or a combination thereof, that would cause a reasonable person fear," with the term repeated meaning on two or more occasions. How Much Stalking Occurs in America? When the NVAW Survey used a definition of stalking that required victims to feel a high level of fear, 8 percent of women and 2 percent of men reported having been stalked at some time in their lives. These figures are significantly higher than previously cited "guesstimates" of 5 percent [11] and equate to an estimated 8.2 million women and 2 million men based on U.S. Census Bureau figures. When a less stringent definition of stalking was used--one requiring victims to feel only somewhat frightened or a little frightened by their assailant's behavior--stalking prevalence rates rise to 12 percent for women and to 4 percent for men. These higher prevalence rates equate to an estimated 12.1 million women and 3.7 million men who have been stalked at some time in their lives. Who Stalks Whom? Although stalking is a gender-neutral crime, women are the primary victims and men the primary perpetrators. Seventy-eight percent of stalking victims identified in the survey were women; 22 percent were men. By comparison, 94 percent of stalkers identified by female victims and 60 percent identified by male victims were male. Overall, 87 percent of stalkers were male. Young adults were stalkers' primary targets. Fifty-two percent of victims were 18 to 29 years old when the stalking began, and 22 percent were 30 to 39. On average, victims were 28 years old when the stalking started. Most victims knew their stalkers. Seventy-seven percent of female victims and 64 percent of male victims knew their stalker. Current or former husbands and former dates or boyfriends stalked 38 percent and 14 percent of female victims, respectively. Overall, 59 percent of female victims compared with 30 percent of male victims were stalked by intimate partners or former intimate partners. Previous reports indicate that the stalking of a woman by an intimate or a former intimate partner typically occurs after she attempts to leave the relationship. The NVAW Survey found that 21 percent of victims who were stalked by intimate partners said it occurred before the relationship ended, 43 percent said afterward, and 36 percent said both before and afterward. How Often Do Stalkers Overtly Threaten? Under many State antistalking laws, stalking occurs only when it involves an overt threat of violence. However, the survey found that fewer than half of the surveyed victims--both male and female--were directly threatened by their stalkers. Findings indicate that stalkers often engage in conduct that, although not involving overt threats, does cause a reasonable person to become fearful. How Often Is Stalking Reported and Prosecuted? Fifty-five percent of female and 48 percent of male surveyed stalking victims reported the incidents to police. Those who did not report felt the stalkings were not a police matter, believed police would be ineffective, or feared reprisals from stalkers. Overall, the 50 percent of victims who reported stalkings were pleased with police results. Survey respondents who said their stalkers were arrested were significantly more likely to be satisfied with the way the police handled their case than were respondents who said their stalkers were not arrested (76 percent versus 42 percent). Twenty-four percent of female victims and 19 percent of male victims in cases with police reports indicated that their cases were prosecuted. Respondents reported that 54 percent of the stalkers who had criminal charges filed against them were convicted of a crime, and of those, 63 percent were believed to have been sent to jail or prison. What Are the Psychological and Social Consequences of Stalking? The survey produced strong confirmation of the negative mental health impact of stalking. Thirty percent of women and 20 percent of men said they sought psychological counseling as a result of the stalking. Stalking victims were significantly more likely than nonstalking victims to be concerned about their personal safety, to carry a self-defense item, and to think that their personal safety had worsened in recent years. Twenty-six percent of victims said the stalkings caused them to lose time from their jobs. Seven percent never returned to work. Of victims who did return, most lost 11 days. Of the 92 percent of victims no longer being stalked at the time of their interviews, 19 percent said the stalking stopped because they moved away, 18 percent because the stalkers developed new love interests, 15 percent because their assailants received warning from police, 9 percent because the stalkers were arrested, and less than 1 percent because victims obtained restraining orders. What Are the Implications For Policy? Although victims reported being very frightened or fearing bodily harm or death, less than half were directly threatened by their stalkers. Researchers suggest that State laws should drop the requirement that to be legally considered a stalker, a perpetrator must make an overt threat. Four out of five women (81 percent) who were stalked by an intimate partner (either before or after the relationship ended) were also physically assaulted by that partner, and 31 percent were also sexually assaulted by that partner. Criminal justice professionals should be made aware (through comprehensive training) of the very real safety risks that stalking victims face. Because more than a quarter of stalking victims seek psychological help, mental health professionals also should receive special training about the needs of stalking victims. Given that 70 percent of all restraining orders obtained against stalkers were violated and that victims were more likely to credit the cessation of their stalking to informal police warnings, more research is needed on the effectiveness of formal and informal police techniques. Because about a fifth of all stalking victims move to new locations to escape their stalkers, the availability of address confidentiality programs is important. These programs enable victims facing continued pursuit and unusual safety risks to develop personal safety plans that include relocating as far from their offenders as possible and securing a mail-forwarding service that will not reveal their new locations. ------------------------------- For More Information Tjaden, P., and N. Thoennes. Stalking in America: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey. Research in Brief. