Title: NIJ Journal, July 2000 Series: Journal Author: National Institute of Justice Published: National Institute of Justice Subject: Criminal justice system 51 pages 114,000 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 July 2000 NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE Journal Making Guns Safer by Lauren R. Taylor Transnational Crime Challenge by James O. Finckenauer Police Discretion and Mentally Ill Persons by Linda A. Teplin Prison-Based Drug Treatment and At-A-Glance o Police Management and Citizen Perceptions o Victim Services for Women o Performance Measures and Police o Young Female Offenders o Drug Testing and Young Offenders --------------------------- NIJ Building Knowledge to Meet the Challenge of Crime and Justice National Institute of Justice Julie E. Samuels Acting 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. Subscription information e-mail askncjrs@ncjrs.org In the subject line, put "NIJ Journal Subscription" phone 301-519-5500 800-851-3420 mail NCJRS P.O. Box 6000 Rockville, MD 20849-6000 World Wide Web address http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals Contact NIJ National Institute of Justice 810 7th Street, NW., Washington, D.C. 20531, U.S.A. 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 Christy A. Visher Science Advisor to the Director Edwin Zedlewski Acting Deputy Director for the Office of Development and Communications Patrick M. Clark Cheryl A. Crawford A. Trent DePersia James O. Finckenauer Sharla P. Rausch Gerald P. Soucy Editor Jolene Hernon Production by: Palladian Partners, Inc. Amy Benavides, Managing Editor Catharine Rankin, Assistant Editor --------------------------- Director's Message The common threads running through this quarter's NIJ Journal are the new challenges facing criminal justice professionals--in the form of new kinds of crime--and the new ways we are responding to traditional challenges. Jim Finckenauer's article on transnational crime walks us through the problems created by a global economy, increased immigration, and improved technology. He points out that these factors do not cause crime, but they do facilitate it. Faster international travel and almost instantaneous business transactions, for example, enhance a criminal's ability to commit crimes that transcend geographic borders. Another new issue facing law enforcement today comes from the scores of mentally ill persons who live on the streets in many urban centers. Linda Teplin discusses the discretion police officers have when they respond to a mentally ill person who is causing a disturbance. The criminal justice system has become a last resort for mentally ill persons who for one reason or another cannot be properly cared for by the mental health system. Lauren Taylor's article focuses on a new response to an old challenge. She describes the state of "smart" guns and the NIJ-funded technology that may eventually lead to safer guns for criminal justice professionals. Sixteen percent of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty are shot with a service weapon. NIJ's challenge is to find a weapon that is both reliable and "smart" enough to prevent unauthorized persons from using it. Another new response to a familiar challenge is taking place in State and local corrections facilities across the country. The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program is designed to reduce recidivism by providing treatment services to drug-abusing inmates. Findings about the program's effects on inmate behavior are still coming in, but preliminary data indicate that the program has helped States to increase substance abuse treatment in correctional facilities and also helped them to develop better screening and assessment tools to identify inmates who can be helped by treatment. During my tenure as acting director, NIJ will continue to invest in research that will increase our understanding of the new challenges and develop solutions to address them so that our communities are safe. Julie E. Samuels Acting Director --------------------------- Contents features o Meeting the Challenge of Transnational Crime -- James O. Finckenauer o Keeping the Peace: Police Discretion and Mentally Ill Persons -- Linda A. Teplin o Getting Smarter: Making Guns Safer for Law Enforcement and Consumers -- Lauren R. Taylor o Reducing Offender Drug Use Through Prison-Based Treatment at-a-glance o Recent Research Findings -- Police Management and Citizen Perceptions -- Victim Services for Women -- Performance Measures and Police -- Young Female Offenders -- Drug Testing and Young Offenders departments o New & Noteworthy o Events Keeping the Peace: When law enforcement officers must arrest a mentally ill person, they usually face significant hurdles to admitting the person into mental health facilities. As a result, officers have developed both formal and informal options for dealing with this situation. See "Keeping the Peace: Police Discretion and Mentally Ill Persons," page 8. Photo source: PhotoDisc Meeting the Challenge of Transnational Crime: National borders no longer act as barriers to criminals, partly due to the ease of international travel, advances in communication, and increased electronic business transactions. The United States is often an opportune target for international crime. See "Meeting the Challenge of Transnational Crime," page 2. Photo source: PhotoDisc --------------------------- Meeting the Challenge of Transnational Crime by James O. Finckenauer about the author James O. Finckenauer is the Director of NIJ's International Center. His two most recent books are "Scared Straight: The Panacea Phenomenon Revisited" (1999) and "Russian Mafia in America" (1998). He is on leave from his position as Professor of Criminal Justice at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Just as many aspects of our lives have become part of a global village-- transportation, communications, economic affairs--so, too, has crime taken on a global dimension. The same political and economic changes and technological advances that support easy international travel, communication, and business transactions also facilitate a criminal's ability to commit crimes that transcend borders. And because the United States is the world's richest country, it represents the most opportune target for transnational crime, which is defined by the United Nations as "offenses whose inception, prevention, and/or direct or indirect effects involve more than one country."[1] For most of its history, NIJ could serve its primary constituents--State and local policymakers and practitioners--quite well by focusing on research and development within the borders of the United States. But criminal justice officials today are increasingly being asked to deal with offenses and offenders whose origins and connections lie outside the country. Drugs and drug offenders are the most obvious of these, but by no means the only ones. Transnational crimes include trafficked prostitutes from Southeast Asia or the former Soviet Union; migrant workers being exploited in sweatshops or farm fields; an array of credit card and banking frauds; automobiles stolen for shipment overseas; guns smuggled in an effort to evade regulation; and children trafficked through Canada and Mexico for use by child pornography rings. And the list could go on. The escalating threat associated with the new forms of crime was highlighted by a crime bill called the International Crime Control Act (ICCA) of 1998, which was introduced exactly 30 years after the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 created NIJ. This bill did not become law, but its goals are suggestive of problem areas needing attention on the international stage: denying safe haven to international fugitives, streamlining the investigation and prosecution of international crime in U.S. courts, promoting global cooperation among law enforcement, and responding to emerging international crime problems. Factors That Make Transnational Crime Possible In a recent report of a workshop commissioned by NIJ, the National Research Council said that transnational crime was being affected by three related factors: o Globalization of the economy. o Increased numbers and heterogeneity of immigrants. o Improved communications technology.[2] These factors do not "cause" transnational crime. Rather, they facilitate crime, or in some cases, they are criminal opportunities in themselves. For example, immigration does not cause crime. The desire to immigrate, however, may cause people to violate immigration quotas and regulations and may lead to illegal immigration, which in turn is exploited by criminals. Most of the causes of transnational crime are not new; they are, in fact, quite similar to factors that drive crime in general: disparate socioeconomic conditions, which stimulate migration and its antecedent trafficking in persons; the desire for illegal goods and services, which moves crime into the transnational realm when the suppliers are in one country and the consumers are in another; and the universal greed for money and power. The Unique Challenges of Transnational Crime The challenges in preventing and controlling transnational crime stem from several sources. For example, some crimes arise out of particular cultural or societal conditions and experiences that differ from one country to another. Behavior that is acceptable in one country may be illegal in another. Crimes that arise out of electronic communications, such as money laundering, are not bound by national borders. The whole panoply of so-called cybercrimes are almost by definition transnational crimes, since cyberspace is not constrained within these borders. The traditional desire to hide crime and elude law enforcement is met more fully by the increasing ease of global travel and communication. The challenges in dealing with transnational crime arise from the national orientations of laws and law enforcement. Every country has its own laws and law enforcement system to deal with crime. But what about crime and criminals that cross national borders? Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark M. Richard has noted that "the international community is not well positioned to respond to such issues [as foreign nationals committing a crime in the United States and escaping to their home country], [because] extradition and other procedures are archaic, based upon 19th century standards, and of limited use today."[3] Ignoring the transnationalization of crime would be akin to adopting a "head in the sand" strategy. American police, prosecutors, judges, and corrections officials, as well as regulatory agencies--the customers for cutting edge research knowledge to help them understand and combat crime--would be shortchanged by such an outdated strategy. Both criminal justice practitioners and researchers would be forced to do their jobs with only partial and very limited information. It was the recognition of this changing reality and of the ensuing need that led NIJ to create a new International Center in 1997. NIJ's International Center's Challenge The International Center's mission is to stimulate and facilitate research and evaluation on transnational and comparative crime and justice issues and to disseminate the knowledge gained throughout the national and international criminal justice communities. Stimulate and Facilitate Research and Evaluation. To accomplish this aspect of its mission, the International Center motivates researchers (principally from the academic community, but not exclusively so) to study transnational crime and justice issues and to conduct comparative research (i.e, parallel studies conducted in more than one country about a topic that does not necessarily have transnational aspects). Comparative international research brings unique challenges (see "Challenges Inherent in Comparative International Research"), and the International Center has adopted an educational role in working with researchers whose approaches and methodologies may be foreign to each other. In 1997, NIJ announced the International Challenge Grants to encourage American researchers to seek counterparts in other countries to conduct joint comparative studies. Of the first three projects funded under this program, two are transnational studies and one is comparative. The two transnational studies are examining human trafficking from China to the United States and trafficking of children through Canada and Mexico to the United States. The comparative study is examining juvenile justice processing in Denver, Colorado, and Bremen, Germany. Both comparative and transnational studies can make unique contributions to our understanding of crime and justice issues, and study findings will have implications for criminal justice policy. An example of how the International Center can stimulate evaluation comes from a request NIJ received from the U.S. Department of State. The United States funds several prison-based drug treatment programs in the Philippines and Thailand. Both countries are experimenting with therapeutic communities as their predominant drug treatment modality and as part of the U.S. drug demand reduction strategy. The State Department asked NIJ to visit the sites, assess the programs, and determine if their circumstances would permit a rigorous evaluation of the programs' effectiveness. After the International Center submitted its report, the State Department contacted American, Philippine, and Thai researchers who might conduct the evaluations. The Center's International Visiting Fellowships are an example of how NIJ can facilitate research on transnational and comparative crime and justice issues. Three International Fellows have studied (1) transnational organized crime emanating from the former Soviet Union; (2) the organization of black markets, corruption, and crime in selected countries of the Newly Independent States (from Eastern Europe and the former USSR); and (3) restoration of civilian policing in countries that have undergone peacekeeping operations, such as Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo. See "Special Initiatives," page 6, for activities that are making a significant contribution to our understanding of transnational crime. Disseminate Knowledge. The International Center serves as an export-import bank of information through the exchange of ideas and knowledge among law enforcement agencies, academic institutions, and others in the criminal justice community, both here and abroad. The means for this dissemination include reports, articles, books, and other materials in both paper and electronic formats. Helping to link the International Center to the rest of the globe is the World Justice Information Network (WJIN) and the Internet Studio, operated by the Rule of Law Foundation under a cooperative agreement with NIJ.