National Institute of Justice Journal #230. Series: NIJ Journal Published: February 1996 66 pages 174,684 bytes CONTENTS FEATURE Thinking Globally To Act Locally: NIJ Improves Worldwide Access to Criminal Justice Information RESEARCH IN ACTION The Crime Act One Year Later: NIJ's Role Prison-Based Therapeutic Communities: Their Success With Drug-Abusing Offenders Violence Against Women: Reflections on NIJ's Research Agenda Street Gang Migration: How Big a Threat? Rethinking Criminal Justice Policy: A View From the Research Community Update on CALEA Study -------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- The National Institute of Justice Journal (previously known as NIJ Reports) 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. 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 National Institute of Justice Journal and Catalog free. To become a registered user, write NCJRS User Services, Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, call 800-851-3420, or e- mail askncjrs@ncjrs.aspensys.com. The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Office for Victims of Crime. ------------------------------------------------ Director's Message The past year was one of great promise for criminal justice. Most notably, the Crime Act of 1994 passed its first-year milestone, and although its future remains uncertain, much has been accomplished, in program areas and in research and evaluation. At NIJ, we began an ambitious new research agenda in response to the Act as well as to other major issues of concern to the public and criminal justice. Thus, this issue of the Journal includes a retrospective of our Crime Act-related activities and a discussion of NIJ activity generated by Title IV, the Violence Against Women Act. Drug-related crime and gang crime are treated by prominent researchers. Douglas Lipton explains why there is cause for optimism regarding the efficacy of treatment for drug-abusing offenders; and Cheryl Maxson argues that although gangs continue to plague our communities, the diffusion of gang members from urban areas appears not to be as dramatic a factor in influencing gang activity as had been believed. Ensuring that research findings make their way into practice is a special interest of NIJ, and strengthening ties between researchers and practitioners is one means to that end. NIJ was gratified when the Attorney General asked the American Society of Criminology (ASC) to identify recent research findings that could inform crime control policy. Summaries of the ASC reports are presented here. There is also an update on NIJ's involvement in an area in which I take particular pride. When President Clinton addressed the United Nations on the 50th anniversary of its founding, he noted that the lines between crime committed at home and abroad are becoming increasingly blurred. The steps we are taking to improve communication of criminal justice information worldwide are included here. I want to express my gratitude for the response from practitioners and researchers to the changes at NIJ and to ask for your continued input. For our part, we at NIJ anticipate a year in which we will move closer to translating these changes into better criminal justice operations. Jeremy Travis Director National Institute of Justice ---------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- Thinking Globally To Act Locally: NIJ Improves Worldwide Access to Criminal Justice Information by G. Martin Lively The adage of the environmental movement, "Think globally, act locally," also has meaning for criminal justice. Increasingly, to be effective requires thinking beyond the local or even the national level. The problem of organized crime in Moscow is an example. To the police chiefs and sheriffs responsible for controlling crime in U.S. towns, cities, and counties, their Russian counterparts' concern may seem foreign in more ways than one. Consumed by urgent problems at home -- gun-related crime, drug offenses, gangs, and youth violence -- law enforcement officials are likely to have little time to contemplate events occurring almost halfway around the globe. But if they become aware that Russian organized crime is emigrating to Brooklyn, they may want to learn more about crime trends in Moscow. The appearance of Russian organized crime in this country exemplifies the increase in transnational crime1 and is one reason criminal justice practitioners need to be apprised of what is happening outside the U.S. It is only one example of the way in which crime no longer respects national borders, a development noted by President Clinton in his address at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.2 As the lines between local crime and international crime become more and more blurred, the need for information about these trends is growing as is the need for access to it. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which has long been active in promoting international information exchange, is expanding its role in response to these new realities. NIJ is lending its expertise to help create the technical capacity that can meet the new needs and is emphasizing better access to research-based knowledge. The need For a long time, drug trafficking embodied the impact of international crime in the U.S. Now other forms signal the growing crossnationalization of criminal activity. The transnational character of organized crime is one particularly pernicious development. Facilitated by recent trends toward economic and political liberalization and by advanced methods of communication, crime committed halfway around the globe yesterday can mean crime committed at home today. The rise in transnational crime is one force spurring the need for better international exchange of information in criminal justice