Title: National Institute of Justice Journal 242 Series: Journal Author: NIJ Published: January 2000 Subject: Criminal justice system 78 pages 172,000 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 Journal January 2000 JR 000242 -------------------------------- National Institute of Justice Journal National Institute of Justice Jeremy Travis Director The NIJ Journal is published by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, to announce the Institute's policy-relevant research results and initiatives. The Attorney General has determined that publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of the Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice. For more information about NIJ activities, products, and publications, visit NIJ on the World Wide Web at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij. NIJ Journal Editorial Board David Boyd Deputy Director for the Office of Science and Technology Sally T. Hillsman Deputy Director for the Office of Research and Evaluation John L. Schwarz Deputy Director for the Office of Development and Communications Christy A. Visher Science Advisor to the Director Cheryl A. Crawford A. Trent DePersia James O. Finckenauer Mary G. Graham Sharla P. Rausch Gerald P. Soucy Laura Winterfield Editors Jolene Hernon Judy Reardon Production by: Palladian Partners, Inc. Managing Editor Brenner Brown Designer Martha Maury Assistant Editors Catharine Rankin Joellen Talbot ------------------------------- Director's Message As the body of solid, empirically based research and innovative practice grows quantitatively and qualitatively, forums for presenting it need to grow accordingly. Thus, with our first issue of the NIJ Journal for the year 2000, we begin presenting more full-length, indepth feature articles. NIJ has been pleased for the past several years to sponsor Cathy Spatz Widom's notable research on the implications of child abuse for criminal behavior later in life. Her most recent work, profiled here, indicates that this type of crime can also adversely affect the victim's long-term cognitive and psychological development. Bureau of Justice Statistics Director Jan Chaiken looks at some recent major trends in crime and the justice system response, suggesting that researchers set themselves to the task of exploring what lies behind these phenomena, the better to sustain the decline in crime and, as the case may be, to find out if the decline is real. The new century is likely to see globalization continue apace in every aspect of human endeavor, crime included. Jan Van Dijk's and Kristiina Kangaspunta's comparison of crime in different parts of the world shows the progress being made in understanding cross-national trends. But as the authors note, we are still far from solving the mystery of country-by-country variation. If the innovations in dealing with on-the-job stress in policing and in bringing a community focus to "lawyering" are any indication, the years ahead hold great promise for effective intervention. Many observers see stress as a quintessentially 20th century affliction. The review of what police departments are doing to reduce and prevent stress suggests there is hope that the 21st century will be the time when solutions are found. As a member of the "lawyering" profession, I can attest that it is sometimes a tradition-bound specialty. NIJ visiting fellow Roger Conner shows how, following the lead of community policing, the profession is shifting from a case-specific to a problem-solving approach, the better to ensure outcomes that communities value. I think these articles make it abundantly clear that even if crime continues its welcome decline, there will be no surcease in the century ahead in the challenges to researchers and to those who devise interventions based on their findings. Jeremy Travis Director -------------------------------- CONTENTS Features Childhood Victimization: Early Adversity, Later Psychopathology --Cathy Spatz Widom Crunching Numbers: Crime and Incarceration at the End of the Millennium --Jan M. Chaiken On-the-Job Stress in Policing Reducing It, Preventing It Community Oriented Lawyering: An Emerging Approach to Legal Practice --Roger Conner Piecing Together the Cross National Crime Puzzle --Jan van Dijk and Kristiina Kangaspunta At-a-glance Recent Research Findings: --Insects as Investigative Tools --Police Discretion --Reducing Gun-Related Crime --Detecting Interpersonal Violence Departments New & Noteworthy Events Solicitations & Awards -------------------------------- CHILDHOOD VICTIMIZATION: EARLY ADVERSITY, LATER PSYCHOPATHOLOGY by Cathy Spatz Widom NCJ 180077 Childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect have both immediate and long-term effects. Different types of abuse have a range of consequences for a child's later physical and psychological well-being, cognitive development, and behavior. But there is another side to the issue: Because these crimes often occur against a background of more chronic adversity, in families with multiple problems, it may not be reasonable to assume that before being victimized the child enjoyed "well-being." Parental alcoholism, drug problems, and other inadequate social and family functioning are among the factors affecting the child's response to victimization. Gender differences add to the complexity. Disentangling all these factors is difficult, as researchers have found. Clearly, more needs to be learned about the long-term consequences of childhood victimization and the processes linking it to outcomes later in life. This article discusses what is known from earlier studies and also presents the findings of more recent research.[1] Consequences and What Gives Rise to Them Child maltreatment has physical, psychological, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. Physical consequences range from minor injuries to brain damage and even death. Psychological consequences range from chronic low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression to substance abuse and other self-destructive behavior and suicide attempts. Cognitive effects include attention problems, learning disorders, and poor school performance. Behavioral consequences range from poor peer relations to physical aggression and antisocial behavior to violent behavior. These consequences are influenced by such factors as gender differences and the context in which victimization occurs. Gender differences. Differences between men and women in manifesting the effects of childhood victimization have received only limited attention from scholars. Some researchers, exploring how men and women differ in showing distress, have suggested there is some conformity to traditional notions of male and female behavior.[2] Some have noted that differences between men and women in manifesting the consequences of abuse may parallel gender differences in the way psychopathology is expressed. Thus, aggression (in males) and depression (in females) may express the same underlying distress, perhaps reflecting gender-specific strategies for maintaining self-esteem in the face of perceived rejection.[3] Differences in the way boys and girls react to abuse have been reported in a few studies. In one, boys were found to have more externalizing and girls to have more internalizing symptoms.[4] An examination of depression and conduct disorders in sexually abused children revealed that girls were more likely than boys to develop depressive disorders and less likely to develop conduct disorders.[5] Family and community--the context. The long-term impact of childhood trauma may depend on the larger--family or community-- context.[6] In a study of children kidnaped and held underground, preexisting family pathology was identified as a factor in the victims' long-term adjustment. Four years after the incident, the children from troubled families were more maladjusted than those from healthier families.[7] The findings of other research were not as clear; rather, subsequent maladjustment was linked more to whether victimized children received appropriate play materials and maternal involvement than to whether they were abused.[8] Parental alcoholism is another contextual factor linked to child abuse[9] and to alcoholism later in life in the offspring.[10] In the same way, practices of the community and the justice and social service systems may have long-term effects. Researchers have called attention to the ways in which children who are members of racial and ethnic minorities encounter discrimination, which diminishes their self-esteem and exacerbates the effects of victimization.[11] Elsewhere, researchers have suggested t hat victimized children are more likely to develop problem behavior in adolescence partly because of juvenile justice system practices that disproportionately label them as juvenile offenders and adjudicate them as such.[12] Studying the Long-Term Effects in Depth In a systematic study of the long-term consequences of early childhood abuse and neglect, the author is examining the experiences of more than 900 people who were victimized in childhood. Begun in 1986, the study first focused on the extent to which, as the victims grew into adulthood, they became involved in delinquency and crime, including violent crime.[13] The current focus is on how their intellectual, behavioral, social, and psychological development was affected. This second phase began in 1989, more than 20 years after the victimization. (See "How the Study Is Being Conducted.") Intellectual performance. When tested at about age 29, the study subjects and the comparison group both scored at the lower levels of the IQ scale, with the majority in both groups below the standard mean of 100 (see figure 1, next page). Those who were abused or neglected, however, scored significantly lower than the comparison group, and these lower levels persisted irrespective of age, sex, race, and criminal history. Overall, both groups averaged 11.5 years of schooling, but the abused and neglected group completed significantly fewer years. Thus, the childhood victims were less likely to have completed high school: Fewer than half, in contrast to two-thirds of the people in the control group. Behavioral and social development. The occupations of both groups ranged from laborer through professional. In the sample overall, the median job level was that of semiskilled worker, with fewer than 7 percent in the two groups holding managerial or professional jobs (see figure 2, next page). The abused and neglected individuals had not done as well as the control group: Significantly more of them held menial and semiskilled jobs. Conversely, a larger proportion of people in the control group held higher level jobs, ranging from skilled worker through professional. Unemployment and underemployment disproportionately affected the abused and neglected group (see figure 3, page 6). In both groups, more than one-fifth had been unemployed in the 5-year period before they were interviewed for the study. Not surprisingly, people in the control group were more likely than the victims to be employed. For underemployment, the story is similar: Significantly more victims of childhood abuse and neglect were underemployed in the 5 years before the interview than were controls. The quality of interpersonal relations also is affected by childhood victimization, and here again there are no surprises (see figure 4, next page). Using marital stability as the measure of success, child abuse and neglect victims did not do as well as control group members. Almost 20 percent of the controls reported a stable marriage, compared to only 13 percent of the abuse and neglect group. Frequent divorce and separation were also more common among abused and neglected people. As reported in previous research, childhood victimization also increases the risk of criminal behavior later in life--as measured by arrests for delinquency and adult criminality, including violent crime.[14] The current study confirms these findings. The odds of arrest for a juvenile offense were 1.9 times higher among abused and neglected individuals than among controls; for crimes committed as an adult, the odds were 1.6 times higher (see table 1, page 7). Childhood abuse or neglect increases the risk of being arrested for violent crime, whether in the juvenile or adult years, as well as for crime in general. It is perhaps most important to note, however, that a substantial proportion of the abused and neglected children did not become delinquents or criminals. Psychological and emotional fallout. Suicide attempts, diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, and alcohol abuse and/or dependence were some of the measures of psychopathology. The abused and neglected individuals were significantly more likely than the controls to have attempted suicide and to have met the criteria for antisocial personality disorder (see table 2, page 7), findings irrespective of age, sex, race, and criminal history. High rates of alcohol abuse were found in both groups (more than 50 percent in each), although the abuse/neglect victims were not at greater risk than the controls, a finding that departs from other research but that methodological differences might explain.[15] As other research has shown, gender can affect the development of psychopathology in abused and neglected children later in life. The current study revealed some of these gender-based differences. Females abused and neglected in childhood were more likely than controls to attempt suicide, to abuse alcohol or be dependent on it, or to suffer from an antisocial personality disorder. Like females, male victims were found at greater risk than controls of attempting suicide and developing an antisocial personality disorder, but they were not at greater risk of developing alcohol problems (see table 3, next page). The findings of males' higher risk for antisocial personality disorder and females' higher risk for alcohol problems parallel previous research revealing conformity to gender roles. However, the finding that females are, like males, at risk for antisocial personality disorder (as well as criminal behavior)[16] may call for reconsidering the assumptions of externalizing and internalizing as the respective pathways of male and female response. The context of victimization. The findings confirmed earlier research identifying context as a factor influencing the long-term outcome for victims. This became evident in analyzing the relationships among childhood victimization, having a parent who had been arrested, and the likelihood of the offspring's developing antisocial personality disorder. The analysis revealed that among people who had a parent with a history of arrest, abuse or neglect in childhood did not increase the likelihood of their developing an antisocial personality disorder (see table 4, page 8). However, where there was no parental criminality, being abused and/or neglected did increase the risk for this disorder. This complicates attempts to understand the consequences of childhood victimization and also suggests multiple factors in the development of antisocial personality disorder. A different picture and set of relationships were found for alcohol abuse. When parental alcohol/drug abuse, childhood victimization, and subsequent alcohol problems in offspring were analyzed, the parents' substance abuse problem emerged as the critical factor in the development of the same problem in the children, and this held true whether or not the child had been victimized (see table 5, page 8). The study also showed that, as a group, the children who were abused or neglected were no more likely than controls to develop alcohol problems, whether or not the parent had the same problem. The strong influence of parental characteristics on the offspring, regardless of victimization, warrants more careful consideration, but is consistent with earlier literature on the genetic transmission of alcoholism. Multiple Mechanisms The study generated more--and more systematic--evidence that the consequences of childhood victimization extend well beyond childhood and adolescence, persisting into young adulthood. Such victimization affects many functions later in life, and what was revealed in this study most likely represents only the tip of the iceberg, which further research could bring to light. On the other hand, some expected outcomes (such as increased risk for alcohol problems in abused and neglected children) did not materialize, raising questions for further study. Disentangling the pathways. One of the difficulties in assessing risk of negative consequences is sorting out the children's multiple problems and those of their parents. As previous research has shown, adverse effects interact, so that the combined effects of two types of problems may be greater than their sum.