[4] WJIN is an Internet-based community of some 6,000 criminal justice scholars and practitioners from more than 100 countries who share information through a global virtual library and an online forum. Through links with WJIN and the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, the International Center provides a portal to the world's largest database of criminal justice literature for both a domestic and an international audience. Dissemination also takes place through conferences, meetings, and workshops of various kinds. For example, in 1998 the International Center coordinated or participated in nearly 40 meetings for international visitors to the Office of Justice Programs and NIJ. These meetings involved 117 visitors from 34 countries who learned about research being conducted in the United States and about how to initiate and maintain an exchange of information with NIJ. In cooperation with Howard University's South Africa studies program, the Center cohosted a workshop on treatment, training, and health care in South African prisons and jails for South Africa's Minister of Correctional Services. In the years leading up to the creation of NIJ over 30 years ago, crime in America was very much a domestic issue fueled by crime in the streets, urban riots, disregard for law and order, and poor police-community relations. Concerns about international crime were virtually non-existent. With the exception of a few issues, such as drug smuggling, transnational crime was not considered a major problem at that time. Today, more than three decades later, the crime situation in the United States is vastly different. Crimes that originate in one country and occur in another and criminals who migrate across national borders have become almost commonplace. As this phenomenon changes the face of American crime, NIJ's International Center will continue to advance awareness of these types of crime and knowledge of how to respond to them. NCJ 183454 Notes 1. "Results of the supplement to the Fourth United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, on Transnational Crime (Interim report by the Secretariat)," United Nations, April 4, 1995. 2. Peter Reuter and Carol Petrie, eds., Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Transnational Organized Crime: Summary of a Workshop, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999. 3. Statement from a focus group conducted by NIJ's International Center, March 19, 1999. 4. The Rule of Law Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., has a successful history of implementing international projects related to the design and development of Internet-based information systems for criminal justice. --------------------------- Challenges Inherent in Comparative International Research Grantees working on transnational or comparative research issues with international partners have experienced a number of challenges common to this type of research. Their experiences indicate that all parties must exercise creativity and willingness to be innovative and open with one another. The solution worked out in one country may not work for another research team in another country--for example, what works for an American-Ukrainian team may not work for an American-Chilean team. Typical challenges include: o Language barriers. o Cultural differences. Issues about confidentiality and revealing the names of human subjects vary considerably from one country to another. o Empirical standards. The rational-empirical standard in American social sciences often contrasts starkly with research approaches in other countries. For example, American researchers appreciate the value of the peer-review process, but this is not so everywhere. o Methodological approaches. Comparative international researchers must develop an understanding of the various methodologies adopted by their counterparts and tolerate divergent methodologies. Parochialism and egocentrism will impair a project. --------------------------- Special Initiatives Among the numerous initiatives that the International Center has undertaken during the past year are two that deserve special mention. Affiliation With the United Nations NIJ is a member of the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Program Network, along with approximately a dozen regional and interregional institutes from around the world. The Center serves as NIJ's principal liaison with these institutes and the UN Center for International Crime Prevention in Vienna, Austria. Center staff have played a major role in assisting the UN as it mounts studies of transnational organized crime, corruption, and human trafficking. The Center is directly engaged in researching transnational organized crime groups operating in the United States as part of the UN's global study and has been assisting in the development of the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime. The Center also organized a workshop on women as victims and survivors for the United Nations Congress held in Vienna, Austria, in April 2000. This workshop outlined a host of issues that need to be addressed by the global community and presented examples of effective programs operating around the world. Partnership With Ukraine Perhaps the most challenging, but in many ways most exciting, activity during the past 2 years has been developing the United States-Ukraine Research Partnership, which operates within the framework of a joint United States-Ukraine commission called the Gore-Kuchma Binational Commission. Funded with $1.1 million from the State Department, this project supports American and Ukrainian researchers who are collaborating on joint studies of organized crime, drug trafficking, and human trafficking in Ukraine. The project is also assessing law enforcement training delivered to Ukrainians by Americans and is building Internet connectivity among American and Ukrainian researchers and practitioners. Results of the research partnership are expected toward the end of next year. NIJ's involvement in Ukrainian criminal justice issues illustrates a key raison d'etre for the International Center. Some might ask: Of what interest or value is Ukrainian criminal justice research to American criminal justice, and ultimately to American taxpayers? The answer is multifaceted. First, Ukraine is the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, it supports American interests in the former Soviet Union, and it is a repository of significant nuclear capability. Ukraine shares, with Colombia and Nigeria, the highest priority status of the State Department. The United States, thus, has an interest in helping Ukraine reduce crime and improve law enforcement as part of the effort to achieve political, economic, and social stability. Second, the United States has invested heavily in law enforcement training in Ukraine. American policymakers and law enforcement participants need to know how effective the training has been. Finally, and most practically, it is in America's best interests to assist Ukraine in solving its crime problems--whether they be in trafficking women, children, drugs, arms, or nuclear materials, or in some type of organized crime--before they spill over the borders into Europe and the United States. By doing so, NIJ helps to achieve the crime control and safe streets goals set for it 30 years ago. --------------------------- For More Information o Visit NIJ's International Center at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/international. o Visit the World Justice Information Network, a part of NIJ's effort to create links around the globe, at http://www.justinfo.net. o Contact the International Center at 810 Seventh Street NW., Washington, DC 20531, e-mail: intlcntr@ojp.usdoj.gov. --------------------------- Keeping the Peace: Police Discretion and Mentally Ill Persons By Linda A. Teplin about the author Linda A. Teplin is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Psycho-Legal Studies Program at Northwestern University Medical School. In addition to her work on the criminalization of mentally ill persons, she has conducted research on the epidemiologic characteristics of adult jail detainees, delinquent youth, and the correlates of violence. Her current work involves the first large-scale, longitudinal study on psychiatric disorders, patterns of service use, and risky behaviors. In many urban centers, responding to mentally ill people has become a large part of the police peacekeeping function. Several factors have increased the likelihood of police encounters: deinstitutionalization in the 1960's, cutbacks in Federal mental health funding, and changes in the legal code governing patient rights and affirming the right of a mentally ill person to live in the community without psychiatric treatment.[1] At the same time, society's tolerance of mentally ill persons in the community is limited. Given the stereotype of mentally disordered people as dangerous,[2] citizens often call upon the police to "do something" in situations involving mentally ill individuals, particularly when they exhibit the more frightening and disturbing signs of mental disorder.[3] The Police Role in Handling Mentally Ill Persons Police involvement with mentally ill persons is grounded in two common law principles: (1) The power and responsibility of the police to protect the safety and welfare of the public, and (2) parens patriae, which dictates protection for disabled citizens such as mentally ill persons. Most mental health codes specify the parameters of police involvement with mentally ill persons and instruct police to initiate a psychiatric emergency apprehension whenever the person is either dangerous to self or others or is unable to provide for basic physical needs so as to protect him/herself from serious harm. Although the law legitimizes the police officer's power to intervene, it does not-- and cannot--dictate the officer's response in any given situation. As with all law enforcement decisions, the police must exercise discretion in choosing the most appropriate disposition. Officers who encounter an irrational person creating a disturbance have three choices: transport that person to a mental hospital, arrest the person, or resolve the matter informally. In making these judgments and in trying to calm situations on their own, the police are called upon to act as "street-corner psychiatrists." But their options are, in practice, limited. Initiating an emergency hospitalization often is fraught with bureaucratic obstacles and the legal difficulties of obtaining commitment or treatment. In addition, many psychiatric programs will not accept everyone, particularly those considered dangerous, those who also have substance abuse disorders, or those with numerous previous hospitalizations.[4] (See "Law Enforcement Options for Handling Mentally Ill Persons," page 10.) Officer Decision Making Regarding Mentally Ill Persons The seminal study of police officer decision making regarding encounters with mentally ill citizens was Egon Bittner's in 1967.[5] Bittner found that the police reluctantly made psychiatric referrals and initiated hospitalization only when the individual was causing or might cause serious trouble. Even so, officers resorted to a mental hospital only in the absence of other alternatives. Almost 15 years later, a study by the author of this article found that little had changed. In 1980, researchers began recording firsthand observations about how police officers handled mentally disordered persons in a large northern city and how these interactions differed from interactions with people who were not mentally disordered.[6] They found that police resolved situations informally in 72 percent of the cases, made an arrest in 16 percent of the cases, and initiated emergency hospitalization in 12 percent of the cases. Since the study in the early 1980's, the author has conducted two subsequent studies to determine the prevalence rates of mental disorder in male and female adult jail detainees.[7] In the subsequent studies, nearly 9 percent of male detainees and more than 18 percent of female detainees met the criteria for a lifetime severe mental disorder (schizophrenia or major affective disorder). A number of mental health professionals have commented on what some observers believe is the "criminalization of mentally disordered behavior"[8] and have speculated that persons who previously were treated within the mental health system increasingly are being shunted into the criminal justice system.