and for faster, easier, worldwide access. The necessity for collaboration among nations to control this type of crime is fairly easy to understand because of obvious bilateral or multilateral interests. There are other trends in which the need for international exchange may not be so evident. Crime and crime-related problems are becoming strikingly familiar, irrespective of geography. One such problem is juvenile offending, which is reportedly escalating steadily worldwide.3 At the recent quinquennial United Nations Congress on crime, many issues familiar to criminal justice agencies in the U.S. -- urban crime, juvenile crime, and violence against women- -were on the agenda. They are becoming familiar in other countries as well as our own.4 Forms of crime unknown until recently can have effects at the national and even the local level although they are committed in the international arena. Trafficking in weapons-grade nuclear materials, the sale of human organs for transplant purposes, the many manifestations of computer crime (the sale of bootlegged software, for example), crimes involving electronic funds transfer, and environmental crime are among the many relatively new transnational crimes that have become or threaten to become issues of concern to criminal justice agencies in the United States. The response Fortunately, parallel with the new needs are new means to meet them. NIJ is responding by expanding its use of advanced information technologies, with a major focus on the Internet, to transmit information, including research-based knowledge, and to serve as a "broker" of information and promoter of information exchange worldwide. With criminals becoming more sophisticated and using advanced communication technologies to commit crime, law enforcement, prosecution, and other components of criminal justice need to be proficient in their use as well. The global reach of the Internet means that the criminal justice community can tap resources worldwide and communicate rapidly, easily, and inexpensively. The political changes that have created new freedoms and opened borders in a number of countries have also made it easier to commit and export crime. Establishing institutions that are the foundation of an orderly society is a major part of the rebuilding process in these societies. To assist the emerging democracies, NIJ is developing a system that will give them online access to information they can use to create institutions based on the rule of law. With foreign-based criminal activity increasingly affecting domestic crime, NIJ research in international crime takes on an added dimension. And the growing similarity of crime trends worldwide means that criminal justice agencies in the U.S. can benefit from the knowledge and experience of their counterparts in other parts of the world. For this reason, NIJ is supporting research that examines how local issues are dealt with elsewhere. Streamlining information transmission and dissemination The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) has been transformed recently to permit electronic access and is a key component of NIJ's new international strategy. Since its creation more than 20 years ago under NIJ sponsorship, NCJRS has functioned as an international as well as a national clearinghouse of criminal justice information. It is the central access point for information from all the bureaus of the Office of Justice Programs.5 NCJRS went online several years ago, and in 1995 began to link users via the Internet as well as by modem to criminal justice resources around the world. With a presence on the World Wide Web, NCJRS "points" users through hypertext links embedded in the system to resources in repositories scattered all over the world. Online access enables users to order documents or download them to their personal computers, and special software (available free of charge) also enables them to view onscreen or print the documents exactly as they appear in the conventionally published version. Using their personal computers, they can obtain news about criminal justice developments and announcements of forthcoming events. They can obtain reference and referral assistance in response to questions about criminal justice issues and request customized searches for special topics.6 Linking information resources worldwide NIJ's international focus predates the Internet by many years. The 1968 legislation mandating the creation of NIJ called for an international as well as a national clearinghouse of criminal justice information. "NCJRS International," which handles clearinghouse services for users based in other countries, responds to hundreds of requests annually from around the world. An electronic bulletin board service is devoted exclusively to international criminal justice topics. Links to the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network and the World Criminal Justice Libraries Network (WCJLN), through NCJRS International, offer users access to these resources. International clearinghouse services. One of the major components of NCJRS International is a program for the exchange of criminal justice publications and other documents among countries.7 The International Document Exchange (IDE), as it is called, now has members in 52 countries. The IDE is one of the sources from which information about international issues enters the NCJRS data base. (About 20 percent of the data base consists of documents originating in countries other than the U.S.) The essential benefit of membership is easy access to criminal justice research worldwide. The IDE aids researchers in the United States because member organizations deposit their major publications in it and they help researchers in this country locate information sources abroad. Access to international research -- UNOJUST. Research-based information housed in a number of repositories abroad will be more easily accessible thanks to a system that links them all electronically. The repositories -- the 12 criminal justice research institutes affiliated with the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme -- are located in Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. With the assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice, the State University of New York at Albany developed UNCJIN (the United Nations Criminal Justice Information Network), an automated system currently used for communicating and exchanging criminal justice information. UNCJIN consists of a document data base in gopher format and a listserv (electronic discussion forum). Now, NIJ, which recently joined the ranks of the U.N.