[17] Whether this interaction effect applies to childhood victimization is not known, although it is likely. This study has not yet tried to distinguish among the many mechanisms by which childhood victimization affects development and psychopathology. When it comes to the influence of contextual factors, children may simply be modeling their parents' behavior. But it also is possible that abuse or neglect may produce immediate effects that then irremediably affect subsequent development, which in turn may affect still later outcomes. Direct and indirect pathways. Some pathways may be direct--persisting into adulthood. Abused and neglected children may show aggressiveness and behavior problems in childhood, delinquency in adolescence, and antisocial and criminal behavior in adulthood. It also is likely that this path leads to abusive behavior in the home, manifested in spouse or child abuse. In other instances there may be a delayed reaction, occurring years later. Abuse or neglect may encourage certain dysfunctional ways of coping. An example is impulsive behavior that in turn gives rise to deficiencies in problem solving or in school performance, less than adequate functioning on the job, or antisocial personality disorder. Adaptations that might serve well at one stage of development may no longer do so at a later stage, placing the person at risk for further unfavorable situations or subsequent victimization that may trigger psychopathology. Some early, adverse experiences may be indirect, creating byproducts. They may change the environment or the family situation, which in turn may predispose a person to problem behavior. They also may expose the child to further harmful experiences. In this way, the consequences may be due not so much to the abuse or neglect, but to the chain of events it triggers. No doubt there are many other mechanisms by which abuse and neglect affect a child. Hopefully, future models that explain long-term consequences will examine some of them, because finding a single mechanism that explains all cases of abuse and neglect is highly unlikely. -------------------------------- Notes 1. This article summarizes the author's "Childhood Victimization: Early Adversity and Subsequent Psychopathology," in Adversity, Stress, and Psychopathology, ed. B.P. Dohrenwend, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998: 81-95. 2. Downey, G., et al., "Maltreatment and Childhood Depression," in Handbook of Depression in Children, ed. W.M. Reynolds and H.F. Johnson, New York: Plenum, 1994; Dohrenwend, B.P., and B.S. Dohrenwend, "Sex Differences in Psychiatric Disorders," American Journal of Sociology 81 (1976):1447-54; Horwitz, A.V., and H.R. White, "Gender Role Orientations and Styles of Pathology Among Adolescents," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 28 (1987):158-170; and Widom, C.S., "Sex Roles, Criminality, and Psychopathology," in Sex Roles and Psychopathology, ed. C.S. Widom, New York: Plenum, 1984: 87-213. 3. Downey et al., "Maltreatment and Childhood Depression." 4. Friedrich, W.H., A.J. Urquiza, and R.L. Beilke, "Behavior Problems in Sexually Abused Young Children," Journal of Pediatric Psychology 11 (1986):47-57. 5. Livingston, R., "Sexually and Physically Abused Children," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 26 (1987):413-415. 6. Briere, J., and M. Runtz, "Symptomatology Associated With Childhood Sexual Victimization in a Nonclinical Adult Sample," Child Abuse and Neglect 12 (1988):51-60; Harris, T., G.W. Brown, and A. Bifulco, "Loss of Parent in Childhood and Adult Psychiatric Disorder: A Tentative Overall Model," Development and Psychopathology 2 (1990): 311-328; Terr, L.A., "Chowchilla Revisited: The Effects of Psychiatric Trauma Four Years After a School-Bus Kidnaping," American Journal of Psychiatry 140 (1983): 1543- 1550. 7. Terr, "Chowchila Revisited." 8. Gibbin, P.T., R.H. Starr, and S.W. Agronow, "Affective Behavior of Abused and Controlled Children: Comparison of Parent-Child Interactions and the Influence of Home Environment Variables," Journal of Genetic Psychology 144 (1984):69-82. 9. Famularo, R., et al., "Alcoholism and Severe Child Maltreatment," American Journal of Orthopschiatry 56 (1986):481-485; Reider, E.E., et al., "Alcohol Involvement and Violence Toward Children Among High-Risk Families," Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, August 11-15, 1989. 10. Goodwin, D.W., et al., "Alcohol Problems in Adoptees Raised Apart From Alcoholic Biological Parents," Archives of General Psychiatry 28 (1973):238- 243; Goodwin, D.W., et al., "Alcoholism and Depression in Adopted-Out Daughters of Alcoholics," Archives of General Psychiatry 34 (1977):751-755; Cloninger, C.R., et al., "Psychopathology in Adopted-Out Children of Alcoholics: The Stockholm Adoption Study," in Recent Developments in Alcoholism, Vol. 3, M. Galanter, ed., New York: Plenum, 1985. 11.Wyatt, G.E., "Sexual Abuse of Ethnic Minority Children: Identifying Dimensions of Victimization," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 21 (1990):338-343. 12.Smith, C.P., D.J. Berkman, and W.M. Fraser, A Preliminary National Assessment of Child Abuse and Neglect and the Juvenile Justice System: The Shadows of Distress, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1980. 13. Widom, C.S., "The Cycle of Violence," Science 244 (1989):160-166. 14. These findings, based on the study of 1,196 of the original 1,575 subjects (the 908 abuse/neglect victims plus the 667 in the control group), should not be confused with findings from studies published previously (Widom, "Cycle of Violence," and Maxfield, M.G., and C.S. Widom, "The Cycle of Violence: Revisited Six Years Later," Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 150 [1996]:390-395), which report on the entire original sample of 1,575. 15. See Widom, C.S., T. Ireland, and P.J. Glynn, "Alcohol Abuse in Abused and Neglected Children Followed-Up: Are They at Increased Risk?" Journal of Studies on Alcohol 56 (1995):207-217. 16. These findings are not shown here. See Maxfield and Widom, "The Cycle of Violence: Revisited." 17. Rutter, M., "Protective Factors in Children's Response to Stress and Disadvantage," in Primary Prevention of Psychopathology: Social Competence in Children, Vol. 3, ed. M.V. Kent and J.E. Rolf, Hanover, NH: New England Press, 1979: 49-74 . -------------------------------- About the author Cathy Spatz Widom is a professor of criminal justice and psychology at the State University of New York at Albany. She is widely recognized for her work on the cycle of violence. The author wishes to thank Patricia J. Glynn and Suzanne Luu for their help in the preparation of this article. The research described in this article was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (86-IJ-CX-0033, 89-IJ- CX-0007, and 94-IJ-CX-0031), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA09238) and National Institute of Mental Health (MH49467). -------------------------------- How the Study Is Being Conducted The study is based on a "prospective cohorts design," so-called because it follows a group of people (a cohort) for an extended period, enabling researchers to examine sequences of development over time. In the case of this study, the design helps sort out the effects of childhood victimization from other, potentially confounding effects traceable to different causes. The subjects were told they were part of a study of the characteristics of people who had grown up in the area in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The cases of children who were abused and/or neglected were drawn from county juvenile and adult criminal court records in a metropolitan area of the Midwest between 1967 and 1971. The children were young--age 11 or younger--at the time of the incident. The comparison group. To create a control group against which to compare the abused and neglected children, a group of children who had not been reported as victimized but who were similar in other respects to the study subjects were identified. To match children younger than school age at the time of the incident, county birth records were used. To match school-age children, records of more than 100 elementary schools were used. Sample size and characteristics. The original sample consisted of 1,575 people, of whom 908 were study subjects and 667 were controls. Of these, 1,196 were interviewed for the study. Just under half the interviewees were female, about two-thirds were white, and the mean age at the time of the interview was 28.7. There were no differences between the abused/neglected group and the controls in gender, race/ethnicity, or age. Some caveats. Because the study findings were based on court cases, they most likely represent the most extreme incidents of childhood abuse and neglect. What is more, they were processed before enactment of child abuse laws, when many cases went unreported and thus never came to the attention of the authorities. The findings are therefore not generalizable to unreported or unsubstantiated cases of abuse and neglect. Because cases brought before the courts disproportionately represent people at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, the study's subjects and controls were drawn from that stratum. For this reason, it would be inappropriate to generalize to cases involving people from other socioeconomic strata. -------------------------------- CRUNCHING NUMBERS: CRIME AND INCARCERATION AT THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM by Jan M. Chaiken NCJ 180078 This article is based on a presentation made by Dr. Chaiken on July 20, 1999, at the Office of Justice Programs' Annual Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation in Washington D.C. As we approach January 2000, the impulse to think about the future is nearly irresistible. At the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), we compulsive statisticians know that the year 2000 is still part of the twentieth century, so we are more relaxed than most people about the arrival of a new millennium. Our attitude toward the future may also be shaped by the fact that we statisticians are more oriented to the past: We know that the only data available are data from the past. This article, therefore, explores some of the complex trends in property crime, rape, and violence among intimates, all of which raise important questions for new re-search. It also highlights some of the implications of the high rates of incarceration, which are attracting researchers' attention.[1] Conclusions are left for the reader to draw. Decline in Property Crime--Does the U.S. Stand Alone? As measured by the BJS National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), property crime has been declining in this country for at least 25 years[2] (see figure 1[3]). This type of crime, which includes larceny, burglary, theft in general, and motor vehicle theft, has fallen 58 percent since 1975. Burglary rates closely resemble property crime rates overall in their steep decline (see figure 2, next page). This pattern has not been duplicated in other countries. In Canada, for example, although property crime has declined steadily since 1992, the decline is not nearly as steep as in the United States, and the longer term pattern in Canada is essentially flat--or has not changed.[4] England and Wales use a victimization survey quite similar to the NCVS, which facilitates comparison of crime data with the United States. Not only has property crime been increasing in England and Wales, but the rates--once much lower than in the United States--now exceed ours.[5] For most of the period since 1981, burglary in England and Wales has been increasing, not declining, with a turnaround starting in 1992 or 1993 (see figure 3), a situation approximately the same as in Canada. In rates of motor vehicle theft, the patterns in the United States much more closely resemble those of England and Wales (see figure 4, next page). What is going on here? First, it is important to note that national trends are an aggregate of State and local trends, which may be moving in entirely different directions in some parts of the country than the overall numbers. So it is possible that in a particular State or community the trends are quite a bit different from the national trend. But on a nationwide basis, the differences among countries are palpable. In London, burglaries are a high-priority focus of the police and are frequent topics of newspaper articles and even announcements on public transit. The downward shift in burglary and theft in the United States has attracted very little attention from researchers--especially compared to that given to trends in violent crime. To be sure, the reason for the downturn is difficult to understand if we accept the idea that it is not possible to find a valid explanation by pointing to something that happened in the United States but also happened in other countries. What comes to mind as possible explanations? On the side of potential victims: More window and door alarms and more secure windows and doors; better illumination in yards and driveways and inside homes when no one is present; more private security and gated communities; less cash being carried because of greater use of credit cards and ATM cards for financial transactions. On the side of potential perpetrators: More drug dealers in prison; more criminals turning to robbery and lucrative Internet crime instead of burglary. And, of course, better research and evaluation! When U.S. News and World Report examined these patterns, it favored this explanation for the drop in crime: People are more likely now than in the past to be home watching cable TV and videotapes, rather than being out on the town, so the nighttime burglar has fewer opportunities.