[9] Perhaps in response to this outcry, a number of professional organizations--the American Bar Association and the National Coalition for Jail Reform, for example--sought to develop innovative policy guidelines and/or alternatives to handle mentally ill persons within the criminal justice system. It is plausible to imagine that criminalization of mentally ill persons may be occurring. Given all the bureaucratic and legal roadblocks to making mental health referrals, the police might see arrest as a simpler and more reliable way of removing an individual from the community. Those rejected as inappropriate by the mental health system must be accepted by the criminal justice system, which does not have the luxury of turning away clients. Consequently, jails and prisons may have become the long-term repository for people with mental disorders. (See "Many Arrestees in Lockups Are Mentally Ill," page 14.) However, the criminalization hypothesis has been based largely on intuition and casual observation. Research is not definitive. Of the 1,798 citizens involved in the observational study of police-citizen encounters discussed above, 506 (28 percent) were considered by the police to be suspects in a crime, and of these, 148 were arrested. The probability of being arrested was 67 percent greater for suspects exhibiting signs of mental disorder than for those who apparently were not mentally ill. Fourteen of the 30 mentally disordered suspects, or 47 percent, were arrested, compared to 133 of the 476 other suspects, or 28 percent. (See table 1.) Clearly, mentally ill citizens in the study were being treated as criminals.[10] Explanations for a Higher Arrest Rate Several explanations are possible for the higher arrest rate among persons who exhibited signs of serious mental illness, including, in part, that officers lacked knowledge of the symptoms of severe mental disorder. Many mental disorders are associated with a number of disconcerting symptoms. Although some symptoms, such as verbal abuse, belligerence, and disrespect, are not themselves against the law, such behaviors may provoke an officer to respond more punitively. Also, as a result of the severe reductions in mental health services--both inpatient and outpatient--the criminal justice system may have become the default option for dealing with individuals who cannot or will not be treated by the mental health system. That the criminal justice system is the default option is borne out of the common police practice of obtaining a signed complaint against an individual thought to need psychiatric hospitalization so that officers can arrest him if the hospital finds him unacceptable for admission. It also is evident in the arrest of persons with mixed symptoms. Police officers often make the rounds of service agencies--from the halfway house to the hospital to the detox center--before resorting to arrest. Implications of Criminalizing Mental Illness The evidence that mentally ill persons are being criminalized is of concern because the criminal justice system is not designed to be a major point of entry into the mental health system. An arrest labels a mentally ill person as "criminal" and may doom that person to be arrested in cases of future disorderliness. And once incarcerated, jail hardly is an ideal treatment center for mentally ill persons. The cacophony of the jail setting works against even the recognition of mental disorder. If the criminal justice system has indeed become the point of entry for psychiatric treatment, budget cuts in the mental health area simply shifted the financial burden to jails and prisons. Policy Recommendations The findings that mentally ill people are being criminalized suggest the need for several changes in both the criminal justice and mental health systems: o The public mental health system must evolve to meet the challenges of deinstitutionalization. Policymakers must recognize the need for significant increases in funding for mental health services in the community. The public mental health system and the criminal justice system must collaborate so that police officers have several alternatives, not just arrest or hospitalization, when handling mentally ill persons in the community. o A more integrated system of caregiving must be designed to reduce the number of persons who fall through the cracks into the criminal justice "net" and to provide effective community services to persons who are arrested and released. o The least restrictive alternative should be used, and whenever possible, mentally ill persons with misdemeanor charges pending should be treated in a mental health facility. The latter recommendation is consistent with that of the American Bar Association guidelines.[11] In this way, mentally ill individuals would not become victims of their own disorder unless they commit serious crimes. o Police officers must receive adequate training in recognizing and handling mentally ill citizens so that individuals who are more disordered than disorderly are referred to the appropriate system. The police also must have a clear set of procedures to handle such persons, including negotiated "no-decline" agreements with hospitals. Such agreements would give police a designated place to take apparently mentally ill citizens. These agreements also are vital for establishing a successful liaison between the police department and the mental health system and ending the refusal of hospitals to treat some people. Although these recommendations require an increase in levels of funding, such a plan is likely to be financially prudent in the long term. Certainly, deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill with only the barest of community-based support did not decrease the need for treatment.12 We may simply have shifted the burden (and the costs) from the mental hospital to the jail. Despite this trend, policies have reduced both funding levels and Federal involvement in providing funds for mental health treatment. This has had serious consequences for the deinstitutionalized person. It is likely that supporting mental health programs at current levels will increase the probability that mentally ill persons publicly exhibiting their disorder will be processed through the criminal justice system. Some jurisdictions, however, are attempting to develop innovative strategies to reduce criminalization of mentally ill persons and improve services for offenders in the community. Some initiatives are designed to prevent arrest. Others address the mentally ill person's need for referral and treatment later on in criminal justice system processing--at a pretrial hearing, during detention, or after release. People with mental disorders must not be criminalized as a result of inadequate funding for the mental health system. A long-term commitment to funding mental health care is required so that the most appropriate and effective treatment programs may be provided within the least restrictive setting possible. Many deinstitutionalized adults, for example, can be productive members of the community if they live in structured settings where they are encouraged to take their medications regularly. Policies must be modified and resources allocated to see that the civil rights of mentally ill persons are protected, while providing the most humane and effective treatment available. NCJ 183455 Notes 1. Cf. O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1976); Rennie v. Klein, 653 F.2d 836 (3d Cir. 1981); Rogers v. Okin, 634 F.2d 650 (1st Cir. 1980). 2. Shah, S., "Dangerousness and Civil Commitment of the Mentally Ill: Some Public Policy Considerations," American Journal of Psychiatry 132 (1975):501-505; Fracchia, J., D. Canale, E. Cambria, E. Ruest, and C. Sheppard, "Public Views of Ex-Mental Patients: A Note on Perceived Dangerousness and Unpredictability," Psychiatric Reports 38 (1976):495-498. 3. Bittner, E., "Police Discretion in Emergency Apprehension of Mentally Ill Persons," Social Problems 14 (1967):278-292. 4. See, for example, Matthews, A., "Observations on Police Policy and Procedures for Emergency Detention of the Mentally Ill," Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 61 (1970):283-295; Bowden, P., "Men Remanded into Custody for Medical Reports: The Outcome of the Treatment Recommendation," British Journal of Psychiatry 136 (1978):1045-1048; Kirk, S., and M. Therrein, "Community Mental Health Myths and the Fate of Former Hospitalized Patients," Psychiatry 38 (1975):209-217. 5. Bittner, "Police Discretion in Emergency Apprehension of Mentally Ill Persons." 6. Researchers observed 283 randomly selected police officers in the large northern city for 2,200 hours over a 14-month period during 1980-81. Excluding traffic stops, the data included 1,072 police-citizen encounters involving 2,122 citizens. Of the citizens involved in these encounters, 85 in 79 encounters were defined by the researchers as mentally disordered. The field researchers ascertained the presence of mental disorder with a symptom checklist that listed the major characteristics of severe mental illness-- for example, confusion/disorientation, withdrawal, unresponsivity, paranoia, inappropriate or bizarre speech and/or behavior, and self-destructive behaviors. The field observers defined a person as being mentally disordered if he or she possessed at least one of these traits and met a common-sense standard for mental illness. For example, a streetperson who was found by the police to be shouting and running down the street naked on a cold night in January would have been coded as being mentally disordered. However, similar behaviors exhibited on a warm June evening by a group of drunken college students would be recognized as bizarre, but not indicative of mental disorder. See Teplin, L.A., Keeping the Peace: The Parameters of Police Discretion in Relation to the Mentally Disordered, Research Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, April 1986 (NCJ 101046). 7. Teplin, L.A., Karen M. Abram, and Gary M. McClelland, "Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders Among Incarcerated Women: I. Pretrial Jail Detainees," Archives of General Psychiatry 53 (1996): 505-512; and Teplin, L.A., "Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Disorders Among Male Urban Jail Detainees," American Journal of Public Health 84 (1994): 290-293. 8. Abramson, M., "The Criminalization of Mentally Disordered Behavior: Possible Side Effects of a New Mental Health Law," Hospital and Community Psychiatry 23 (1972):101-105. 9. Rachlin, S., A. Pam, and J. Milton, "Civil Liberties Versus Involuntary Hospitalization," American Journal of Psychiatry 132 (1975):189-191; Swank, G., and D. Winer, "Occurrence of Psychiatric Disorder in a County Jail Population," American Journal of Psychiatry 133 (1976):1331-1333; Whitmer, G., "From Hospitals to Jails: The Fate of California's Deinstitutionalized Mentally Ill," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 50(1) (1980); Morgan, C., "Developing Mental Health Services for Local Jails," Criminal Justice and Behavior 8 (1981):259-273; and Lamb, H., and R. Grant, "The Mentally Ill in an Urban County Jail," Archives of General Psychiatry 39 (1982):17-22. 10. Teplin, L.A., "Criminalizing Mental Disorder: The Comparative Arrest Rate of the Mentally Ill," American Psychologist 39(7) (1984):794-803. Copyright 1984 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. 11. "Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards," Washington, D.C.: American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Standards Committee, 1986. 12. Bachrach, L.L., Deinstitutionalization: An Analytical Review and Sociological Perspective, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, Mental Health Statistics Series D, No. 4; DHEW No. ADM 79-351. --------------------------- Law Enforcement Options for Handling Mentally Ill Persons Law enforcement officers have two basic ways to respond in situations involving mentally ill people who are causing a disturbance: formally (either hospitalization or arrest) or informally. Officers' decisions to hospitalize, arrest, or deal with a mentally ill person informally are based less on the degree of symptomatology than on the demands and constraints of the situation. Officers' first choice is usually informal disposition. Formal Options Hospitalization. Police use of hospitals is limited by the number of psychiatric beds in the community and by the criteria for admission. Virtually every officer in the study was aware of the stringent requirements for admission into the local psychiatric hospital: Individuals had to be seriously ill--for example, be actively delusional or suicidal. Police knew that persons who were mentally retarded, alcoholic, or categorized by hospital staff as "dangerous" often were not welcome at the hospital, nor were persons with criminal charges pending, no matter how minor. Furthermore, handling mentally ill persons was not regarded by officers as a "good pinch" and was largely unrewarded by the department, further deterring psychiatric referrals. In addition, officers perceived the rapid deinstitutionalization of mentally ill persons as a personal slight on their judgment and a sign of the hospital's unwillingness to "do something." Still, occasionally the police did take someone to the hospital, as shown in the following scenario: We were on the scene in less than a minute. The citizen in question was a black male, about 45 years old, standing on the sidewalk with his arms outstretched, spinning around in circles.... The officer and the sergeant got the man to stop spinning. They attempted to question him, but the man was completely out of it. He gave no indication that he understood what was going on. He didn't talk at all during the encounter. The officer called for a wagon to take the man to the hospital. Arrest. While arrest was not a frequent disposition, the arrest rate for persons exhibiting signs of mental illness was greater than that of other citizens involved in similar types of incidents. Arrest often was the only step available to the officer in situations where individuals were not sufficiently disturbed to be accepted by the hospital, but were too public in their deviance to be ignored. It was common for an officer to obtain a