-affiliated institutes, is working with the Programme Network and the U.N. Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch to develop an Internet-based system, called UNOJUST (the United Nations Online Justice Clearinghouse). When UNOJUST is up and running, researchers based in the United States and in other countries will have access to the holdings of all other member institutes. New acquisitions will be brought to their attention, they will have access to a calendar of events occurring worldwide in the criminal justice community, e-mail will be available for feedback, and they will be able to download holdings. World Wide Web technology will make the process of finding documents and other information even easier. NIJ also is working with the State Department, exploring ways to assist other countries and nongovernment organizations in establishing Internet connectivity and to further build the U.N.'s digital library capacity. Information for emerging democracies. In the states of the former Soviet Union and in other countries where democratic forms of government are just emerging, there is a pressing need for information about how to build institutions on a foundation of law, a prerequisite for an orderly society. Teaming up with the Eurasia Foundation, NIJ is creating an electronic library for exchanging information about this and related topics. The International Rule of Law (ROL) Clearinghouse Project Online, as it is called, will constitute a virtual reference collection directing users to the resources of libraries worldwide that contain relevant documents that can be used to aid in reforming legislative institutions, legal processes, and justice administration. Though this Internet-based system focuses on the information needs of people who are involved in reforming legal institutions and improving criminal justice in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, it is already available to users elsewhere. The project is being developed by an NIJ Visiting Fellow, Sergey Chapkey, formerly a prosecutor in Ukraine. Like UNOJUST, the Rule of Law project exemplifies one of the most useful aspects of the Internet. Today, the sheer volume of information on almost any given topic makes it impossible for a single repository to house it all. Decentralization has become the watchword. Now, repositories need not expand their physical collections because users can have access via the Internet to resources available in the far corners of the globe. The Internet creates pointers or pathways to documents physically housed in many locations. In addition to access to document collections, ROL will make bibliographies available, offer information about Internet technical assistance programs, and provide a public bulletin board for the exchange of information and a news section where users can join electronic discussion groups. A "byproduct" of ROL will be increased understanding of the potential of the Internet. Software packages containing everything needed to connect to and use the Internet will be made available at no cost. Promoting internationally focused research The implications of international crime for this country have long been a concern of NIJ, and recent Institute-sponsored research has dealt with such topics as Asian organized crime, Colombian drug trafficking, and Soviet emigre-organized crime networks. With global crime becoming increasingly a local affair, NIJ's focus will continue. An international working group was recently established in NIJ to promote, facilitate, and coordinate the international research and development efforts of the Institute. New research. Because of the effects at home of transnational crime, local law enforcement is becoming more aware of the need to confront it. A study now under way by NIJ Visiting Fellow William McDonald is seeking to identify innovations in coping with transnational crime and to find other ways to enhance the response. He is examining what law enforcement is doing at State and local levels, with an emphasis on crime committed by and against illegal aliens in this country. In addition to identifying the needs of law enforcement, the obstacles the system faces, and the demands being made on it, the study also will examine how Federal, State, and local enforcement agencies share responsibility for dealing with transnational crime and will look at the institutions established to ensure cooperation with enforcement agencies in other countries. Because many crimes common in the United States also are becoming common elsewhere, criminal justice agencies in this country can benefit from what is known by their counterparts around the world and, equipped with this knowledge, can improve practice. Familiarity with their experiences in responding to crime can help build the knowledge base here. For example, the U.S. adopted the model of day fines developed in Scandinavian countries. In the day fine system, the amount of an offender's fine is