[6] Rape: Is It Really Declining? People generally have two different reactions when they see the data on rape trends. Some say, when they see the decline reported by the NCVS (see figure 5), obviously our policies concerning violence against women are working-- women are learning how to handle threatening situations or are aware of the alternatives for avoiding them. Others disagree, believing that the downward trend is illusory, that it means only that women are becoming less willing to report rape and even more reluctant to mention it to the NCVS interviewers. The NCVS data are based on interviews, not police reports, and the respondents also are asked if they reported the crime to the police. We know that rape continues to be the crime reported least often, especially among women in their teens and early twenties, as well as college students. BJS, the National Institute of Justice, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sponsor research to examine whether other methods of inquiring about sexual assault and rape yield better estimates of the true extent of victimization.[7] Whenever BJS compares the results of its NCVS surveys with those of the more explicit and reassuring methods used in surveys conducted by NIJ, CDC, and in other BJS research, it becomes clear that many of these crimes remain uncounted by the NCVS. This is particularly true of rape by intimates, which women may mention to an interviewer in the context of fights with their partners or spouses but are less likely to mention in the NCVS context of crime. That may be either because they may not think it is a crime or because they may not want to contemplate the implications of their partner's behavior amounting to a violent crime. BJS is working closely with NIJ, CDC, and the National Center for Health Statistics to better understand the incidence of domestic violence, including sexual assault, and to develop better ways to measure the extent of violence against women.[8] Particularly because sexual assault, unlike property crime, may not actually be dwindling, it requires continued research and intervention--and improved measurement systems! Declining Violence Among Intimates--The Gender Gap The story of trends in violence among intimates is a remarkable one. The past decade has seen a real change in perceptions of the seriousness of violence against women, especially by a husband or partner. Legislation has been enacted at the State and Federal levels, the Violence Against Women Office was established in the U.S. Department of Justice, and funding has flowed to all the States for programs intended to reduce the occurrence of violence against women and assist victims. Although we are beginning to see numerous indications of the effectiveness of these programs in a broad sense, the trends in serious violence are not at all what might be expected given the recent strong emphasis on violence against women. The overall decrease in serious, violent crime (by about 31 percent since 1994) has benefited men much more than women (see figure 6). For women, the victimization rate declined less than 15 percent in this period and overall is still slightly above the levels of the 1970's. When we examine particular population subgroups, we find some categories of women who are more likely than men to be victims of crime. Women college students, for example, are at greater risk of victimization than women of the same age who are not in college.[9] On the whole, the victimization of college women by crimes other than sexual assault is approximately the same as that for men, but women are in addition the primary victims of sexual assault. This is a form of gender equity that no one was hoping for. When we examine homicide committed by intimates, we detect the possibility that a downward trend for women victims began around 1994. However, the long-term downward shift in the number of men killed by their intimate partners is much steeper (see figure 7, next page). A reasonable interpretation of this disparity is that women who find themselves in situations so devastating that they might consider killing their partners increasingly have options such as shelters, protection orders, and police arrest policies that allow them, at the moment they feel compelled to kill, to resist that compulsion.[10] Men, on the other hand, continue to kill their intimate partners at about the same rate as a quarter of a century ago. Looking in more detail at the circumstances in which this steep reduction in the number of men killed by intimates has occurred, we see a long-term downtrend in the use of guns. Then, in the past few years, the use of other kinds of weapons also has declined (see figure 8, next page). It should be noted that not all the men killed by intimates are killed by a woman: The data also include male intimates who kill men. High Incarceration Rate--Problem or Solution? Another major trend for researchers' consideration is the literally incredible increase in incarceration rates in the United States since 1975. Like the decrease in violent crime, this fact is fairly well known, although the details and the implications may not be. Not only has the incarceration rate more than quadrupled--after holding more or less steady for decades--but it has disproportionately affected minority racial and ethnic groups (see figure 9, next page). This is so much the case in some communities that incarceration is becoming almost a normative life experience. Such a high level of incarceration has grave implications for the body politic. For one thing, it fosters disrespect for legitimate authority among people who begin to feel that everyone they know is being put in prison. For another, because felons typically are not eligible to vote, they are likely to have no interest or role in elections and thus may be alienated from the political process. We are disenfranchising a group of people who currently are minorities, but--if current demographic trends continue--will become a majority of the population. The latest figures, for 1996, show that on any given day, approximately 30 percent of black men ages 20 to 29 were under correctional supervision--either in jail or prison or on probation or parole in the community (see tables 1 and 2, page 16). Examining the numbers for State and Federal prisoners only (that is, omitting people who are on probation and parole), we find that 8.3 percent of black men ages 25 to 29 were in prison at the end of 1996. This figure is more than three times higher than the 2.6 percent of Hispanic men who are in prison and more than 10 times higher than the rate for white men. BJS has developed a statistical model that predicts the lifetime chances of going to prison if current patterns of imprisonment continue at the same levels. The model indicates that a young black man age 16 in 1996 had a 28.5 percent chance of spending time in prison during his life (see table 3, page 16). This figure does not include being arrested and spending a night or so in jail. It reflects actual prison sentences, which ordinarily are for at least a year and follow a conviction for a felony. This does not seem to be the kind of trend that can be sustained very long, both because of its monetary costs and because of its corrosive effects on heavily affected communities. On the other side of the equation, however, there are those who believe that the dramatic decrease in violent crime that this country has experienced in the recent past can be attributed to the very fact that large numbers of people are behind bars. They see the investment as paying off in lower crime. A Window of Opportunity This unanticipated period of rapidly declining crime may be unique in our Nation's history. Indeed, there are those who warn that it surely must be a passing phenomenon. Whether or not that is the case, it would seem opportune for criminal justice researchers to seize the moment and learn as much as they can about the underlying causes of the decline. For the purpose of developing public policy, we are most interested in uncovering strong evidence about what has been done at the State, city, county, and Federal levels that helped make the decline happen. It also would be of interest to shed light on pockets where the overall national data are not borne out. Such efforts on the part of researchers may turn out to be vital in sustaining the decline of crime in the United States. At the same time, we know that even effective policies for crime reduction that unfairly affect any segment of the population should not be tolerated. -------------------------------- Notes 1. See, for example, Clear, Todd, and Dina R. Rose, When Neighbors Go to Jail: Impact on Attitudes About Formal and Informal Social Control, Research Preview, Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, July 1999. 2. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the Nation's primary source of information about criminal victimization. Information is obtained annually from a nationally representative sample of roughly 43,000 households comprising more than 80,000 people who are asked about the frequency, characteristics, and consequences of their victimization by crime. The survey reports the extent of victimization from rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole and for subpopulations such as women, the elderly, members of various racial groups, and city dwellers. NCVS data collection began in 1973; data from the redesigned survey were reported beginning in 1993. 3. This figure and the others accompanying this article are drawn from charts on the BJS Web site (http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/bjs). The data presented in the figures are also on the Web site and are updated from time to time. 4. Tremblay, Sylvain, Crime Statistics in Canada, 1998, Ottawa, Ontario: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 1999. 5. Langan, Patrick A., and David P. Farrington, Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, October 1998 (NCJ 169284). 6. Witkin, Gordon, "The Crime Bust," U.S. News and World Report, May 25, 1998: 28-40. 7. NIJ and CDC sponsored the research conducted for the National Violence Against Women Survey. Among the publications based on findings from that survey is Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey, by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, Research in Brief, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 1998 (NCJ 172837). NIJ and BJS sponsored research on the sexual victimization of college women, conducted by Bonnie S. Fisher, Francis T. Cullen, and Michael G. Turner. The final report of the study, "The Sexual Victimization of College Women: Findings From Two National Level Surveys," submitted December 1999 (NIJ grant 95- WT-NX-001 and BJS grant 97-MU-MU-001), will be made available by NIJ. 8. NIJ, CDC, and BJS addressed the issue of building data systems for monitoring and responding to violence against women in a jointly sponsored workshop. The proceedings and papers of the October 1998 workshop will be published by CDC. 9. Noted in Fisher, Cullen, and Turner, "The Sexual Victimization of College Women." 10. Dugan, Laura, Daniel S. Nagin, and Richard Rosenfeld, "Explaining the Decline in Intimate Partner Homicide," Homicide Studies 3, 3 (August 1999):187-214. -------------------------------- About the author Jan M. Chaiken is Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a component of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, and the Nation's primary source for criminal justice statistics. He was appointed BJS Director by President Clinton in 1994. -------------------------------- Acknowledgments Dr. Chaiken would like to thank the staff of the BJS victimization statistics office, under the direction of Michael Rand; the staff of the corrections statistics office, under the direction of Allen Beck; and Patrick Langan and visiting fellow David Farrington for their assistance in preparing this presentation. He also wishes to thank Marianne Zawitz and visiting fellow James A. Fox for their work in preparing data from the BJS Web site's subsite on homicide trends. Marianne Zawitz also prepared the charts, reproduced here, that were part of the author's original presentation. -------------------------------- Mapping Crime: Principle and Practice One of its kind. Full-color introduction to crime mapping. Introduces the science of crime mapping to professionals interested in visualizing crime data through the medium of maps. Not a technical guide to software, this 193-page book answers questions about various issues and approaches to crime mapping. Suitable for both beginner and intermediate crime analysts. More than 110 full-color maps illustrate how GIS is used to analyze problems and suggest solutions. Available electronically at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij. Hard copies available by contacting the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 1-800-851-3420, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000. Order document number NCJ 178919. -------------------------------- ON-THE-JOB STRESS IN POLICING--REDUCING IT, PREVENTING IT NCJ 180079 Police officers and members of their families consider their job to be one of the most stressful. It is hard to disagree with that assessment, as officers themselves report high rates of divorce, alcoholism, suicide, and other emotional and health problems.[1] No job is immune from stress, but for the law enforcement officer, the strains and tensions experienced at work are unique, often extreme, and sometimes unavoidable. Fortunately, many law enforcement agencies, recognizing the high toll exacted by stress on officers and their families, are tackling it with an array of creative prevention and reduction strategies. Through the CLEFS (Corrections and Law Enforcement Family Support) program of the National Institute of Justice, several of these agencies are receiving support. This article summarizes an NIJ report that documented the causes and effects of job-related stress affecting law enforcement officers and their families. Much of the information was drawn from interviews, conducted as part of the study, with officers themselves and their family members.