signed complaint in situations where he or she thought an individual required hospitalization. The aim was to ensure the ready availability of an alternative disposition--arrest--in the event that the hospital found the individual unacceptable for admission. The officers' apparent ingenuity was borne out of necessity since hospital admission criteria were so stringent. A typical example: The officer said this man had been on the street calling women names, calling them whores, and shouting at black people, calling them names and chasing them.... A woman had signed a complaint for his arrest because he was bothering her. The man sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic.... He was very vague about himself and who he was and felt that people were out to get him.... When he was taken to his cell, he began shouting to be let out and he kept shouting.... He was charged with disorderly conduct. The officer said there wasn't enough to take him into the mental health center because his behavior wasn't that severe for the hospital to accept him. Likewise, when an individual was defined as "too dangerous" by the hospital, arrest was the only alternative available to the officer: A young man was banging on his mother's door with a meat cleaver.... He was threatening to kill someone else and wanted to get into his mother's home for a gun. She wouldn't let him in and had called the police to get rid of him and/or to calm him down. When the police got there, officer II decided the man needed to be hospitalized as he was dangerous to himself and others. So they called for a wagon to take the man to the mental health facility...but they also wanted a complaint signed by the mother for disorderly in case [the hospital wouldn't take him]. It turned out that the hospital would indeed not take the man, so he ended up being locked up for disorderly. Ironically, it was precisely the requirements for emergency psychiatric detention set forth in most mental health codes--"dangerous to self and others"--that rendered mentally disordered citizens undesirable to hospitals and resulted in their arrest. Persons whose symptoms crossed the boundaries of the caretaking systems met a similar fate. Mental health programs found persons with alcohol problems disruptive to the patient environment and often would not accept them for treatment. Conversely, detoxification facilities felt they were not equipped to deal with persons exhibiting signs of mental disorder and would turn away persons with such mixed symptoms. In general, jail became the place of last resort. Because mental health and substance abuse systems tended to design their programs as though clients were "pure types," a number of people were unacceptable for treatment in any health care facility. The seriousness of an incident also helped to determine the disposition. This did not always mean the seriousness of the offense. For example, situations in which the citizen was disrespectful of the officer were nearly always thought to be "serious." So were situations that were public, offended "decent" people, and had a willing complainant. For example, an elderly woman told police that a man sleeping in a car behind her apartment building had acted crazy the night before and had thrown rocks at the building. It looked as though the man had cut off all his hair, injuring his head in the process, and he was disoriented and filthy. The police told him he would be booked for property damage and probably disorderly conduct. In sum, the police resorted to arrest in three types of situations: o When an individual was thought to be either unacceptable to the hospital or when his or her symptoms made him fall through the cracks of various caretaking systems. o When public encounters exceeded the community's tolerance for deviant behavior. o When the police felt it was likely that the person would continue to cause a problem if something were not done. In general, police made a formal disposition--hospitalization or arrest--when the situation, if unchecked, would escalate and require further police assistance. The large grey area between behavior that is mentally disordered and that which is merely disorderly allows officers a great deal of discretion in choosing the disposition. The seriousness of psychiatric symptoms is only one of the determining factors. Informal Options Informal dispositions require neither paperwork nor unwanted "downtime"-- hours off the street. Emotionally disturbed people who were likely to be handled by informal means were categorized as neighborhood characters, troublemakers, and quiet, unobtrusive "mentals." Neighborhood Characters. Neighborhood characters were persons whose idiosyncrasies were well known to police in their precinct. Virtually any officer could talk about "Crazy Harry," "Batman," or "Mailbox Molly." These were neighborhood characters who were defined by police as "mentals" but who were never hospitalized because they were known quantities. Police had certain expectations regarding the parameters of their behavior. As a consequence, the police tolerated a greater degree of deviance from them. More important, officers' familiarity with each citizen's particular symptoms enabled them to "cool them out," making an informal disposition that much easier. The following is a rather common encounter of this type: There's a lady in the area who claims she has neighbors who are beaming rays up into her apartment. The officer said he usually handles the situation by telling her, "We'll go downstairs and tell the people to stop beaming the rays," and she's happy. The officer seemed quite happy about this method of handling the problem. He could do something for the lady, and even though it's not the same kind of assistance he might give another type of situation, he could allay the lady's fears by just talking to her. Troublemakers. If an emotionally disturbed citizen has been labeled a "troublemaker," hospitalization or arrest is very unlikely. Intervention in such cases is considered not worth the trouble. An example was a woman rejected by the mental hospital, who, "whenever she came into the station, caused an absolute disruption. She would take off her clothes, run around the station nude, and urinate on the sergeant's desk. Officers felt it was such a hassle to have her in the station and in lockup that they simply stopped arresting her." Quiet, Unobtrusive "Mentals." Persons whose symptoms of mental disorder are relatively unobtrusive are likely to be handled informally. They offend neither the populace nor the police with obvious manifestations of their illness, and their symptoms are not considered serious enough to warrant hospitalization. Moreover, quiet "mentals" are considered more disordered than disorderly and so are unlikely to provoke arrest. Through officers' experiences with neighborhood characters, they know just how to soothe the emotionally disturbed person, to act as a "street-corner psychiatrist." In this way, they help to maintain many mentally ill people within the community and make deinstitutionalization a more viable public policy. Sources: o Teplin, L.A., "Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Disorders Among Male Urban Jail Detainees," American Journal of Public Health, 84 (1994):290-293. o Teplin, L.A., Keeping the Peace: The Parameters of Police Discretion in Relation to the Mentally Disordered, Research Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, April 1986 (NCJ 101046). o Teplin, L.A., K.M. Abram, and G.M. McClelland, "Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders Among Incarcerated Women I: Pretrial Jail Detainees," Archives of General Psychiatry 53 (1996):505-512. --------------------------- Many Arrestees in Lockups Are Mentally Ill According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in mid-1998 an estimated 16 percent, or 283,800, of inmates in the Nation's prisons and jails were mentally ill. Another 16 percent, or 547,000, probationers also were considered mentally ill. The analysis may actually undercount the number of incarcerated mentally ill people since it relied on inmates acknowledging to an interviewer that they either had a mental or emotional condition or had ever been admitted overnight to a mental hospital. State prisons hold most inmates, and mentally ill people in State prisons were more than twice as likely as other inmates to have been homeless in the 12 months prior to their arrest (20 percent versus 9 percent). They also reported far higher rates of physical and sexual abuse; almost one-third of men and more than three-quarters of women said they had been abused in the past. Although prison and jail are not the best places to receive treatment, a large share of emotionally disturbed inmates secured psychological treatment there. Since admission, 61 percent of these inmates in State and Federal prison and 41 percent of the mentally ill in local jails reported that they had received treatment for a mental condition--either counseling, medication, or other services. ----------------------------- For More Information o For information about officers' alternatives to arrest, see Deane, M.W., H.J. Steadman, R. Borum, B.M. Veysey, and J.P. Morrissey, "Emerging Partnerships Between Mental Health and Law Enforcement," Psychiatric Services 50 (1999):99-101. o For information about innovations in providing services to mentally ill offenders, see Steadman, H.J., S.M. Morris, and D.L. Dennis, "The Diversion of Mentally Ill Persons From Jails to Community-Based Services: A Profile of Programs," American Journal of Public Health 85 (1995):1630-1635; and Catherine Conly, Coordinating Community Services for Mentally Ill Offenders: Maryland's Community Criminal Justice Treatment Program, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, April 1999 (NCJ 175046). o For information about innovative police procedures for encounters with mentally ill citizens, see Wellborn, J., "Responding to Individuals With Mental Illness," The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 68 (1999):6-10; and Zealberg, J.J., S.D. Christie, J.A. Puckett, D. McAlhany, and M. Durban, "A Mobile Crisis Program: Collaboration Between Emergency Psychiatric Services and Police," Hospital and Community Psychiatry 43 (1992):612-615. o For more information on deinstitutionalization, police handling of mentally ill citizens, and services provided to offenders, both in jails and in the community, see: -- Baker, D., "Special Treatment: A One-of-a-Kind Court May Offer the Best Hope for Steering Nonviolent Mentally Ill Defendants into Care Instead of Jail," ABA Journal 84 (1998):20-22. -- Patch, P.C., and B.A. Arrigo, "Police Officer Attitudes and Use of Discretion in Situations Involving the Mentally Ill: The Need to Narrow the Focus," International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 22(1) (1999):23-35. -- Wachholz, S., and R. Mullaly, "Policing the Deinstitutionalized Mentally Ill: Toward an Understanding of Its Function," Crime, Law and Social Change 19(3) (1993):281-300. -- Borum, R., M. Williams, M.W. Deans, H.J. Steadman, and J. Morrissey, "Police Perspectives on Responding to Mentally Ill People in Crisis: Perceptions of Program Effectiveness," Behavioral Sciences and the Law 16(4) (1998):393-405. -- Lamb, H.R., "Deinstitutionalization at the Beginning of the New Millennium," Harvard Review of Psychiatry 6(1) (1998):1-10. -- Lamb, H.R., L.E. Weinberger, and B.H. Gross, "Community Treatment of Severely Mentally Ill Offenders Under the Jurisdiction of the Criminal Justice System: A Review," Psychiatric Services 50(7) (1999):907-913. -- Steadman, H.J., S.M. Morris, and D.L. Dennis, "The Diversion of Mentally Ill Persons From Jails to Community-Based Services: A Profile of Programs," American Journal of Public Health 85 (1995):1630-1635. -- Steadman, H.J., M.W. Deane, J.P. Morrissey, M.L. Westcott, S. Salasin, and S. Shapiro, "A SAMHSA Research Initiative Assessing the Effectiveness of Jail Diversion Programs for Mentally Ill Persons," Psychiatric Services 50(12) (1999):1620-1623. -- Steadman, H.J., J.J. Cocozza, and B.M. Veysey, "Comparing Outcomes for Diverted and Nondiverted Jail Detainees With Mental Illnesses," Law and Human Behavior 23(6) (1999):615-627. --------------------------- Getting Smarter: Making Guns Safer for Law Enforcement and Consumers By Lauren R. Taylor about the author Lauren R. Taylor is a freelance writer/editor in the Washington, D.C., area specializing in interpersonal violence and violence prevention. There's a debate raging across the Nation about making guns safer and smarter. Much of it tends to confuse "smart" technology with external locking devices. Technology for a true smart gun, such as one that operates via radio or ultrasonic waves, is still in the fledgling stage and is many years in the future. This article clarifies some of the issues associated with safer, smarter guns as they are used by law enforcement and by the general consumer. The issues and concerns related to the two uses are quite different. Smart Guns for Law Enforcement Sixteen percent of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty are shot with service weapons. According to the Uniform Crime Reports, 57 officers were killed with their own weapons in the 10 years between 1988 and 1998, and 113 officer weapons were stolen.