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, April 1998. NCJ 169592. Obtain NIJ publications through NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or contact the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, (800) 851-3420 or (301) 519-5500. ------------------------------- 11. The NVAW Survey's estimate that 8 percent of U.S. women are stalked at some time in their life is 1.6 times greater than a 1992 estimate by psychiatrist Park Dietz, and the survey's estimate that 1,006,970 U.S. women are stalked annually is five times greater than Dietz's guesstimate. ------------------------------- Family Violence: A Vigorous Research Agenda As more information has surfaced over the past 10 years about the frequency and consequences of family violence, criminal justice practitioners, policymakers, and researchers have focused increased attention on such behavior. Constituting a significant extension of NIJ's longstanding efforts to build a knowledge base and explore measures to counteract family violence, the Institute's Violence Against Women and Family Violence Research and Evaluation program seeks to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system in this area and to promote the safety of women and family members. (See "Evolution of the Program.") The following are specific program objectives: o Estimating the scope and trends of violence against women and family members. o Identifying causes and consequences to gain insight into the reasons for such violent behavior and to determine the risk and protective factors associated with such behavior. o Evaluating promising prevention and intervention programs. o Communicating and disseminating research results to the field quickly. o Encouraging partnerships across disciplines that facilitate collaboration, coordination, and cooperation in conducting research and evaluation. The program addresses those objectives primarily through three broad activities: an NIJ and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Joint Program, an NIJ and Violence Against Women Grants Office (VAWGO) Joint Program, and an Interagency Consortium. NIJ and CDC Joint Program NIJ and CDC are collaborating on a significant 5-year effort to better understand the extent of violence against women, why such violence occurs, how to prevent it, and how to increase the effectiveness of legal and health care interventions. This program is based on Understanding Violence Against Women, a 1996 National Research Council Report. The long-range goal of this NIJ/CDC initiative is to achieve highly effective, interdisciplinary, widely useful, and efficient approaches to the prevention, intervention, and control of violence against women. A series of research solicitations initiated the joint program. It includes secondary data analysis, synthesis of research for practitioners in criminal justice and public health, program evaluation, basic research, practitioner- researcher collaborations, and a joint announcement with CDC on injury prevention research addressing sexual and intimate partner violence. NIJ and VAWGO Joint Program For several years, NIJ and VAWGO have collaborated on a host of research and evaluation projects undertaken in conjunction with the STOP Violence Against Women grants program. NIJ manages a research and evaluation program that provides for a national evaluation and several State and local evaluations. The joint program is evaluating the key purposes of the STOP Violence Against Women program as well as additional topics relevant to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The topics include the effectiveness of antistalking efforts, impact of domestic violence training for police, the use of medical records as legal evidence in domestic violence cases, sexual victimization of college women, the relationship between alcohol use and domestic violence among women in alcohol treatment and those receiving domestic violence services, and victim advocacy in domestic violence cases. Interagency Consortium Prompted by the emphasis on partnerships spelled out in VAWA, NIJ and eight other Federal offices formed a consortium in 1996 to examine issues on family violence and violence against women. The members issued a joint Request for Applications focusing on research on violence against women and violence within the family. Participating agencies initially set aside $4.7 million; two of the cosponsors added $500,000. Twelve projects were funded as a result of the jointly sponsored solicitation. (See "Projects Funded by the Interagency Consortium.") The interagency consortium grant program brings together perspectives of the participating agencies: criminal justice, mental health, public health and prevention, alcohol and other drug abuse, and child development. NIJ conducts annual consortium grantee meetings and anticipates publishing results from the research. Topics of inquiry include abuse of children and the elderly, partner violence, sexual violence, and perpetrators and victims of multiple episodes of family violence. The consortium's members are: o Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (at the National Institutes of Health). o Office of Research on Minority Health (at the National Institutes of Health). o National Institute on Drug Abuse. o National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. o National Institute of Mental Health. o National Institute on Aging. o National Institute of Justice. o National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. o Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ------------------------------- For More Information See NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij. Click on "Programs." National Research Council. Understanding Violence Against Women. N. A. Crowell and A.W. Burgess, eds. Panel on Research on Violence Against Women. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1996. National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. Violence in Families: Assessing Prevention and Treatment Programs. R. Chalk and P. King, eds. Committee on the Assessment of Family Violence Interventions. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1998. The foregoing publications are available from the National Academy Press at (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313. ------------------------------- Working to Prevent Crime Comprehensive, community-based approaches to interventions have been a focal point of NIJ evaluations for several years. Evaluations of prevention programs indicate that the most effective efforts appear to be those that carefully identify community needs, warmly welcome community participation, and encompass multiple facets. The prevention activities described in this section--Children at Risk, Comprehensive Communities, and Delinquency Prevention in Schools-- exhibit features of all three. Children at Risk focuses on young people and interventions designed to reduce at-risk behavior. The Comprehensive Communities Program is a broad, multifaceted, community-based intervention. The survey of school-based programs that is the heart of the National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools lays the groundwork for an evaluation of the effectiveness of these programs in schools. Preventing Delinquency: Evaluation of the Children-at-Risk Program The Children-at-Risk Program (CAR), a demonstration effort initiated in 1992, tested two key ideas about preventing juvenile delinquency. First, drug use, delinquency, and other problem behaviors can be prevented by lowering family, neighborhood, peer group, and individual risk factors. Second, a comprehensive 2-year program offering intensive services can reduce these risk factors. CAR targeted high-risk adolescents, male and female, ages 11 to 13 who lived in small, severely distressed neighborhoods in five cities: Austin, Seattle, Bridgeport, Memphis, and Savannah. The targeted neighborhoods suffered from high rates of poverty, crime, and drug dealing. CAR featured comprehensive and integrated delivery of services tailored to suit the values and culture of each community. It also involved close collaboration among police, schools, case managers, and other service providers to meet the needs of these youths and their families. Evaluating the Effects of CAR NIJ and the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University jointly awarded the Urban Institute a grant to assess the impact of the program in all five cities, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse made an award for an additional 1-year followup. The evaluation measured the program's effect on school performance, family functioning, delinquent behavior, and substance use. In each city, a treatment group and a control group (to permit comparison) were randomly selected from youths who met CAR eligibility criteria and lived in the target neighborhoods. Each CAR program included several service components (see "Service Components of CAR"). Initial Evaluation Findings When researchers assessed the program's impact at the end of 1 year-- when the youths were 12 to 14 years old--they found that CAR had made a measurable difference in some areas but not in others. Overall the program attained its primary goal of preventing drug use and delinquency. The program was apparently successful in preventing some problem behaviors and reducing some peer factors associated with longer term risk of such behavior. Findings from the ongoing analysis indicate that prevention of drug use and violent behavior is directly related to reductions in risk factors. Drug Use. CAR youths were asked about their use in the past month and past year of both "gateway" drugs [12] (alcohol, inhalants, marijuana, or cigarettes) and such other drugs as psychedelics, crack, other cocaine, heroin, or prescription drugs. The youths participating in CAR were significantly less likely than the control group to report use of either set of drugs for either period. The difference was greater for the previous month: 51 percent of CAR participants reported using gateway drugs in that period versus 65 percent of control youth, and 5 percent of CAR youths reported using other drugs versus 9 percent of the control group. Delinquency. CAR youths reported significantly lower levels of violent crime (fighting at school, group fighting, assault, robbery, and sexual assault) in the previous year than the control group. They also reported significantly less involvement than the control group in selling drugs (including acting as a lookout or courier or helping prepare drugs for sale) in the previous month. However, with regard to property crime (motor vehicle and other theft, dealing in stolen property, vandalism, and arson), there was no significant difference between the two groups of young people in the previous year. Other Problem Behaviors. Young people were also asked about running away, having sex, exchanging sex for drugs or money, and pregnancy or parenthood. No significant differences were found in any of these areas between CAR youths and the control group in the previous year. Individual Risk Factors. Such factors were seen as low self-esteem, alienation, and propensity for doing things that ar