[2] Also included in this article are highlights of some stress prevention and reduction programs reported in the study and of some of the CLEFS projects. Sources of Stress Exposure to violence, suffering, and death is inherent to the profession of law enforcement officer. There are other sources of stress as well. Officers who deal with offenders on a daily basis may view some sentences as too lenient; they may perceive the public's opinion of police performance to be unfavorable; they often are required to work mandatory, rotating shifts; and they may not have enough time to spend with their families. Police officers also face unusual, often highly disturbing, situations, such as dealing with a child homicide victim or the survivors of vehicle crashes. The nature of the organizations in which officers work may also be a source of stress. Police departments historically have been structured along military lines and as a result often have been rigidly hierarchical and highly bureaucratic, with management styles that can be inflexible. Although in many instances police culture is changing, in many others the leadership remains predominately white and male, opportunities for advancement are limited, and despite the ubiquity of the personal computer, a large amount of paperwork still is required. Is Stress Getting Worse? Officers may increasingly view stress as a normal part of their job, but they also see themselves as being under considerably more pressure than they or their colleagues were 10 or 20 years ago. They see new sources of stress in the high level of violent crime and in what they perceive as greater public scrutiny and adverse publicity. They also feel that police camaraderie has declined; they fear contracting air- and blood-borne diseases such as TB and HIV/AIDS; and they see themselves as having to deal with such relatively new issues as cultural diversity and the imperative of "political correctness." Even widely accepted changes in law enforcement can lead to more stress for some officers. Although community policing may mean more job satisfaction, greater overall departmental efficiency, and higher morale, the transition to it can cause apprehension on the part of the officers who on a day-to-day basis must operationalize this fundamental shift in the philosophy of policing. Performance expectations are new and perhaps not fully understood by all officers. Whether or not stress is increasing, identifying the causes is a first step toward reducing and preventing it. (See "How One Agency Pinpointed Stress.") Counting the Ways: The Effects of Stress The physical and emotional effects of stress are numerous and often severe. Any one of them can impair job performance. The consequences of job-related stress commonly reported by police officers are: --Cynicism and suspiciousness. --Emotional detachment from various aspects of daily life. --Reduced efficiency. --Absenteeism and early retirement. --Excessive aggressiveness (which may trigger an increase in citizen complaints). --Alcoholism and other substance abuse problems. --Marital or other family problems (for example, extramarital affairs, divorce, or domestic violence). --Post-traumatic stress disorder. --Heart attacks, ulcers, weight gain, and other health problems. --Suicide. According to many counselors who work with police officers, difficulties with intimate relationships are the most common problem they treat. Families Feel Stress, Too If the effects on officers are severe, they can be similarly serious for officers' family members. In one survey of the spouses of police officers, a very large percentage said they experienced unusually high levels of stress because of their spouse's job.[3] Stress felt by spouses is a concern in and of itself and also because a stressful home environment can adversely affect the officer's job performance. Even conditions, situations, or incidents that may not trouble the officers themselves-- or that they may even enjoy, such as shift work or undercover work--can mean severe problems for their families. Sources of stress commonly cited by officers' spouses include: --Shift work and overtime. --Concern over the spouse's cynicism, need to feel in control in the home, or inability or unwillingness to express feelings. --Fear that the spouse will be hurt or killed in the line of duty. --Officers' and others' excessively high expectations of their children. --Avoidance, teasing, or harassment of the officer's children by other children because of the parent's job. --Presence of a gun in the home. --The officer's 24-hour role as a law enforcer. --Perception that the officer prefers to spend time with coworkers rather than with his or her family. --Too much or too little discussion of the job. --Family members' perception of the officer as paranoid or excessively vigilant and overprotective of them. --Problems in helping the officer cope with work-related problems. --"Critical incidents," or the officer's injury or death on the job.[4] Because stress affects family members, they are often the first to recognize the officer's need for help, and they can play a crucial role by encouraging him or her to seek assistance before the problem becomes worse. This is the concept behind the Spousal Academy, a component of the comprehensive officer and family support program offered by the Collier County (Florida) Sheriff's Office. The Academy offers training to spouses and other domestic partners of deputies and recruits who are enrolled in the Office's training academy. The 10-hour program involves an introduction to the nature of law enforcement work and an opportunity to discuss expectations about the effect the spouses' occupation will have on family life. Participants learn about the structure of the Sheriff's Office, about such human resource issues as employee benefits (health insurance, for example), and about stress management and conflict resolution. Two related programs in the development stage are peer support groups for spouses and life partners and for deputies' adolescent children.[5] Soliciting feedback from participants is part of the program. Several noted the program's effectiveness in conveying the reality of what an officer does on the job. In the words of one spouse, "I now realize some of what my husband goes through." One of the comments heard most frequently concerns the value of simply meeting and interacting with other spouses. As one participant characterized the spouse's role, "Sometimes, this can be a lonely job."[6] Countering Domestic Violence There is some belief that a relatively large proportion of law enforcement officers may be involved in domestic violence, in part because of the stressful nature of the job.[7] Many law enforcement agencies have begun to turn their attention to the issue and devise ways to respond. One agency, the Los Angeles (County) Sheriff's Department (LASD), has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward domestic violence, with a full range of disciplinary actions that could include dismissal from the force. To reduce the number of domestic violence incidents among the LASD's 8,000 sworn officers, the Department bolstered the policy with a training program for all supervisory personnel; a vigorous information dissemination campaign (which included development of an educational video to be shown to all staff); and counseling services for individuals, couples, and families. The Department has trained more than 1,200 supervisors to spot signs of stress and domestic violence.[8] Why Start or Expand a Stress Program? Why should law enforcement agencies spend time and money on a law enforcement stress program and perhaps set aside space for it? The answer has to do with the implications of stress for the department. Essentially, stress reduces the quality of departmental performance. Stress Affects Agency Performance The cumulative negative effects of stress on officers and their families typically affect the agency through impaired officer performance and the related problems of tardiness, absenteeism, and low morale. The consequence for the department is lower productivity. Stress-related performance inadequacies also may generate labor-management friction and lead to civil suits. There may be adverse public reaction as a result of stress-related incidents, such as an officer's suicide or a case of police brutality. Even problems that are confined to only a few individuals or that occur rarely can have major repercussions. For instance, a single incident in which a handful of officers abuse alcohol or other drugs can lower public confidence in the entire agency.[9] Though establishing and operating a stress reduction program requires a financial outlay, it can mean cost savings in the long term. That is because stress affects the bottom line. Agencies can find it enormously costly when employee turnover increases as a result of stress-related early retirement or long-term disability. Robert Peppler, Assistant Sheriff of the San Bernardino (California) Sheriff's Department noted the cost to his agency: "We have a tremendous investment in cops," he said, "and if they leave after one traumatic incident, we have lost a tremendous amount. A dollar in psychological services now can save us hundreds of thousands down the road."[10] Why Not an EAP? Many agencies have access to city- or countywide employee assistance programs (EAP's). Law enforcement staff and their families may be eligible for services from additional providers. These may include police chaplains, wellness programs, support groups, and local private service providers. This prompts the question: Why shouldn't an agency rely on other existing programs rather than develop its own stress reduction program? The fact that a service is available does not necessarily mean it is meeting--or can meet--the distinctive needs of police officers. Mental health practitioners, police administrators, and others, when asked about city or county EAP's, said police officers do not use them because these programs do not provide enough confidentiality, because EAP staff usually do not understand law enforcement, and because the officers feared the stigma that might be attached to using an EAP. What Stress Reduction Programs Look Like Approaches to reduce or prevent stress can take many forms, among them: --Services provided by a private mental health practice or an individual therapist working with one or more law enforcement agencies. --Peer support and referrals from specially trained police officers. --Psychological services set up in the agency through the union, chaplaincy, or employee assistance program. --A combination of these arrangements. Almost all programs are geared primarily to line officers, because they constitute the largest group in any law enforcement agency, they deal with the public on a day-to-day basis, they are widely believed to experience high levels of stress, and they may have limited means to pay for extended counseling. Most programs also provide at least minimal services (that is, referral to other treatment providers) to nonsworn personnel and former employees, as well as to officers' and other employees' family members and close friends. Services typically include assessment and referral to mental health or other practitioners; critical incident debriefing; intervention for other types of crises; short-term counseling for both individuals and families; and long-term counseling and other services, including treatment for substance abuse. Most mental health practitioners emphasize the importance of involving family members, when possible, in all these services. To varying extents, all programs include referrals to outside sources of assistance. For some programs that operate with limited resources, referral to outside services is the primary component. That is often the case with programs staffed largely by peers. (See "A Little Help From Your Friends--Peer Support in New York City.") Preventing Stress The most common method for preventing stress is to train officers to recognize its signs and sources and to develop individual coping strategies. Training helps encourage officers and nonsworn personnel to use stress reduction techniques and services and dispels the stigma frequently attached to seeking assistance. One period during which officers could be taught about stress is when they are at the academy, according to most of the police officers, program administrators, and independent mental health practitioners who were asked about this issue. They felt that the initial training period was a possibility because recruits are a captive audience and because the information may remain with them throughout their entire police career. There is some thinking that "inoculation" during recruit training is not the best approach, because most recruits are not experienced enough to recognize that stress comes with the job. The optimal time to reach them may be 6 to 8 months into the job, after they have experienced on-the-job stress. Some agencies offer inservice training not only for line officers but also for midlevel managers and command staff, prospective retirees, and nonsworn personnel. Because, as noted above, the structure and management of the agency can be a significant source of stress, mental health professionals should consider working with departmental management and unions to plan and implement organizational change. This can be done in a number of ways, all of which fall within the domain of management: --Training command staff in effective supervision. --Training field training officers to constructively supervise rookies. --Eliminating rotating shift work. --Improving the match between officers' capabilities and the demands of specific assignments. What NIJ Is Doing The issue of job-related stress for law enforcement officers and their families has received attention at the highest levels of government. In the 1994 Omnibus Crime Act, the President and Congress recognized the severity of the problem and mandated a Federal Government response. The National Institute of Justice was assigned the task of sponsoring research, establishing pilot programs, and conducting program evaluations that support State and local efforts. Research and Development Since the start of the Corrections and Law Enforcement Family Support program, NIJ has sponsored research and program development in some 30 agencies and related organizations (labor unions and employee professional organizations, for example). These projects include the development of innovative treatment and training programs as well as research into the nature and causes of stress. In one study now under way, NIJ is exploring the nature and extent of job-related stress for police in a single geographic region. And to improve access to service, NIJ provided support to the Metro Nashville Police Department in creating an online resource of information for the families of law enforcement officers, particularly those in underserved communities. Available on the Internet, the resource is a new type of service delivery system.[11] The Web site contains, among other things, materials developed by psychologists for preparing workshops on stress, message boards, a chat room, links to related Web sites, recommended readings, and postings from police psychologists and consultants. From LEFS to CLEFS Originally geared solely to law enforcement, the NIJ program has expanded to include corrections officers. In some cases, corrections officers experience more intense stress-generating incidents than do law enforcement officers. They may, for example, encounter violent behavior by inmates more often and over longer periods of time. NIJ support for research and development is given to corrections agencies as well as law enforcement agencies. A study of programs to reduce and prevent stress among corrections staff is under development. -------------------------------- Notes 1. Burke, R.J., "Career Stages, Satisfaction, and Well-Being Among Police Officers," Psychological Reports 65 (1989):3-12; and Delprino, R.P., K. O'Quin, and C. Kennedy, "Identification of Work and Family Services for Law Enforcement Personnel," final report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, 1997(NIJ grant 95-IJ-CX-0113). 2. The NIJ report is Developing a Law Enforcement Stress Program for Officers and Their Families, by Peter Finn and Julie Esselman Tomz, Issues and Practices, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, March 1997 (NCJ 163175). 3. The survey was conducted as part of a study by Leanor Boulin-Johnson, professor of African- American Studies and Family Studies at Arizona State University. See "On the Front Lines: Police Stress and Family Well-Being," testimony of Leanor Boulin-Johnson before the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, U.S. House of Representatives, 102nd Congress, 1st Session, May 20, 1991, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991:32. 