[1] Many more officers were injured in such incidents. In addition, police weapons were stolen and later used in the commission of a crime. Since the early 1990's, NIJ has been funding research and development for technology to give law enforcement officers safer and more reliable service weapons. By late 1999, NIJ had refined a system that used radio frequency to identify and approve a user before a gun could be fired. NIJ's first task in the development process was to draw up a list of basic requirements. Under contract to NIJ, Sandia National Laboratories assessed the needs of law enforcement for "smart-gun" technology and came up with the basic requirements that guided the research. (See "Smart-Gun Features for Public Safety Officers.") Sandia then evaluated commercial, off-the-shelf technologies--including biometrics (voice and fingerprint recognition), magnetics, and radio frequency-- that might meet law enforcement's needs. It built models of each with air pistols inside portable boxes; lights signaled when an authorized user was recognized and when the weapon was fired. Sandia representatives took the models to law enforcement conferences to get comments and suggestions. By the mid-1990's, NIJ and Sandia had identified 14 technologies that might lead to smarter, safer service weapons but had settled on radio frequency as the most feasible. "There is no one perfect technology, one that will meet all the officers' requirements," wrote Doug Weiss, project manager, in Sandia's final report in 1996. But the most promising technology is radio frequency. According to Wendy Howe, the NIJ program manager, the next generation of gun has to "look something like the semiautomatic pistol law enforcement is now carrying. It cannot require too many changes to the gun, or to the way the gun is carried, or to the way the gun is holstered." How a Radio Frequency Gun Works With $500,000 awarded in 1997, Colt's incorporated miniaturized motors and blocking mechanisms into the gun and reduced the size of the transponder chip. The resulting 40-caliber weapon looks like any other. To operate the gun, authorized users must wear a watch (which looks like a standard wrist watch) that has a chip inside it. As users pull the gun out of its holster, they press a switch on the grip. "It's a natural position where the fingers rest on the grip of the gun," says Howe. The grip switch sends a signal to the transponder in the watch, and the transponder responds. All of this happens in the time it takes to draw the gun. (See figure 1, page 18.) The transponder can communicate with the gun's locking mechanism only from behind the gun. Thus, a gun taken away and thrust toward an officer could not be fired. Also key to law enforcement is the fact that if the smart technology fails-- whether because of a problem with the technology or with the power source for the technology--the weapon can be fired. Issues Remain Although some technical problems have been resolved, many obstacles remain. "It's not even ready for lab testing," says Howe, who explains that one of the most valuable results of the research is a better understanding of the difficulties of making a reliable gun when introducing off-the-shelf technology into a volatile, real world environment. Developers are tackling a number of issues associated with reliability, including ensuring that the technology is not vulnerable to interference from outside frequencies (such as those from radio antennas or those underground in a subway system) and that it will work in a variety of environmental conditions. "This weapon must be as reliable as the conventional weapon that law enforcement is now carrying," says Howe. The next steps already are underway. On May 12, President Clinton announced NIJ's award of two grants to continue refining and improving the technology. One award, to Smith and Wesson, will explore a fully electronic weapon using a pin code and, in the future, a biometric identification system. The other, to FN Manufacturing, will explore the inclusion of microelectronic and ultrasonic wave technology that is less sensitive to interference than radio waves. Smart Guns at Home Ultimately, experts agree, the high-tech approaches to gun safety now being developed for law enforcement use will make their way into consumer firearms. In the meantime, gun manufacturers are working hard to ensure that guns cannot be used by children or other unauthorized users. Although these technologies are often called "smart," they are not; they are mechanical. Many gun manufacturers have been including locking systems in their products- -either integral or optional--for years. The most common, says Ken Green, technical affairs director for the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, uses a cable that goes through the trigger so that the gun cannot be fired without a key or combination. His association and its more than 20 manufacturer members are working on voluntary standards for locking devices designed to keep firearms out of the hands of children age 7 and under. "If the device is properly applied and it prohibits the gun from being activated, it's child-resistant to some degree," Green says. But how child-resistant? That's what the new standards, which are voluntary, will determine. Green points out that no system is foolproof: "If you put a cable lock through the gun, that's pretty childproof because the child doesn't have the key. If the child has the key and knows how to use it, the child may be able to open the lock. If that child doesn't have the key, it's not going to come apart easily, but that's not to say that if the kid grabs a 20-pound sledgehammer and beats on the thing, it won't come off.... It's not going to stop everybody from doing everything." Eventually, when smart technology trickles down to consumer-owned guns, it still will differ from that used in law enforcement. For example, if a police officer's smart gun fails, it should still fire. "It needs to fail 'live,'" says Howe. "But for general consumers, you want the technology to fail 'dead,' meaning not fire when kids have tampered with it and are showing off to friends, when teens are trying to commit suicide, or when people are getting the gun and using it in the commission of a crime." Debate Rages Gun-control advocates and gun-rights promoters have taken positions for and against the development of smart guns and gun-safety technology for consumer use. Some gun-control supporters fear that safety technology will lead people to see guns as safe and cause sales to grow. Supporters also fear that consumers may think, "My gun has a lock on it, so it's okay to leave it loaded and lying about." Under this scenario, guns will become more of a "coffee-table item," and the danger will increase, not decrease. Some gun manufacturers have expressed that concern as well. Gun manufacturers and owners' groups generally oppose the new technologies, saying that they will boost the prices of guns, making them unaffordable; that they are unreliable; and that the marketplace, not the legislatures or the courts, should decide whether such technologies are needed. Some gun-rights advocates also oppose the safety measures because they see them as encroaching on gun owners' rights. Sandia's Weiss compares safety measures on consumer guns to speed bumps. In parking lots, he says, everyone knows they need to be careful: there are cars backing up, pedestrians walking, people carrying packages, and people pushing shopping carts. But society puts speed bumps in parking lots to remind drivers of what they know they should do. In Weiss' view, locking mechanisms on guns are the same: They shouldn't allow owners to be careless with firearms, but instead remind them of the responsibility they already have. Looking Forward Howe is philosophical about the controversy. "This is one stage in the evolution in firearms technology," she says. Each transition--from black powder and ball to revolvers with six-shot capability to semiautomatic pistols--has been difficult. People felt uncomfortable with the new technology, but once they got used to it, says Howe, "it was great." In her view, smart guns are the same: "This is an evolution in technology. That's all it is. We are trying to take what we currently have and make it better, so that if a weapon is taken away from you, it can't be used against you." The technology, however, can't be rushed. Gun-safety mandates are coming fast and hard, but as Howe and others point out, the technology is not mature. "We have researched the technology; manufacturers are working diligently on the technology, and they still haven't been able to overcome the reliability issue using over-the-counter concepts," says Howe. "Developing and incorporating components that operate reliably under extreme conditions is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. Ultimately," she says, "we'll have a solid smart-gun concept for law enforcement. And I'm sure it will have spinoffs that can be used to support commercial smart guns." It's one more stage in the technological evolution. NCJ 183456 Notes 1. Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 1998: Uniform Crime Reports, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1998 (NCJ 181118). --------------------------- Smart-Gun Features for Public Safety Officers Law enforcement officers who helped develop the specifications for a "smart" service weapon say the firearm should: o Operate reliably in all environments. o Have all the capabilities of a current firearm. o Be able to be fired by other police officers. o Be easy to operate and maintain. o Verify and approve the user in the time it takes to draw and aim. o Only work when the transponder is behind the gun. o Include an indicator that tells the user if the system is enabled. o Fire even if the electronics fail. ----------------------------- Figure 1: Building a Smarter Gun U.S. gun manufacturers are developing technology designed to stop accidental shootings. The radio frequency gun being developed by Colt's Manufacturing Company, Inc., works like this: 1. The gun emits a radio signal from a chip inside its handle. 2. As the weapon is drawn from the holster, a watch-like device worn by the person holding the gun receives this signal and returns a coded radio signal. 3. The weapon is enabled when it receives the return signal. All this happens in the time it takes for the officer to draw the gun. ----------------------------- For More Information o Contact Wendy Howe, Smart-Gun Technology Program Manager, 202- 616-9794, howew@ojp.usdoj.gov. o D.R. Weiss, Smart-Gun Technology Project, Final Report, prepared by Sandia National Laboratories under contract IAA-94-IJ-R-021, February 1996 (SAND96-1131). Available at http://www.prod.sandia.gov/cgi-bin/techlib/access-control.pl/1996/961131.pdf. An abstract is available from NCJRS under NCJ 162841. --------------------------- Reducing Offender Drug Use Through Prison-Based Treatment More than 1.9 million American adults were in Federal prisons, State prisons, and local jails at midyear 1999--a number as large as the population of Houston, Texas.[1] More than half of these prisoners said they had used drugs in the month before their offense, 16 percent said they had committed their offense to get money for drugs, and two-thirds were actively involved with drugs prior to their admission to jail.[2] These statistics can change if inmates with substance abuse problems are treated. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, treatment while in prison and under postincarceration supervision can reduce recidivism by roughly 50 percent.[3] According to calculations by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, the cost of treatment in conjunction with education, job training, and health care averages $6,500 per year. The benefit of each inmate who completes the program and becomes a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen would--after 1 year--add up to 10 times the amount spent on the inmate's rehabilitation.[4] In light of these statistics, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which directs the Department of Justice to support States in their efforts to provide treatment to offenders by making funds available for the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) for State Prisoners Formula Grant Program.[5] The funds are provided by the Corrections Program Office (CPO), which is part of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs. RSAT funds enhance residential substance abuse programs by providing individual and group treatment activities for offenders in residential facilities operated by State and local correctional agencies. All States are eligible to participate in the RSAT program, but they must meet certain criteria to receive funding. For example, individual program sites are funded if: o The offender participates in the program for 6 to 12 months. o The residential treatment facilities are set apart from the general correctional population. o The program focuses on the substance abuse problems of the inmate. o The program develops the inmate's cognitive, behavioral, social, vocational, and other skills to solve the substance abuse and related problems. o The program agrees to implement or continue to require urinalysis and/or other proven, reliable forms of drug and alcohol testing of individuals assigned to RSAT programs in correctional facilities. In addition to these requirements, States are encouraged to adopt comprehensive approaches to substance abuse testing and treatment for offenders, including relapse prevention and aftercare services. Aftercare services should involve coordination between the correctional treatment program and other human service and rehabilitation programs, such as education and job training, parole supervision, halfway houses, and self-help and peer group programs, that may aid in rehabilitation. To help States develop, implement, and maintain RSAT programs, CPO provides technical assistance and training on effective substance abuse treatment strategies and programs. In addition, CPO provides funds to NIJ for the evaluation of the State grant program. Since the RSAT NIJ/CPO evaluation program began, 56 evaluation grants have been awarded--55 individual local program evaluations and 1 national evaluation. To avoid potential conflicts of interest that can occur when program offices oversee evaluations of their own programs, CPO is collaborating with NIJ in the management of the evaluation component. The evaluations fall into two types: outcome and process. Reports from the outcome evaluations will begin to be available in late 2000. In the meantime, findings from the process evaluations are laying the groundwork for understanding the effectiveness of RSAT. For example, process evaluations provide data about program treatment models and integrity, participant characteristics, comparison groups, valid and reliable measurement tools, and implementation barriers and solutions. Findings from the process evaluations reveal the following features: o RSAT programs are using the following modalities as their primary treatment approach--therapeutic community, cognitive skills/behavior, 12-step (the abstinence and support process used by groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous), and a combination of these tactics. o Where significant delays in program implementation have occurred, the difficulties appear to be in locating appropriate facilities, constructing facilities, recruiting trained treatment staff, and contracting with treatment providers because of State bidding and proposal processes. o The need to keep the prison's treatment beds separate from the prison's general population can be compromised by the need for additional beds for the general population. o The structural and substantive changes that occurred in some RSAT programs were so extensive that treatment of participants did not become standardized for a significant length of time. o Without aftercare programs in the community, treatment gains in prison are frequently lost after release. o Treatment staff frequently need specific curriculum training to ensure that uniform treatment is given to all participants. Preliminary indications--which will be confirmed by the outcome evaluations-- indicate that (1) the RSAT initiative has helped States increase their substance abuse treatment capacity within correctional facilities, and (2) the development of screening and assessment tools that identify appropriate inmates for the substance abuse treatment programs resulted in a better use of correctional resources. Outcome findings from the Delaware program indicate that effects on inmates are significant and remain so for clients who complete secondary treatment in a therapeutic community work release center. Clients who receive continued aftercare are more likely to remain drug- and arrest-free for longer than clients who do not. Effects on inmates in other sites will be reported as they become available.[6] NIJ plans to produce a compendium in late 2000 summarizing the process evaluations. The compendium also will contain an overall synthesis that includes commonalities and important findings that cut across all or several of the local-site reports and the national evaluation. NCJ 183457 Notes 1. Beck, Allen J., Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 1999, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 2000 (NCJ 181643). 2. Wilson, Doris James, Drug Use, Testing, and Treatment in Jail, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2000 (NCJ 179999). 3. The National Drug Control Strategy, 1998, Washington, D.C.: The White House, February 1998. Available from the Office of National Drug Control Policy at http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/policy/98ndcs/contents.html. 4. National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Behind Bars: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population, New York: Columbia University, January 1998 (NCJ 171660). 5. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, P.L. 109- 122. 6. Martin, Steve S., Clifford A. Butzin, Christine A. Saum, and James A. Inciardi, "Three-Year Outcomes of Therapeutic Community Treatment for Drug-Involved Offenders in Delaware: From Prison to Work Release to Aftercare," The Prison Journal, September 1999, 79(3): 294-320 (NCJ 180311). ----------------------------- Evaluation Reports Available on the RSAT Process The following reports are available by visiting the database of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) at http://www.ncjrs.org/database.htm, or by calling NCJRS at 1-800-851-3420. Delaware Steve S. Martin, Clifford A. Butzin, Christine A. Saum, James A. Inciardi, Hilary L. Surratt "Factors Affecting Client Motivation in Therapeutic Community Treatment for Offenders in Delaware, Summary Report, 1999," University of Delaware, NCJ 182358. Steve S. Martin, Clifford A. Butzin, Christine A. Saum, James A. Inciardi "Three-Year Outcomes of Therapeutic Community Treatment for Drug-Involved Offenders in Delaware: From Prison to Work Release to Aftercare," The Prison Journal, September 1999, p 294-320, vol. 79, no. 3, NCJ 180311. Florida C. Aaron McNeece "Evaluation of the Florida Department of Corrections Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners Program--Final Technical Report," Florida State University, NCJ 180107. Michigan William C. Birdsall, Maureen Okasinski "Process Evaluation of a Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program for State Prisoners: The W.J. Maxey Boys Training School," University of Michigan, NCJ 181402. James Austin, Kelly Dedel Johnson, Wendy Naro "Process Evaluation of the Michigan Department of Corrections' Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program," National Council on Crime and Delinquency, NCJ 181650. Missouri Donald M. Linhorst "Report of a Process Evaluation of the Ozark Correctional Center Drug Treatment Program: Final Report," University of Missouri-Kansas City, NCJ 181648. Jeffrey E. Nash "Final Report of Outcomes for the Ozark Correctional Center Drug Treatment Program," University of Missouri-Kansas City, NCJ 181649. New Mexico Paul Guerin, Robert Hyde, Mitzi Wyatt "Process Evaluation of the Genesis Program at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility," University of New Mexico, NCJ 179986. Pennsylvania Douglas Young, Rachel Porter "Collaborative Evaluation of Pennsylvania's Program for Drug-Involved Parole Violators," Vera Institute of Justice, Inc., NCJ 180165. South Carolina William Ruefle, J. Mitchell Miller "Evaluation of the South Carolina Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program for State Prisoners--Final Report," Washington State University, NCJ 181050. Texas Kirk von Sternberg, Joseph Carbonari "An Evaluation of the New Choices Substance Abuse Program in the Harris County Jail, Houston, Texas," University of Houston, NCJ 182364. Virginia Jill A. Gordon "Qualitative Examination of the Implementation Process at Barrett Juvenile Correctional Center," Virginia Commonwealth University, NCJ 178737. Amy Stichman "Correctional Program Assessment Inventory: Conducted on Barrett Juvenile Correctional Center," Virginia Commonwealth University, NCJ 178738. Washington Clayton Mosher, Dretha Phillips "Collaborative Intermediate Evaluation of the Pine Lodge Prerelease Therapeutic Treatment Community for Women Offenders in Washington State," Washington State University, NCJ 181406. Wisconsin Kit R. Van Stelle, D. Paul Moberg "Process Evaluation of the Wisconsin Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program: The Mental Illness-Chemical Abuse Program at Oshkosh Correctional Institution," University of Wisconsin-Madison, NCJ 174986. National Evaluation Douglas Lipton, Frank S. Pearson, Harry K. Wexler "National Evaluation of the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment for State Prisoners Program: From Onset to Midpoint," National Development and Research Institute, NCJ 182219. --------------------------- At-A-Glance: Recent Research Findings Effective Police Management Affects Citizen Perceptions NIJ Research in Progress Seminar, "Police Management, Citizen Complaints, and Attitudes Toward the Police," Robert C. Davis and Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, available on videotape from NCJRS, NCJ 181106. Throughout the 1990's, serious crime in New York City fell dramatically, particularly after the adoption in 1994 of policing strategies that demanded strict enforcement of quality-of-life statutes and targeted guns, drugs, and youth violence. But implementation of these strategies was accompanied by an increase in civilian complaints against the police, which reached a high in 1995-96; by 1998, complaints had dropped, but they still were nearly 40 percent above the 1993 level. (See figure 1.) New York's experience has caused some to question whether citizen dissatisfaction with policing practices is the price for significantly reducing criminal activity. However, while civilian complaints rose citywide, complaints in the 42nd and 44th precincts (South Bronx) declined by 54 percent and 64 percent, respectively, between 1993 and 1998. (See figure 2.) According to researchers Robert C. Davis and Pedro Mateu-Gelabert of the Vera Institute of Justice, effective police management was the central reason for the decline in the 42nd and 44th precincts. In a Research in Progress Seminar held at NIJ, researchers Davis and Mateu-Gelabert presented findings from two separate but related studies about citizen perceptions of policing. Davis and Mateu-Gelabert used interviews and statistical data to examine several potential explanations for the reduction in citizen complaints in the 42nd and 44th precincts and to uncover the reasons why citizens of those precincts were filing fewer complaints while citizens in the rest of the city were filing a greater number. Training, Monitoring, and Consequences Make a Difference The research revealed that the management styles of the commanding officers and their interest in promoting respectful policing were the key determinants. Both commanders took a departmentwide policy known as Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect (CPR)--introduced in 1997--and used it to further their vision of how police ought to interact with the public. They ensured that departmental training was reinforced by ongoing CPR training within their precincts, and they zealously monitored recidivist officers (i.e., those charged with more than one citizen complaint within a specified period). The commanders attached real consequences to the receipt of complaints, such as reassignment to desk duty or passing over officers for promotion. In addition, they managed community relations in a way that demonstrated police responsiveness to community concerns. Both commanders regularly attended precinct community council meetings, addressed community issues, and followed up on them at subsequent meetings. Perceptions of Established Residents Differ From Those of Newcomers In a separate but related study funded by NIJ, the researchers surveyed residents in Queens' Jackson Heights neighborhood to examine citizen attitudes toward political empowerment, voluntary and involuntary contacts with the police, police effectiveness, and police misconduct. The researchers categorized the ethnic groups in the neighborhood in two ways: those who were long-time, well-established residents (Italian- and African-Americans) and those who were newcomers (Colombians, Dominicans, Ecuadorians, and Indians). The researchers found wide disparities in the two groups. Better established, more politically powerful communities were more likely than communities of newcomers to perceive the police as effective and to voluntarily contact the police--for example, to report crimes and talk to police officers on the street. The differences in perceptions were similar regarding police misconduct. Colombians and Dominicans had the highest perceptions of misconduct; African-Americans had the lowest. Also, younger persons were more likely than older persons to perceive misconduct, and persons victimized in any way in the past year or stopped by the police were more likely to perceive misconduct than nonvictims or those not stopped, respectively. Ethnicity had no effect on citizens' willingness to report crimes. However, community empowerment measures had large effects: Those feeling a greater sense of empowerment were much more likely to report crimes. Meanwhile, victims and persons stopped by the police were less willing to report crimes. The researchers noted that the community plays a vital role in shaping attitudes, influencing resident perceptions of police through prejudices imported from their countries of origin and messages communicated through the local culture. Overall, the most important predictor of opinions about the police is the extent to which people's ethnic communities have become integrated into the social and political fabric of the city. For additional information about the studies, contact Robert Davis, Vera Institute of Justice, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279. Victim Services Programs for Women Evaluated Final Report submitted to NIJ, Impact Evaluation of Victim Services Programs: STOP Grants Funded by the Violence Against Women Act, Barbara E. Smith, Robert C. Davis, and Laura B. Nickles, grant number 96-WT- NX-0003. Available from NCJRS. Victims of sexual assault and domestic violence frequently suffer intense emotional distress and experience the need for a variety of victim services. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, and the STOP (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Violence Against Women grants program funded by VAWA are important Federal initiatives to help these victims. Preliminary research sponsored by the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section is showing that STOP funding appears to positively change the ways in which the criminal justice system and community programs respond to violence against women victims. VAWA mandates that STOP subgrantees spend at least 25 percent of their STOP funds on each of three areas: (1) law enforcement, (2) prosecution, and (3) victim services. The remaining 25 percent is left largely to the discretion of grantees. Sixty-two representatives of STOP subgrantees--including criminal justice agencies that deliver services to domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking victims--were surveyed in research conducted by Barbara E. Smith, Robert C. Davis, and Laura B. Nickles. Ninety-six interviews also were completed with representatives from programs that cooperated closely with the 62 STOP programs. Findings Most of the 62 STOP-funded subgrantee programs surveyed were prosecution or law enforcement victim programs. Most were fairly new, and more than one-third began with the receipt of STOP funds. The average amount of awards to STOP subgrantees was $47,626. Service delivery. The majority of surveyed programs reported that they were able to serve more victims, expand the types of services offered, and provide more comprehensive services as a result of STOP funding. Victims' well-being. A majority of STOP subgrantee respondents and the vast majority of the coordinating programs' respondents reported that they believed STOP grants empowered victims and improved victims' psychosocial well-being. Improvement in victims' financial circumstances also was noted, but by fewer respondents. Victims and the criminal justice system. Most respondents surveyed reported that grants had a direct impact on: o Keeping victims better informed about criminal justice actions taken in their cases. o Improving victims' treatment by the criminal justice system. o Yielding more successful prosecutions. o Reducing the number of victims withdrawing their support from prosecution. Victims and the community. Most STOP subgrantees and the vast majority of coordinating program respondents reported that STOP funds affected the way domestic violence and sexual assault victims were treated by the community. STOP funds extended the range of services provided by community programs, increased the coordination of victim services, and increased awareness of violence against women issues. In the opinion of those surveyed, STOP subgrantee grant awards yielded many positive results for victims, substantially improving their lives and their treatment by the criminal justice system. Given the relatively small amount of the grants awarded and the newness of subgrantees to victim services, researchers were impressed by the wide variety of services these programs provided to sexual assault and domestic violence victims at many stages of the process. They also were impressed by the program changes and impacts survey respondents reported. Performance Measures Shape Officer Actions NIJ Research Report, Facilitating Organizational Change: Shaping Action Through Individual and Organizational Evaluations, Geoffrey P. Alpert, D.J. Kenney, and T.N. Oettemier, NCJ 175243, grant number 95-IJ-CX-0101. Photocopy charges will apply. Law enforcement agencies are looking for new ways to measure officer performance because the traditional measures do not reflect changing requirements of community and problem-oriented policing. Community policing's goals and the type of work officers do is different from traditional policing. Length of experience, for example, doesn't necessarily translate into better community policing. To understand the dynamics of applying new performance measures, NIJ awarded a grant to Geoffrey Alpert to study the issues associated with changing officer behavior through performance evaluations. Alpert's team of researchers selected one region of the Columbia (South Carolina) Police Department to become the "experimental" group (the group that would apply newly developed performance measures). Two other regions were selected to use the traditional performance measures and serve as "control" groups. At the beginning and end of the 18-month project, researchers conducted agency-wide surveys and individual interviews with officers, supervisors, and administrators. Better Measures Lead to Better Attitudes The data show that the experimental group reported more positive attitudes than the control group on many of the questions relating to organizational issues and problem solving. Generally, sergeants reported that the use of the new forms for performance evaluations influenced many officers to increase their involvement with the community. They noted that their officers did things in the community that they had not done before. For example, officers began working with youth to keep parks clean and safe and with residents in low-income housing areas to obtain paint and other supplies to make the neighborhoods more attractive and safer. Interviews with officers told two stories. First, officers were interested in community policing and problem solving. Second, some officers reported insufficient training and ignorance about what was expected of them. Some voiced a concern that they were receiving conflicting messages from supervisors. Interviews with key executives showed that the Columbia Police Department had been making a transition from traditional to community and problem-oriented policing during the past few years. As a result, the department was experiencing the type of growing pains typical of agencies that are attempting major shifts in their mode of operations. Lessons Learned For community policing and problem-solving techniques to be effective, both officers and supervisors need to be thoroughly informed about their duties, responsibilities, and expectations. The linkages among the members of the community, officers, supervisors, and administrators must be clear and strong. Expectations, techniques, efforts, and results must be consistent among all groups. Enhanced mentoring on community policing, problem-solving strategies, and appropriate performance measures would help officers and supervisors enthusiastically endorse and incorporate these components into their daily work routine. Specifically: o All stakeholders must be included in the process at the beginning of the intervention. o Timely and consistent training should precede the interventions. o The performance evaluations must be "user friendly" while at the same time capable of measuring the complexity of police work. For more information, contact Geoffrey Alpert, College of Criminal Justice, University of South Carolina, 803-777-6424, geoffa@gwm.sc.edu. Profiling the Needs of Young Female Offenders Final Report submitted to NIJ, Profiling the Needs of Young Female Offenders: Instrument Development and Pilot Study, April 2000, Barbara Owen and B. Bloom, NCJ 182737, grant number 95-IJ-CX-0098. Available from NCJRS. Although young female offenders remain a small minority within the juvenile justice system, their unique needs and program demands require particular attention. Previous research suggests that delinquent females are similar to delinquent males in terms of lower socioeconomic status, disrupted family backgrounds, and school difficulties, but their specific problems present unique challenges for the juvenile justice system and related service agencies. These gender-based differences shape both the types of crimes they commit and the community's response. Previous research indicates that gender-based differences appear to stem from gender socialization and subsequent delinquent careers, gender differences in offense patterns and juvenile justice prosecutions, and the dominant role of abuse and family violence in the lives of at-risk young women. These problems are compounded by gender-based reactions, such as running away, prostitution, early pregnancy, petty theft, shoplifting, and some gang involvement. The lack of gender-specific programming addressing the different needs of males and females and the lack of community-based alternatives result in an overreliance on institutional commitments. Despite decades of Federal efforts to encourage deinstitutionalization of status offenders, many young females are inappropriately detained and incarcerated. A recently released NIJ-supported study contributes to better understanding of the characteristics of girls and young women in the juvenile system so that policy and program planning can be better informed about these gender-specific needs. The project developed and tested survey and interview instruments that can be used to collect descriptive data from girls and young women involved in the juvenile justice system. The authors also developed and tested materials to collect data through staff interviews and program reviews. These instruments are intended to guide managers, researchers, and line staff in collecting and analyzing systematic information on youthful female offender populations. The authors propose three basic steps for improving understanding of incarcerated young women: o Develop a profile of the youthful female offender population. o Conduct an onsite inventory of existing facility-based programs. o Conduct a needs assessment that matches profile data with program data to determine gaps between the needs of girls and young women and current program availability. Policymakers and practitioners can use the data in a number of ways. For example, they might develop a demographic description of the female population in their juvenile hall or State institution or collect information on program needs within a system, single institution, or special housing unit. For a quick needs assessment, any one section of the instruments could be administered, such as the one on substance abuse. The instruments are not designed to be used as individual assessment tools, but rather as an approach to collecting descriptive data on the overall population and program needs. The data also could be helpful to program evaluators by providing baseline information for determining process and outcome indicators. Does Drug Testing Matter? Drug Testing for Youthful Offenders on Parole: An Experimental Study, by Rudy Haapanen, can be found at the Web site of The Western Criminologist: The Official Newsletter of the Western Society of Criminology (Spring 1996 issue) at http://www.sonoma.edu/cja/wsc/WSCNEWS3.html. Grant number 91-IJ-CX-K023. An abstract is available from NCJRS under NCJ 182782. Testing parolees for drug use as a regular condition of parole is a widely accepted practice. Drug testing is believed to help deter drug use by parolees and to help detect substance abuse problems requiring additional intervention. However, little is known about the effects of such testing on adult or youthful offenders released from confinement. To address this issue, Rudy Haapanen and Lee Britton, researchers with the California Youth Authority (CYA), implemented a 5-year experimental study of drug testing for youthful offenders released on parole from the CYA. The study was designed to assess differences in parole adjustment and recidivism for comparable groups that differed only in the amount of drug testing received, from zero to up to two tests per month. New parolees were randomly assigned to one of five different drug testing levels, and the groups were tested at the assigned levels for the duration of parole (up to 24 months). The 1,958 parolees in the study were mostly 18 or 19 years old at the time of parole, predominantly African American (41 percent) or Hispanic (38 percent), and overwhelmingly male (97 percent). More than half of these youths were committed for violent offenses; only 12 percent were committed for drug offenses. The sample averaged nearly 12 arrest charges each prior to CYA commitment. The results of the study suggest that the benefits of drug testing for youthful offenders can be achieved with minimal surprise drug testing during the parole period (less than once per month). By keeping drug testing at a minimum, an agency could avoid a good deal of the cost of drug testing and could conserve time and resources, savings that could be diverted to providing additional services to parolees. Reducing the amount of drug testing would also mean, however, that agencies would have to find other, less direct ways to monitor the drug use behavior of their parolees and to document parole activities and parolee compliance. Parole adjustment and criminal behavior (as measured by arrests) did not improve with frequent drug testing (more than once per month). Indeed, groups tested at higher levels tended to have slightly worse outcomes. Somewhat surprisingly, these youthful parolees appeared to have relatively low levels of drug use during the study period: only about 9 percent of all drug tests were positive. The researchers also found, however, that positive drug tests during the first few months of parole appeared to be good indicators of increased risk for criminal behavior later on. Drug testing during the early parole period may, therefore, serve as a relatively straightforward risk assessment procedure. ----------------------------- How to Get At-A-Glance Materials Materials are available at: o NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij, or o NCJRS, puborder@ncjrs.org, 1-800-851-3420, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000. The summaries in this section are based on the following: Research in Progress Seminars. At these seminars, scholars discuss their ongoing research and preliminary findings with an audience of researchers and criminal justice professionals. Sixty-minute VHS videotapes of the Research in Progress seminars are available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) at 1-800-851-3420. Videotaped seminars are $19 ($24 in Canada and other countries). NIJ Final Reports. These final submissions from NIJ grantees typically are available from NCJRS through interlibrary loan. In some cases, photocopies may be obtained for a fee. For information about these reports and possible fees, contact NCJRS. NIJ Publications. Some of the information here is summarized from recent NIJ publications, which are available from the NIJ Web site or by contacting NCJRS. Refer to the