4. Borum, R., and C. Philpot, "Therapy With Law Enforcement Couples: Clinical Management of the 'High-Risk Lifestyle,'" American Journal of Family Therapy 21 (1993):122-135. 5. Ferguson, Edward T., and Acey L. Edgemon, "Collier County Sheriff's Office Law Enforcement Family Support Initiative," draft executive summary, report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, April 1, 1999. 6. Unpublished program evaluations by participants in Spousal Academy, Collier County (Florida) Sheriff's Office, no date. 7. "On the Front Lines: Police Stress and Family Well-Being," testimony of B.J. Anderson before the Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, U.S. House of Representatives, 102nd Congress, 1st Session, May 20, 1991, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991:61-63. 8. Unpublished progress report of the Family Violence Prevention and Recovery Project (FVPRP), Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, submitted to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, by Audrey L. Honig, Principal Investigator, FVPRP, and Steven E. Sultan, Project Coordinator, FVPRP, for period September 1, 1998, through March 3, 1999. 9. Springer, K., "When the Helper Needs Help: Stress and the Law Enforcement Employee," EAP Association Exchange 25 (1995): 6-11. 10. Finn and Tomz, Developing a Law Enforcement Stress Program for Officers and Their Families: 3. 11. The site address is http://policefamilies.com. -------------------------------- How One Agency Pinpointed Stress When the Baltimore Police Department decided to seek out the sources of stress in the agency, they turned for assistance to public health researchers at nearby Johns Hopkins University. With the Fraternal Order of Police as the third partner, the Department created Project SHIELDS to take on this task as well as to develop response strategies. The sources of stress were identified by means of a survey, conducted by the researchers, among line officers and spouses/life partners. Some of the results were surprising. For example, fully two-thirds of the officers said they considered media reports of alleged police wrongdoing to be stressful to them. The same proportion said that what they view as lack of administrative support for officers in trouble was a major source of stress. Almost one-fourth reported low energy or chronic back pain, which they believed was related to job stress. After the Hopkins researchers complete their analysis of the survey data, they and the project's advisory board (officers and family members) will help the Department develop a response. Total quality management (TQM) teams will be established to focus on selected issues drawn from the research findings. Consisting of officers from all ranks, the TQM teams will develop strategies to address aspects of organizational stress identified in the survey as particularly problematic.* * Unpublished progress report of "Law Enforcement Work Stress and Family Support (Project SHIELDS)," Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, submitted to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, by Robyn Gershon, Principal Investigator, March 31, 1999. -------------------------------- A Little Help From Your Friends--Peer Support in New York City Sometimes it takes a tragedy or critical incident to prompt a law enforcement agency or related organization to develop or expand a stress reduction program for police officers. That was the case in New York City, where 26 police officers committed suicide in the 2-year period from 1994 through 1995. The unusually high number was the result of such factors as perceived pressure from the media and allegations of corruption. The crisis spurred the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, supported by the city council, to establish a peer support program by officers for officers. The Members Assistance Program (MAP) trained 150 officer volunteers to aid fellow officers and an additional 26 to aid their families. The peer support officers staff a 24-hour hotline, serve as a point of first contact and screening for officers who report stress-related difficulties, and encourage individuals who need more intensive help to seek it. MAP also trained 60 mental health practitioners in law enforcement stress, and these practitioners began taking referrals from the peer support officers. Between 1996, the year the program started, and 1998, the hotline received some 1,500 calls, resulting in more than 650 referrals.* * "NYC Patrolmen's Benevolent Association Members Assistance Program: Program for the Reduction of Stress for New York City Police Officers and Their Families," final report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, grant 96-FS-VX-007, December 1998. -------------------------------- For More Information Law Enforcement Officer Stress --Visit the CLEFS page on the NIJ Web site: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/clefs. --Visit http://policefamilies.com, a Web site developed by the Metropolitan Police Department of Nashville and Davidson County with funding from the National Institute of Justice. --See Developing a Law Enforcement Stress Program for Officers and Their Families, by Peter Finn and Julie Esselman Tomz, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, March 1997 (NCJ 163175). Corrections Officer Stress --"Fighting the Enemy Within: Helping Officers Deal With Stress," by Rebecca Childress, Vincent Talucci, and Jenifer Wood, Corrections Today, December 1999: 70. --Addressing Correctional Officer Stress: Programs and Strategies, by Peter Finn, in process, forthcoming in 2000 from the National Institute of Justice. -------------------------------- Acknowledgments Peter Finn, coauthor of the report on which this summary is based, contributed to the preparation of this article. Mr. Finn is an Associate with Abt Associates Inc., a public-policy and business research and consulting firm headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also serves as a special police officer with the Belmont, Massachusetts, Police Department. Vincent Talucci, manager of the CLEFS portfolio of grants at NIJ, and Jenifer Wood, a former manager of CLEFS grants, also contributed. -------------------------------- Conduct Your Own Community Surveys: New Desktop Software from BJS and COPS Collect data on: Criminal victimization. Attitudes toward policing. Other issues of concern in your community. The software uses the questions asked of thousands of households by the National Crime Victimization Survey. Users can modify the questions to suit their individual needs. The survey can produce information similar to that published in the BJS report, "Criminal Victimization and Perceptions of Community Safety in 12 Cities, 1998" (NCJ 173940). The software requires a PC with at least a 486 processor, 16 MB RAM, a VGA video adapter, Windows95/98/NT 4.0, and 50 MB free disk space. The software is available: --Free via the Internet at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cvs.htm. (Contact askcvs@ncjrs.org for the user ID and password.) --On CD-ROM for $12 for shipping and handling. Order from the BJS Clearinghouse, P.O. Box 179, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701, 1-800-732- 3277. Both the online and CD-ROM versions include the user's manual and Conducting Community Surveys: A Practical Guide for Law Enforcement Agencies, a brief overview of the issues related to conducting local surveys. For additional information, contact the BJS Clearinghouse: --e-mail: askcvs@ncjrs.org --phone: 1-800-732-3277 -------------------------------- COMMUNITY ORIENTED LAWYERING: AN EMERGING APPROACH TO LEGAL PRACTICE By Roger Conner Community Law Center Lawyers for Baltimore Neighborhoods NCJ 180080 In the 1980's, a number of police departments began to experiment with a new approach that shifted away from the traditional reactive response and toward proactive problem solving in partnership with the community. In the 1990's, a strikingly similar development has appeared among lawyers whose work affects public safety. Innovative practitioners have begun to move from an exclusive focus on case processing toward addressing problems in concert with neighborhood residents. There are now enough of these attorneys, and their work is so distinctive, that it appears a new form of legal practice is emerging: community oriented lawyering. Thus far, however, there has been little public or scholarly awareness of their work and the breadth of the changes under way. The Trinidad Story Wilhelmina Lawson, a neighborhood activist in Washington, D.C.'s Trinidad neighborhood, has been at ground zero in one of the new lawyering experiments. She is convinced that lawyers hold a key to restoring hope and health to troubled neighborhoods. The War for the Neighborhood To those who have traced the course of the crack crisis, Ms. Lawson is a familiar figure: An African-American grandmother with the courage of a warrior and the moral authority of a priest, battling drug dealers with a broom and a telephone. For years she and her allies fought against open-air drug markets, sweeping up beer cans and drug debris by night and deluging public officials with phone calls and letters by day. As she tells it, these efforts were going nowhere until prosecutors began to see their work through the eyes of Trinidad residents. Building on lessons learned from experiments in Portland, Oregon, New York City,[1] Kansas City, Missouri, and other places,[2] U.S. Attorney Eric Holder[3] created a "community prosecution" pilot project in 1996. He assigned a team of prosecutors responsible for developing crime-fighting strategies in partnership with the neighborhood and the police, in addition to screening and prosecuting cases from the police district that included Trinidad.[4] Police reorganization--along the neighborhood lines based on the Compstat model[5]--came shortly thereafter. Enter Reinforcements Veteran homicide prosecutor Stephanie Miller, reassigned to work in Holder's community prosecution unit, recalls her response to early meetings with Trinidad residents. "They couldn't see much effect from what we were doing. At first I thought they didn't understand. My office downtown was filled with lawyers working incredibly long hours to get dangerous criminals off the street. But I came to realize there was a disconnect between the problems that made neighborhoods unsafe and the decisions we were making as prosecutors." Community lawyering transformed the day-to-day work of line attorneys. Individual prosecutors began to discover how various actors, groups of actors, and places in the neighborhood were linked to crime. For example, while interviewing a witness to a crime, one of Miller's colleagues discovered that the leader of a violent gang, who had eluded police for years, had lured several 12- and 13-year-old girls into sexual liaisons. Soon the gang leader found himself in prison for unlawful sexual relations with a minor. Violence in Trinidad plummeted. New Weapons and Tactics Prosecutors also began to evaluate cases differently. Their charging decisions began to be influenced by the potential to solve neighborhood problems in addition to the potential years of incarceration. On learning that a chronic inebriate was intimidating two entire city blocks, the community prosecutor went to work and unearthed a pending charge on the verge of dismissal and an outstanding probation violation. Faced with the prospect of time behind bars, the defendant agreed to enter treatment. For the affected blocks, the results were immediate and noticeable. Working with city agencies, prosecutors became advocates on neighborhood problems that lay beyond their jurisdiction, such as trash-filled lots, nuisance properties, and a park without lighting or play equipment. Trinidad's next big break, according to Lawson, came when one of the city's largest law firms "adopted" the neighborhood's civic group. In just 2 years, the firm, Shaw Pittman, helped Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform close 17 crack houses, prevent the licensing of a night club, negotiate a lease for a new neighborhood center, obtain nonprofit status, and persuade the parks department to pick up trash and repair lights in the local park. "Now, people listen to us because we can make things happen," Lawson said. "And I thank these attorneys from Shaw Pittman and the prosecutors' office for that." Crime has declined markedly in and around Trinidad.[6] Murders fell from 12 in 1995 to 3 in 1999. Captain Ross Swope, the local Patrol Sector Commander, thinks he knows why: "There is a level of commitment and cooperation that was never there in the past" among police, prosecutors, and the community, he said. "Without community prosecution these relationships rarely develop." Researcher Barbara Boland, who has studied community prosecution in several cities, including Washington, D.C., agrees. She notes that the partners worked together so closely that it is impossible to separate the lawyers' contribution to this outcome--lower crime--from that of the police officers and the community. Integrating Old and New Community oriented lawyering is distinctive in integrating a new approach with the conventional advocate's role. (For a summary, see "Traditional Practice and Community Lawyering Compared.") The basic unit of work is different. Community oriented lawyers think in terms of the problems of particular people and places, not just crimes and cases. They think beyond the individual drug sale to the drug market itself; be-yond the civil action for termination of parental rights to the woman who seems trapped in a cycle of abusive relationships. The definition of success has changed. Previously, success was a simple concept: Win the case, secure the benefit, resolve the complaint in a way favorable to the client. For community oriented lawyers the bottom line is solving problems, increasing neighborhood safety, preventing crime, improving the quality of life, and fostering economic development. The relationship to the community is different. In the new paradigm, the community helps define what is important, what constitutes success. The new breed of lawyers are, however, not so much controlled by the community as oriented to it, listening actively to victims, service providers, criminal justice researchers, offenders (and skeptics). And they see the community as a potential partner in solutions, not merely a passive complainant. Collaboration with other groups is frequent and intense. In more conventional practice, lawyers work alone or in small groups (of lawyers). Once they shift to solving problems and generating outcomes, they discover that success depends on educating, persuading, cajoling, meeting, sharing information, and even sharing power with other agencies and organizations, public and private. The tool kit is larger. The new breed of lawyers treats conventional case processing as a tool, not an end in itself. They use civil remedies, invent new forms of action, create new organizations (community courts, for example), mobilize neighborhood residents, educate victims, use nonadversarial remedies; in other words, whatever it takes. They are much more likely than their peers to rely on negotiated, voluntary compliance. The key question is different. The lawyer in conventional practice asks, "What happened?" Community oriented lawyers ask, "What's happening?" In other words, the angle of vision is profoundly different: One is trying to assign responsibility for what has happened, the other to reshape what will happen. Why Now? Perhaps the most important single factor setting community lawyering in motion is a growing sense of futility among lawyers who could not help noticing the enthusiasm generated by community policing. The lawyers involved note the convergence of several other forces as well: The crack crisis and the ensuing, more rigorous drug enforcement produced crushing case loads, convincing prosecutors, judges, and defenders to change their strategy. Increased understanding of the need for intervention to break the cycle of crimes rooted in addiction, childhood sexual abuse, and untreated mental illness also played a part. Important constituencies were pressing for change as well. The continued hemorrhaging of human and financial resources from our older cities generated political and even monetary support. The growing demand from low-income neighborhoods for public safety and economic renewal forced public- and private-practice lawyers to shift priorities. The widespread movement to reinvent government has had its effect as well, as have timely investments of Federal funds for such locally based initiatives as the Office of Justice Programs' Weed and Seed program and the Bureau of Justice Assistance's Comprehensive Communities Program and Community Prosecution Program. Who Are the Practitioners? The new approach is not confined to prosecutors and pro bono attorneys. The settings are remarkably diverse, but what all these lawyers have in common is a conscious effort to generate outcomes the community values, in ways consistent with their roles and professional ethics. Prosecutors.