documents' accession (ACN) or NCJ numbers. ----------------------------- New & Noteworthy NIJ's New Acting Director Julie E. Samuels was appointed by Attorney General Janet Reno in April to be the Acting Director of NIJ after Jeremy Travis left the position to join the Urban Institute. (See NIJ Journal, April 2000, "Departing Thoughts From an NIJ Director," p. 22.) Ms. Samuels has served in many capacities since she joined the Department of Justice in 1979, primarily with the Criminal Division. Most recently, she served as Director for Policy of the division's Office of Policy and Legislation. Her office has participated in many of the Department's initiatives to reduce violent crime, counter illegal drugs, improve justice in Indian Country, and investigate trans-national crimes. Over the years, Ms. Samuels has worked closely with the Office of Justice Programs on a variety of projects and has been a strong advocate for using research and data to inform criminal justice policy and practice at all levels of government. At NIJ, she plans to continue the Institute's commitment to science and to supporting independent and high-quality research. She particularly looks forward to the challenge of translating research investments into useful knowledge for the field of practitioners and policymakers. Ms. Samuels has been involved with many special projects at the Department of Justice, including the Secretariat for the Chemical Action Task Force, which was created to ensure that precursor and essential chemicals were not diverted to manufacture illicit drugs. She was also Director of the Police Hiring Task Force, which established the $150 million Police Hiring Supplement Program that was the pilot for the subsequent COPS program. Ms. Samuels taught a summer seminar for Duke University's Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs (1989-91). She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with an A.B. in political science and received a Masters of Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Public Policy. Experiment Demonstrates How to Hold Batterers Accountable Research has not yet shown definitively which approaches work best to prevent domestic violence offenders from reoffending, but court mandates for batterer intervention, swift and certain sanctions, and collaborative strategies appear to be promising. To test one approach about what works to prevent domestic violence, NIJ and the Violence Against Women Office (VAWO) are sponsoring a demonstration project designed to hold domestic violence offenders accountable through intensive judicial supervision. The project, called the Judicial Oversight Demonstration Initiative, involves building on a community's existing coordinated response system for offenders and victims. For offenders, components of the initiative include intense supervision by the judge, graduated sanctions, and participation in batterer intervention programs. For victims, advocacy and other domestic violence services will be enhanced. From 12 sites that competed to participate in the demonstration, 3 were selected: Boston, Milwaukee, and Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor). Each site will receive up to $2 million for an initial 18 months of program activities. Depending on congressional funding, the sites will receive comparable financial support for the duration of the 5-year effort. Technical support is being provided by the Vera Institute of Justice; a rigorous multisite evaluation is being conducted by the Urban Institute. For more information, contact Angela Moore Parmley at NIJ (202-307-0145, parmleya@ojp.usdoj.gov) or Ed Seighman at the Violence Against Women Office (202-305-2649, seighman@ojp.usdoj.gov). Initiatives in Indian Country Communities in Indian Country have a unique relationship with the Federal Government and its law enforcement agencies. The Departments of Justice and Interior have initiated an effort to address the compelling need for improved law enforcement and the administration of criminal and juvenile justice in Indian Country. NIJ, which is supporting research on various aspects of law enforcement and criminal justice in Indian Country, participated in a series of regional meetings with tribal leaders, representatives of tribal justice systems, tribal practitioners, researchers, and representatives of Federal agencies. Participants exchanged information about promising practices and shared strategies on alcohol and substance abuse programs serving American Indian and Alaska Native people. In a related effort, proposals have been received from parties interested in conducting a participatory evaluation of the Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community and Law Enforcement (CIRCLE) project. A 3-year comprehensive Federal initiative, CIRCLE is designed to empower Native American communities to more effectively fight crime, violence, and substance abuse. Announcement of the awards is expected this fall. For more information about NIJ's research portfolio on Indian Country, contact Winnie Reed at 202-307-2952, winnie@ojp.usdoj.gov. For more information about other Office of Justice Programs activities in Indian Country, contact Norena Henry at 202-616-3205, henry@ojp.usdoj.gov. Rural and Small Technology Center Opens in Hazard, Kentucky The regional National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers (NLECTC) will soon have a new component. Congress recently directed NIJ to begin work on the Rural Law Enforcement Training and Technology Center in Hazard, Kentucky. NIJ Deputy Director David Boyd joined Representative Harold Rogers (R-KY) and FBI Director Louis Freeh at the ground-breaking ceremony on April 27. The Center will focus on technologies for rural and small agencies and will contain a distance learning lab, a driving simulator, a firearms simulator, a global information systems training and tracking system, and teleconferencing and video production facilities. The Hazard Center is expected to be open for business in fall 2000. The NLECTC system responds to the needs of State and local agencies for the latest research and development and technology assistance. The Centers identify technologies that meet specific requirements, assist in the introduction and demonstration of new technologies, disseminate information, provide advice and technical assistance, and help commercialize technologies. Despite the individual specialties of each Center, the facilities work together to form a seamless web of support, technology development, and information. For more information, visit the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center at http://www.nlectc.org, or contact Marc Caplan, 202-307-2956, caplanm@ojp.usdoj.gov. ----------------------------- Events ADAM Holds Its 4th Annual Meeting For the past 4 years, NIJ has sponsored an annual ADAM conference where participants can share ideas, exchange solutions to mutual problems, converse about topics of interest to the larger community of drug researchers, and strengthen their networks with others who are doing similar work. For 2 days last May, 190 ADAM site directors, researchers, and government policymakers gathered at the 4th Annual ADAM Conference. This year's conference featured presentations on ADAM trend data, the newly fielded ADAM interview instrument, and probability-based sampling plans. In addition, several workshops and roundtable discussions were held on local coordinating councils; local partnerships; juvenile instrumentation and data collection; gang, firearm, domestic violence, and HIV/AIDS instrumentation and data collection; supplemental funding opportunities; outreach data collection; NIJ research and evaluation grants; crime mapping research; drug testing technology; and the international ADAM program. For more information, visit the ADAM Web site at http://www. Adam-NIJ.net, or contact Bruce Taylor, Deputy Director, 202-305-1764. Technology Fair Draws Crowd on Capitol Hill For 3 years, NIJ has been called upon to conduct a technology fair for Members of Congress and their staff. This year's event took place May 24-25 in the Rayburn House Office Building. Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) sponsored the 2-day event, which showcased the latest developments in law enforcement and corrections technology. In conjunction with the technology fair, staff from the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers briefed Members of Congress and their staff on the operations of the Center system. Technologies on display included devices, equipment, and techniques related to video and audio enhancements; less-than-lethal approaches; equipment to protect officers; DNA testing; explosives detection and remediation; communications interoperability; counterterrorism; concealed weapons detection; and computer forensics. UN Congress Stimulates Global Networks The globalization of crime increasingly makes U.S. efforts to combat it an urgent priority, and international cooperation is a major element in these efforts. As part of its outreach to the international criminal justice community, NIJ participated in April in the 10th United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders. The Congress--which is held every 5 years--took place in Vienna, Austria. The major themes of the Congress were transnational organized crime, promoting the rule of law, combating corruption, community crime prevention, the role of women in the criminal justice system, and cybercrime. Staff from NIJ, along with representatives from the Departments of Justice and State, comprised the official U.S. delegation. A particular focus of the NIJ participants was to urge UN member states to engage in more rigorous evaluation of crime prevention programs to assess effectiveness and to expand the use of restorative justice. NIJ displayed a variety of materials on U.S. crime research and arranged a panel presentation dealing with women as victims and survivors of abuse and crime. The aim of the panel was to sensitize the attendees to the importance of confronting global problems such as trafficking in women and girls. NIJ's participation in international activities such as the Congress helps further both the formal and informal networks between the United States and other nations. These networks have led--and will continue to lead--to fruitful, collaborative research efforts on transnational crime. For more information, visit NIJ's International Center Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/international. How to Handle Prison Riots A former prison in Moundsville, West Virginia, became the site of a riot recently--a mock riot, staged as a training activity for corrections, law enforcement, and other public safety officers. The event showcased new and emerging technologies. NIJ's Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization (OLETC) in Wheeling, West Virginia, staged the fourth annual riot at the former West Virginia State Penitentiary so that participants could gain hands-on training through realistic scenarios that involved prison uprisings, hostage situations, and prison takeovers. Tactical teams from law enforcement and corrections agencies responded to the mock scenarios, which included a stabbing at an inmate basketball game, a cell-block takeover, a total-darkness capture, an uprising staged in the chapel, and a high-speed car escape. Medical, fire, and emergency response personnel also participated in support roles to treat and evacuate the "injured." Criminal justice students from Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia served as inmates and hostages. The training showcases new and developing law enforcement and corrections technologies, which cover everything from night vision devices, security systems, officer protection products, and less-than-lethal weapons to prisoner restraints, communications devices, and personnel location and tracking systems. For more information about the riot or to obtain a videotape of the 1999 mock prison riot video, contact OLETC at 1-888-306-5382, or visit the Web page of the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center, called JUSTNET, at http://www.nlectc.org. Bomb Technicians Learn New Technology Technology for disabling bombs continues to be refined and developed with NIJ funding. Recently, NIJ staff participated in training on how to use a new device called the flying plate disrupter, which is being developed by the Naval Surface Warfare Center with NIJ funding. The flying plate disrupter is an inexpensive, easily transportable mechanism that can safely neutralize large explosive devices, such as fuel-fertilizer bombs. The technology is being tested in a 6-month pilot program with an FBI-sponsored working group involving bomb squads from Kansas and Missouri. The program will yield design specifications by 2001. For more information, visit the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center Web page at http://www.nlectc.org. --------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, DC 20531 Janet Reno Attorney General Daniel Marcus Acting Associate Attorney General Mary Lou Leary Acting Assistant Attorney General Julie E. Samuels Acting Director, National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov National Institute of Justice World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), a centralized national clearinghouse of criminal justice information, is sponsored by the Office of Justice Programs agencies and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Registered users of NCJRS receive the NIJ Journal and NCJRS Catalog free. To become a registered user, write NCJRS User Services, P.O. Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, call 800-851-3420, or e-mail askncjrs@ncjrs.org. Visit the NCJRS World Wide Web site at http://www.ncjrs.org. The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. JR000244 JR000244