[7] Developments in two cities exemplify the work of the community prosecutor. In Portland, Oregon, "neighborhood district attorneys" work on quality-of-life problems in the neighborhoods where they are assigned. The problems have ranged from a sudden rash of car thefts near the downtown to chronic drug markets to street prostitution. For each, they have come up with innovative solutions. The drug markets, for example, were handled through stay-away orders issued to all dealers when they were arraigned. In Boston, attorneys working for the district attorney, the U.S. Attorney, and the State's attorney general all contributed to the city's dramatic reduction in homicide. They did so by changing their charging practices to support police and probation officers' warning to probationers, parolees, and released felons that infractions would mean certain prosecution and a high probability of a prison sentence if they persisted.[8] City/County Attorneys. Seattle city attorney Mark Sidran believes municipal lawyers are well positioned to be advocates for solutions where police need cooperation from city agencies or when the law does not equip police with the tools they need. For example, Seattle police found that issuing criminal citations to people who violate alcohol and noise restrictions in parks was not effective, since arrest warrants would not be issued until months later. Sidran came up with a solution that worked: Drafting an ordinance allowing officers to issue civil orders banning rule violators from all nearby parks for up to 7 days. Police Legal Advisors. Most larger police departments have staff attorneys whose time is spent on such matters as union issues and abuse of force lawsuits. But in a handful of departments, they are being assigned to help officers with problem solving. In New York City, the police department now boasts more than 50 precinct-level lawyers who develop civil remedies to tackle problems ranging from noisy establishments to car theft rings to consumer fraud. The Charlotte and San Diego police departments have added lawyers to fashion civil remedies when properties such as liquor stores, nightclubs, and multifamily dwellings are not well managed. Lawyers in Other City Agencies. In other municipal agencies there are lawyers who can choose to address neighborhood problems strategically. In Baltimore, civil and criminal housing code enforcement is the province of lawyers in the city's Housing Department who are cross-designated as city solicitors and State's attorneys. Staff Director Denise Duval has reorganized her staff along geographic lines, requiring that they get to know neighborhood leaders face-to-face. With more than 10,000 outstanding code violations, she has developed a simple priority system: The office's every action must be part of an overall strategy for neighborhood improvement that has the support of both residents and relevant city agencies. Public-Interest Law Groups. In Baltimore, a new kind of public interest law firm has emerged that represents neighborhood organizations rather than individual residents of low-income areas. The Community Law Center has used civil actions to close down hundreds of heroin shooting galleries and board up vacant houses, helped numerous neighborhood groups to incorporate and to develop comprehensive crime control strategies, and developed such new legal tools as nuisance abatement and receivership.[9] Legal Services. Legal aid lawyers frequently are faulted for protecting drug dealers, but in North Carolina, Piedmont Legal Services has taken a new route. They represent community groups that bring civil suits demanding responsible behavior from owners of properties that harbor drug dealing and spawn violence. One defendant was a community development corporation that had allowed its shopping center to fall into disrepair. Pro Bono Lawyers. Lawyers are expected to volunteer a certain number of hours of service, and most of this pro bono work involves representing individual indigent clients. But some law firms in Washington, D.C., are taking entire neighborhoods as clients. The Shaw Pittman firm, noted earlier for its work in the Trinidad neighborhood, is an example. The District of Columbia Bar Association's Community Economic Development Project recruits lawyers to represent community development corporations and small, nonprofit developers. Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, New York City's oldest law firm, wrote a 500-page manual on civil remedies for attacking open-air drug markets. Davis, Polk and Wardwell, another major New York law firm, represented public housing resident associations in their struggle to tighten rules for evicting drug dealers. Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering has represented neighborhood groups throughout the country in upholding ordinances on crime and quality-of-life issues. The Los Angeles office of Latham and Watkins conducted the research for a precedent-setting civil suit to control gangs. Law School Clinics. Here too, lawyers are finding ways to advance the interests of the community as well as those of individual clients. Harvard Law School's Community Enterprise Project helps small businesses as well as nonprofits to restore the economic health of low-income neighborhoods. At the University of Maryland, the Law School's Housing and Development Clinic represents community organizations in Baltimore's empowerment zone. Twenty percent of law schools have clinical programs that promote neighborhood economic development.[10] The Community Legal Resource Network, a consortium of four law schools, is developing models for private, fee-paid attorneys to help meet community needs. Defense Lawyers. A growing group of public defenders is beginning to view their job differently.[11] Jim Hennings, director of the Metropolitan Defender Service in Portland, Oregon, explains why: "The same people kept cycling through my office, and the only change was the sentences got longer. My goal now is for the client to be better off after he leaves than when he came in, independent of the disposition of the criminal case." In recent years he has chosen to spend precious budget dollars on addiction and education specialists rather than lawyers, and an evaluation of the client's assets and social service needs begins with the first interview. The public defender's office in Nashville, Tennessee, operates its own drug treatment program in jail and has a case manager to assist mentally ill clients after their release. Judges. Generating outcomes the community values might seem at odds with the notion of having an impartial third party. By tradition, judges try to be insulated from community pressure. But in community courts, drug courts, and many family courts, judges maintain contact with offenders and sometimes victims over an extended period, taking on the roles of coach, parent, and mentor as well as impartial jurist. In drug courts, for example, judges measure success by the number of recovered addicts, not by the number of cases processed. Such changes in judges' behavior are not confined to specialty courts. One trial judge in New York routinely delays felony drug distribution cases for nonviolent offenders when she is convinced the defendant is making a commitment to drug rehabilitation. California Chief Justice Ronald M. George concedes that court-community collaboration "is not risk-free." On the other hand, he said, it can give citizens "a sense of ownership...that will help ensure that the independence of the courts is maintained."[12] The Risks Community oriented lawyering is not without its pitfalls. The very attributes that distinguish it--the focus on outcomes, the collaborative approach, the flexibility- -introduce new difficulties. New Outcome Measures Needed The new lawyering plays havoc with standard tools of evaluation. It is easy to count cases won, lost, and processed as a measure of success, but there is no common language to describe what community oriented lawyers do, no taxonomy to classify problems. Research has produced some detailed descriptions of community prosecutors' work, but neither researchers nor practitioners have developed a metric for the increments of progress to be expected from good community oriented lawyering. Practitioners need and want help from researchers to develop tools for answering hard questions about resource allocation: What proportion of the lawyers in an office should spend time on problem solving or strategic thinking in place of, or in addition to, case processing? Should a police department spend its discretionary budget dollars for an additional lawyer, another officer, or new technology? Should the housing agency add more inspectors or more attorneys? If a drug court is half as "efficient" at processing cases, is it worth the expenditure if another judge must be added to handle the case load? Is community oriented lawyering a specialty practice for a few or an approach that should transform entire offices? And so on. Ensuring Equity At what point might a community focus threaten fairness and equal treatment? These lawyers have enormous discretion. Prosecutors decide whom to charge and for what crime. Municipal lawyers select which neighborhood problem will be the priority for their attention. Pro bono lawyers must choose which project will receive their time. When one drug dealer or nuisance property is given special attention instead of another, on the basis of community impact rather than existing guidelines, charges of discrimination may arise. Confronting Skepticism The new approach is not without its critics. Some of them contend the lawyers will not really listen. Others are concerned that communities will have undue influence. And, as with the introduction of community policing, there is substantial initial resistance among lawyers. Often lawyers report that their problem solving is not valued by their offices or their peers, and they are not recognized by the law schools, by their profession, or by their key constituents. Some endure ridicule; others are accused of "selling out." In more than one instance low "stats" have placed a project or office at risk for funding cuts. The Opportunities Evidence collected to date is entirely anecdotal, but it suggests that community oriented lawyering could help address some very serious national problems. Maintaining Legitimacy There is a growing concern among some scholars about a loss of legitimacy for the justice system, felt especially in low-income, minority communities.[13] Evaluation work by Catherine Coles and George Kelling indicates that community oriented prosecution in Boston dramatically enhanced trust in the entire justice system--not just the prosecutors--on the part of residents in minority neighborhoods.[14] It may be that the system appears arbitrary when the choices lawyers make are not oriented to outcomes the community values. Restoring Morale There has been much hand-wringing by lawyers and academics in recent years about lawyers' un-happiness with their work. This is especially pronounced in offices where lawyers feel like cogs in an assembly line. By contrast, the single most common observation of those involved in community oriented lawyering is that they like their job. Salt Lake City prosecutor Cheryl Luke reports that before she adopted a community prosecution approach the typical line attorney left after 18 months. Now she cannot persuade her staff to accept promotions to more conventional lawyering jobs. Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon is not surprised. Lawyers face constant pressure to be "hardball litigators," but, she writes, "many of the most rewarding moments of law practice occur when a lawyer devises a viable solution to a problem that has brought a client to wit's end, or when [lawyers] resolve a conflict --in a way that expands the pie for all concerned."[15] Ultimate Goals? During a focus group session, one participant ventured that the goal of community oriented lawyering is "something like peace for troubled neighborhoods."[16] Wilhelmina Lawson agrees. She longs for the peace of mind that comes from having a safe place to live, worship, work, and play. "The big change in Trinidad," she said, "is that now we have hope that we can get there." -------------------------------- Notes 1. Boland, Barbara, "Community Prosecution: The Portland Experiment," in Community Justice, ed. David Karp, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998; and Boland, Barbara, "The Manhattan Experiment: Community Prosecution," in Crime and Place: Plenary Papers of the 1997 Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation, NIJ Research Forum, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, July 1998:51-67 (NCJ 168618). 2. For experiments in Kansas City and elsewhere, see Coles, Catherine M., and George Kelling, with Mark Moore, "Prosecution in the Community: A Study of Emergent Strategies--A Cross-Site Analysis," final report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, September 1998 (grant 95-IJ-CX-0096). Copies can be obtained either from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service or by e-mailing edward_Gomeau@harvard.edu. 3. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Attorney serves as the city's district attorney. 4. An evaluation of the Washing-ton, D.C., experiment was conducted by Barbara Boland. See her report, "Community Prosecution in Washington, D.C.: The U.S. Attorney's Fifth District Pilot Project," final report submitted to the National Institute of Justice, August 1999 (grant 97-IJ-CX-0058). 5. The Compstat (computer statistics) model of crime control was pioneered in New York City. A special police department unit compiles and analyzes crime statistics by area, tracks crime patterns, and meets regularly with precinct commanders to devise responses tailored to area-specific patterns. 6. Boland, "Community Prosecution in Washington, D.C." 7. Two panels on community prosecution were presented at NIJ's 1999 conference on criminal justice research and evaluation. To obtain a transcript, e-mail RLConner@aol.com or visit http://www.community lawyering.org. 8. See Kennedy, David, "Pulling Levers: Getting Deterrence Right," National Institute of Justice Journal 236 (July 1998): 2-8. Some prosecutors are becoming more community oriented without significant reorganization or additional resources. See Glazer, Elizabeth, "Thinking Strategically: How Federal Prosecutors Can Reduce Violent Crime," Fordham Urban Law Journal 26, 3 (March 1999):573. 9. Blumenberg, Anne, and Brenda Bratton Blom, "A Co-Production Model of Code Enforcement and Nuisance Abatement," in Civil Remedies and Crime Prevention (Crime Prevention Studies, Vol. IX), ed. Lorraine Green Mazzerolle and Jan Roehl, Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press, 1998:261; and Artigiani, Erin, Revitalizing Baltimore's Neighborhoods: The Community Association's Guide to Civil Legal Remedies, Baltimore, MD: Community Law Center, 1996. The guide is available at http://www.communitylaw.org. 10. This finding is from a survey conducted by the author as part of his fellowship project. 11. Taylor-Thompson, Kim, "Effective Assistance: Reconceiving the Role of the Chief Public Defender," Journal of the Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics 2 (1999):199. An example of innovative defense work, the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, is described in Anderson, D.C., Public Defenders in the Neighborhood: A Harlem Law Stresses Teamwork, Early Investigation, Program Focus, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1997 (NCJ 163061). 12. Open letter to court leaders, April 15, 1999, in Dialogues: Courts Reaching Out to Their Communities--A Handbook for Creating and Enhancing Court and Community Collaboration (includes video), by the Judicial Council of California, San Francisco, CA, 1999. 13. See American Bar Association, Justice Initiatives: The Courts, the Bar, and the Public Working to Improve the Justice System, Chicago, 1999; Cole, David, "Race, Policing, and the Future of the Criminal Law," Human Rights (summer 1999); and Moore, Mark H., "The Legitimation of Criminal Justice Policies and Practices," in Perspectives on Crime and Justice: 1996-1997 Lecture Series, Volume I, Research Forum, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1997:47-74 (NCJ 166609). 14. Coles, Catherine M., and George Kelling, "New Approaches to Fighting Crime: Prevention Through Community Prosecution," The Public Interest (summer 1999):69. 15. Glendon, Mary Ann, A Nation Under Lawyers (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994):106. 16. The focus group session was conducted by the author as part of his fellowship project. -------------------------------- About the author Roger Conner, J.D., is a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Justice and former Executive Director of the Center for the Community Interest. This article was adapted from a presentation made before the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) at a symposium sponsored by the NAS Commission on Social Sciences and Education, Committee on Law and Justice, held July 15, 1999. The author invites comments, which can be sent to RLConner@aol.com, or mailed to Roger Conner, National Institute of Justice, 810 7th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20531. Support for this work was provided by NIJ grant 99-IJ-CX-0002. -------------------------------- For More Information The following organizations can be contacted for information about their involvement in community problem solving: Community Prosecution National District Attorneys Association 99 Canal Center Plaza, Suite 510 Alexandria, VA 22314 703-549-9222 http://www.NDAA-APRI.org Courts and Judges Center for Court Innovation 351 W. 54th Street New York, NY 10019 212-373-8099 http://www.courtinnovation.org Judicial Council of California Special Task Force on Court/Community Outreach 455 Golden Gate Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102-3660 http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/community National Association of Drug Court Professionals 901 N. Pitt Street, Suite 370 Alexandria, VA 22314 888-31NADCP http://www.drugcourt.org National Center for State Courts 300 Newport Avenue Williamsburg, VA 23185 757-253-2000 http://www.ncsc.dni.us Defender Programs Project for the Future of Equal Justice Holistic Services Project National Legal Aid and Defender Association 625 K Street, NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20006 http://www.equaljustice.org Nongovernmental Community Oriented Law Projects Community Law Center 2500 Maryland Avenue Baltimore, MD 21218 410-366-0922 http://www.communitylaw.org Community Legal Resource Network CUNY School of Law 65-21 Main Street, Room 009 Flushing, NY 11367 718-340-4451 National Association for Public Interest Law 2120 L Street, NW, Fourth Floor Washington, DC 20037 202-466-3686 http://www.napil.org David Castro Neighborhood Legal Defense Project Center for the Community Interest 115 Petrie Avenue Rosemont, PA 19010 610-581-0143 e-mail: dc@communityinterest.org. Community Lawyering As part of his fellowship project, the author created a Web site to gather resources and encourage communication among specialties. Visit http://www.communitylawyering.org. Publications Center for Court Innovation, Overcoming Obstacles to Community Courts: A Summary of Workshop Proceedings, Bureau of Justice Assistance Monograph, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1998 (NCJ 173400). Judicial Council of California, Dialogues: Courts Reaching Out to Their Communities--A Handbook for Creating and Enhancing Court and Community Collaboration (includes video), San Francisco, CA, 1999. Copies are available by calling 415-865-7654, or by e-mailing jack.urquhart@jud.ca.gov. Sigmon, Jane N., et al., Adjudication Partnerships: A Guide to Successful Cooperation, National Center for State Courts, National Legal Aid and Defender Association, and American Prosecutors Research Institute, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 1997 (NCJ 178405). Spangenberg, R.L., and M.L. Beeman, Improving State and Local Criminal Justice Systems: A Report on How Public Defenders, Prosecutors, and Other Criminal Justice System Practitioners Are Collaborating Across the Country, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, October 1998 (NCJ 173391). -------------------------------- PIECING TOGETHER THE CROSS-NATIONAL CRIME PUZZLE by Jan van Dijk and Kristiina Kangaspunta NCJ 180081 Understanding national crime levels has proven to be a difficult task. In the United States, for example, cities that have experienced dramatic declines in their crime rates in recent years may link those declines to increased enforcement, a decrease in crack markets, and better job opportunities. On the other hand, cities with similar social and economic developments experience no commensurate decline in their crime rates. Uncovering the mystery of why and how crime varies cross-nationally is even more difficult: Why, for example, is serious violent crime more prevalent in certain Central and Eastern European countries and the United States than in the European Union countries and Canada? Understanding the variation in crime rates across countries can help policymakers put crime in their own countries into perspective. To develop a deeper understanding of how crime varies across countries, a team of researchers at HEUNI, the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control affiliated with the United Nations,[1] regularly analyzes criminal justice data collected by the UN from its member states.[2] HEUNI's latest analysis focuses on the differences among European and North American countries and is based on the Fifth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems 1990-1994, as well as on data from the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS). The HEUNI study is the first ever attempt to construct multisource measures of crime that do not suffer from the well known difficulties of measures based on the number of crimes reported to the police in various countries. (See "The Difficulties of Analyzing Crime Data Across Countries.") The study may signify a breakthrough in comparative crime statistics. This article focuses on three of the eight crimes HEUNI researchers studied: Property crime, violence, and corruption in Central and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and North America.[3] Before considering these findings, however, it is important to be aware of the pitfalls related to statistical comparisons of crime in different countries. The Pitfalls of Using International Statistics The dangers of using official reported statistics as a reflection of crime within one's own country are well documented. Reported crime is not the same as actual crime, and statistics are collected for administrative purposes, not to satisfy research interests. The vagaries of changing laws and statistical practice and the idiosyncrasies of defining criminal incidents make it difficult to draw conclusions when comparing statistics from different areas or different times. In addition, the "traditional" offenses (those usually noted in the statistics) may not necessarily have the greatest economic and social consequences for society. International comparisons are even more rife with misunderstandings, as has been repeated throughout discussions about the UN surveys. The major problems with comparing international crime data are differences in laws and in definitions of legal terms, improper statistical classifications, procedural differences among countries, ambiguous coding structures, and differences in the units of count used. HEUNI researchers have attempted to lessen any misinterpretation by using data from different sources to see if they point in the same direction and by measuring different dimensions of the same phenomenon. HEUNI's cross-national analysis is based on more than the official reported crime statistics of countries responding to the Fifth UN Survey. It also is based on results of the ICVS--fully standardized victimization surveys on the general public's experiences with crime, which were carried out in more than 60 countries. Added to these data are data from organizations such as the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Transparency International, an organization that collects data on corruption.[4] The use of different data sources yielded a measure of crime that is more scientifically robust than those previously available. This measure can be used reliably for comparative purposes across countries in Europe and North America. Sociological and Behavioral Factors Related to Crime Crime levels can be interpreted as the convergence of sufficient numbers of motivated offenders, relatively weak mechanisms of social control, and the presence of suitable targets of crime.[5] For this study, the researchers analyzed data related to: (1) motivational factors, including level of affluence, alcohol consumption (both beer and strong alcohol), and a concept referred to as strain, or a person's reaction to a shortfall in the achievement of goals (usually socioeconomic goals); and (2) opportunity factors, including vehicle ownership, handgun ownership, patterns of outdoor recreation, proportion of single-person households, and strength of informal social control. Motivational Factors. According to conventional criminological theories, crime is related to economic and/or social deprivation or inequalities. A key concept is strain, which the HEUNI team defined as the number of people in a country for whom criminal activities might be economically rewarding and for whom the involvement in criminal activities is a viable option. As a measure of strain, the team used the rate of young people (16 to 29 years) who are dissatisfied with their income and/or who are unemployed (per 100,000 inhabitants). Opportunity Factors. According to opportunity theory, the level of crime also is determined by the presence of suitable targets of crime and the extent of informal social control. A well documented example is the relationship between vehicle ownership and vehicle-related crime. Included in HEUNI's recent analyses were known risk factors, such as the frequency of outdoor visits for recreational purposes, number of one-person households, composition of housing (apartment buildings or detached houses), and ownership rates of motor vehicles, motorcycles, and bicycles. In addition to these factors, the researchers studied the prevalence of the possession of handguns as a possible facilitator of violent crime and the prevalence of antiburglary device use. Urbanization and modernization have been linked to high crime rates due to lower levels of social control in urban areas.[6] In previous analyses of ICVS data, the level of victimization by crime was strongly related to the proportion of the population living in a large city. For its study, HEUNI used data on urbanization taken from the UN Compendium on Human Settlement, which reflect the proportion of the national population living in settlements of 20,000 inhabitants or more. The Interplay of Motivational and Opportunity Factors. Crime in societies is determined by the interplay between motivational and opportunity factors. Motivational factors can be seen as determinants of the "demand side" of national crime markets. To the extent that motivational factors are more prevalent in a country, there will be more potential offenders looking for opportunities to offend. Structural characteristics that provide viable opportunities for crime can be seen as the "supply side" of the crime market. Owners of expensive cars and consumer goods are the reluctant "suppliers" of opportunities for crime. In countries where suitable targets of crime are plenty and the level of social control is reduced, there are more potential victims of crime. Affluence can be considered both a motivational and an opportunity factor. It acts as both an important inhibiting factor of certain forms of crime as well as a catalyst of others. In more affluent countries, there is less "demand" for crime-- there are proportionately fewer individuals who are motivated to commit crimes or who are looking for criminal opportunities. Important motivational factors, such as income inequalities, dissatisfaction with income, and unemployment, tend to be lower in more affluent countries. If levels of affluence rise--and if the newly acquired wealth is evenly spread--the pool of motivated offenders in a given society decreases. This trend will contribute to a reduction in the level of crime. At the same time, affluence goes together with the ownership of commodities that can be stolen with relative ease, and also with a more outgoing lifestyle, which increases exposure to criminal victimization by strangers. Higher prosperity will invite higher levels of opportunistic forms of crime. However, there are no straightforward, linear relationships between affluence and crime. The dynamics of crime in the big picture are further complicated by the increased use of sophisticated security measures by potential victims in more affluent, high-crime nations. These measures reduce opportunities for crime and, therefore, inhibit the occurrence of certain types of property crime. Comparing Crime in Three Regions To understand how and why crime varies across countries, researchers examined data from 49 countries in three regions--Central and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and North America. The researchers found that the most important predictor of high crime rates was the percentage of the population who were young males, ages 16 to 29, who were dissatisfied with their income or were unemployed. The results of the HEUNI team's analysis concerning the three regions can be summed up as follows. Crime in Central and Eastern Europe. The motivation to offend appears greater in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which are in transition to a market-based economy, than in Western Europe. In Central and Eastern Europe, there are more male adolescents experiencing strain, and socioeconomic deprivation and alcohol abuse appear to help in the formation of a breeding ground for different forms of violent crime. Assaults, homicides, and robberies appear to be more prevalent in countries where many young males experience the strain of unfulfilled aspirations. Also, alcohol use is endemic in these countries. Corruption also appears to be much more common in Central and Eastern European countries than in North America and Northern Europe. Corruption is related to a lack of transparency and accountability in the public domain, characteristics that are common among the developing countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Corruption in government circles appears to be lower in the countries where economic and political restructuring is relatively advanced--for example, in Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia. In fact, the level of corruption in some of these countries is lower than in some Western countries. These findings are encouraging. If the restructuring in other countries in the region continues, the long-term prospects for decreasing levels of corruption seem fairly good. In the short term, the economic crisis in the Russian Federation and in some other countries in the region may exacerbate existing economic and social problems. In the long term, the overall economic prospects might be better, but this probably will not reduce the prevalence of strain among the lower social strata. Socioeconomic inequality is growing, and the rates of unemployment will probably remain high for many years to come. In most of the countries in transition, people in urban areas typically live in apartments and car ownership is still relatively rare. These factors may have so far inhibited further increases of property crimes. During the past 10 years, affluence has increased in most Central and Eastern European countries, particularly in Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, and the Baltic states. If the gross national product of these countries, which are among the first candidates for entry into the European Union, continues to increase, vehicle-related crimes and some forms of petty crimes are likely to increase. Household burglary rates also are likely to increase if households start to possess more expensive commodities but do not invest in antiburglary devices. Eventually, investments in self protection against car theft and burglary will increase and the rates of property crimes will stabilize. However, if strain among adolescents remains prevalent due to high unemployment, some of the offenders prevented by improved security from committing less serious property crime may be desperate enough to switch to more risky, violent forms of property crime (street robbery, car jacking, and household robbery). The easy availability of firearms in many countries in the region will facilitate this. The crime profile of the countries in transition may start to resemble that of South Africa or the more affluent Latin American countries, where property is relatively well protected but robbery rates are high. To sum up, the level of crime in the countries in transition is relatively high, and the overall criminological outlook is fairly bleak. Even if they overcome their current economic problems, the rates of violent crimes probably will remain high due to high levels of unemployment among young males and the high consumption of strong alcohol. Crime in Western Europe. The crime situation in the more industrialized and affluent nations of Western Europe must be understood in terms of special opportunity structures. Countries such as England and Wales that rely largely on cars for transportation experience high rates of vehicle-related crimes. Countries such as The Netherlands and Sweden, where bicycles are common, experience high rates of bicycle theft. Countries where more people live in homes rather than apartments experience high burglary rates. As protection against car theft, theft from cars, bicycle theft, and household burglaries has increased, the overall level of property crimes has declined. Since the level of self-protection continues to increase, crime rates are likely to continue to fall. Paradoxically, crimes of violence--particularly violent juvenile crime--show an upward trend in several member states of the European Union. Street robberies might be increasing as a result of displacement due to improved protection of property. The emergence of an ethnic underclass in the larger cities of Western Europe also might be contributing to violence because strain among some ethnic parts of the urban population might be rising. The main challenge for Western European countries seems to be the social and economic integration of young immigrants in the urban areas. The outgoing lifestyle of young people and their use of alcohol and drugs might also be a causal factor behind juvenile violent crime. One of Western Europe's main assets is the relatively low level of handgun ownership, which probably is an important factor inhibiting homicides. Relatively low levels of manifest corruption by public officials appear to be typical of affluent nations with stable democratic traditions. This relationship also can be understood in terms of criminal opportunities and motivations. In open democracies with relatively unregulated markets, there are fewer opportunities for public officials to require bribes for their services. In such societies, public officials receive better salaries than those in countries in transition, and the norms against corruption are stronger and more generally shared. Crime in North America. Since 1988, the level of crime in the United States and Canada has declined, according to both ICVS and police data. The level of self-protection against crime is high, and the level of strain appears to be relatively low. Crime in the United States differs less from Canada, the United Kingdom, and The Netherlands than is commonly assumed.[7] Both the United States and Canada have relatively high levels of burglaries and car-related crimes in urban settings, but conventional crime and corruption in the United States are not exceptionally high. The most important difference appears to be the high level of homicides and robberies, which in the United States often involve guns. The most probable cause of this deviation from the European pattern is the exceptionally high rate of gun ownership in the United States. Framing the International Debate on Crime Reduction Despite the cautions needed when working with the available international data, the HEUNI team's analyses indicate that we are beginning to piece together some important parts of the intricate international puzzle of crime. Crime indicators based on a combination of police statistics and survey findings proved to be useful for analyzing the determinants of crime. National crime profiles can be understood as the outcome of the dynamic interplay between motivational and opportunity factors. High levels of crime are found in both poor and rich countries. However, the factors responsible for high crime rates differ across regions. In Central and Eastern Europe, much crime is demand-driven--crimes are committed by young males as a means to survive in dire economic situations. In Western Europe and North America, much crime is supply-driven--the prevalence and shape of crime are related to special opportunity-structures (the availability of targets and levels of social control and self-protection). This conclusion has important implications for criminal justice policy. Policies that have worked in one country or region may be less useful or even counterproductive in countries where crime is determined by another set of factors. In the international debate on best practices in crime reduction, whether in the framework of the United Nations crime program or elsewhere, differentiations in policies ought to be made on the basis of criminologically informed crime profiles. -------------------------------- Notes 1. HEUNI is the European link in the network of institutes operating within the framework of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme. HEUNI, which is based in Helsinki, Finland, was established through an agreement between the United Nations and the government of Finland, signed December 23, 1981. 2. The UN has gathered information on crime and criminal justice from its member states since 1975. The first survey covered the period 1970 through 1975. In these surveys the information on crime is based on national police statistics and reflects the numbers of offenses recorded by the police. HEUNI has carried out the European and North American analysis of the second, third, fourth, and fifth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operation of Criminal Justice Systems. 3. For its most recent analysis, HEUNI used crime data on 40 Western, Central, and Eastern European countries as well as on Canada and the United States. Researchers studied eight different types of crime: nonfatal violence (assaults and robberies), homicides, serious violence (a combination of nonfatal violence and homicides), burglary, violence against women (sexual violence and assaults), vehicle crimes (theft of and from cars), corruption, and petty crimes (bicycle theft, motorcycle theft, noncontact personal theft, car vandalism, nonviolent sexual incidents, and threats). 4. Previous UN surveys relied almost exclusively on UN survey data. The analyses of the Fifth Survey differ considerably from previous ones because additional sources of comparative data were used. The HEUNI research team relied on a database called the Crime Guide, which consists of data from various sources, including the Fifth UN Survey, the International Crime Victim Survey, health and mortality statistics collected by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and data on corruption from Transparency International and the International Institute for Management Development, which collects information on improper practices in the public sector and in the workplace. The Crime Guide database draws data from studies of firearm ownership, alcohol consumption, substance abuse, gender equality, urbanization, and employment and compensation. 5. Cohen and Felson, "Social Change and Crime Rate Trends: A Routine Activity Approach," American Sociological Review, 44(1979): 588-608; van Dijk, J.J.M., "Opportunities for Crime: A Test of the Rational-Interactionist Model," report at the Eleventh Criminological Colloquium of the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, November 28-30, 1994. 6. Shelley, Louise, Crime and Modernisation: The Impact of Industrialisation and Urbanisation on Crime, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981. 7. Editor's Note: Other research based on victim surveys and police statistics has concluded that crime rates are much higher in England than in the United States. (See Langan, Patrick A., and Farrington, David P., Crime and Justice in the United States and in England and Wales, 1981-96, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1998, NCJ 169284.) These seemingly contradictory findings provide at least suggestive reinforcement for the authors' argument for the use of multiple sources of data when making cross-country comparisons. -------------------------------- About the authors Jan van Dijk, a former professor of criminology at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, is currently the officer in charge of the United Nations Centre for International Crime Prevention (UNCICP) in Vienna. Kristiina Kangaspunta, formerly Programme Officer at HEUNI, is currently a senior officer at UNCICP. -------------------------------- The Difficulties of Analyzing Crime Data Across Countries Researchers face some well known and frequently rehearsed difficulties when analyzing the data on reported crime for different countries, cultures, or jurisdictions. Cross-national comparisons present their own problems. --One such problem is varying definitions. Different legal codes define crimes in different ways, so that the set of acts that constitute a given crime type in one country may not be identical to the set of acts to which the same label is applied in another. --Recording practices are another problem. Different police forces, in particular, have different rules for when an event should be recorded as a crime and when it should not. For example, in some countries the police are said to be very careful about recording every theft of a bicycle, whereas in other countries, the police may not record every bicycle theft because the department has a higher workload of more serious crimes, has fewer resources, and may be less organized. --A third difficulty is that of operating practices. In some countries, the main decisions regarding a case are made at the prosecution stage, so that many cases, especially trivial ones, do not appear in the records of those countries until that stage. Countries also vary with respect to common law and codified, civil law; therefore, comparisons between the raw numbers of different systems can be risky unless the person making the comparison is familiar with the details of the operations of the system and their implications for statistical recording. --There also are large factual inequalities among countries as to their population size, population makeup (for example, percent urban and rural, and percent older than 60 and younger than 25), and the size of the crime problem. Even in comparisons that take these differences into account, hidden factors will affect the outcome. --Finally, there are a set of problems specifically associated with recorded crime. The numbers provided by governments are regarded as indicators of the input into, and therefore the workload of, the criminal justice system. They are not regarded as accurate statements as to the actual prevalence and incidence of a given crime type in a given jurisdiction, although they may be that. Further information would be needed to validate the figures. It is general criminological wisdom that the less serious the crime type, the more questionable the officially recorded figures. It also is widely accepted that victim surveys provide more valid data in regard to the incidence of most types of crime. All of these issues are good reasons to construct measures of crime that are based on multiple sources of data. Source: Burnham, R.W., "A First Analysis of the United N