tied to daily earnings. Currently under way at NIJ are studies based on experiences in Canada: municipal policing, the sociopolitical dynamics of violence, and the effects of hate crime legislation. Conversely, criminal justice agencies abroad can benefit from what is known in the United States. How problem-solving policing is carried out in the United States is the subject of a study now under way under NIJ sponsorship by a researcher based in the United Kingdom. The researcher, Caroline Nicholl, a Harkness Fellow, intends to find out whether problem solving can be broadened to a more comprehensive approach that involves the other components of the criminal justice system and addresses such related issues as community safety and restorative justice. The study results can help strengthen the capacity of criminal justice here as well as in the United Kingdom. Visitors from abroad. NIJ's program of Visiting Fellows actively recruits criminal justice researchers and practitioners from other countries as well as from within this country. They are able to exploit the rich resources of information available in the Nation's capital to aid in their research and to work and consult with American scholars, practitioners, and professionals. To formalize its longstanding interest in this area, NIJ is seeking accreditation with the U.S. Information Agency to become a sponsoring agency for the exchange visitor program. Technology -- counsel and information exchange. NIJ sponsors the development and adoption/adaption of technologies for law enforcement and corrections use through its Office of Science and Technology. In its relationship with other countries, the Office seeks their input and knowledge and in turn provides information they can use. The Office's advisory council, comprising officials and practitioners in law enforcement and corrections, offers input on technology priorities for consideration by NIJ. Foreign countries are represented among the council's 85 members. In addition, the Office is working with the police science development unit of the British Home Office to exchange information about technology development and is considering formalizing that relationship. A 5-year projection Building capacity. Freedom of the press, it is said, belongs to those who own the presses. The same can be said of Internet access. Though "ownership" of the Internet -- meaning access to it- -may not be the exclusive preserve of the developed world, it comes as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of Internet users are concentrated in the United States, Western Europe, and Australia. To be sure, connectivity is expanding rapidly, particularly outside the United States. But the need remains in many countries, especially those in Latin America and Africa. Access to the Internet is more a matter of know- how than funding. By serving as a broker of this knowledge, NIJ will not only be assisting other countries but helping itself as well. Use of the Internet to exchange information on a global basis can assist law enforcement and other components of criminal justice in this country that are dealing with transnational crime based abroad. NIJ will continue to work to increase worldwide use of electronic communication, with a focus on the Internet, for criminal justice officials. One way is by providing technical assistance in developing virtual libraries of criminal justice information. Another is by publicizing the scope of Internet-accessible resources. NIJ also can use the Internet and more conventional channels to make international users more aware of the services of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, particularly those available online. The current International Document Exchange program can be converted to an electronic network that might include, for example, the capacity to order documents online and to publish an online version of the IDE newsletter. Expanding resources. NIJ's recent affiliation with the U.N. Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network promises to open up new access to criminal justice information available around the world, information that in turn can assist policymakers and practitioners in the United States. The NCJRS Document Data Base can increase its international holdings and hence attract more users in the international criminal justice community. To foster communication, NIJ can make online guides available to the international community that include listings of federal law enforcement officials, criminal justice researchers, and international users of NCJRS, along with their e- mail addresses. These are only a few of the possibilities for consideration as NIJ expands its international focus. In an age of budget restraint, it is important to keep in mind that online communication, though requiring an upfront investment for hardware and software, generates savings in the long term. The cost-saving benefits of electronic publishing are one example. Also important for criminal justice, where rapid turnaround is often required, is the speed of online communication. Information can be updated almost as soon as it is generated and this, too, translates as cost savings. The foremost consideration in planning for future international activities, however, is their potential for reducing crime. There is every likelihood that the effects of transnational crime in this country will continue and even increase. As long as that is true, the concern and attention of criminal justice needs to extend beyond our shores. -------------------------------------------------- Getting to NCJRS Online From Anywhere in the World For Internet access to NCJRS Online through the The NCJRS URL address is http://www.ncjrs.org E-mail access: First-time users can send an e-mail message to look@ncjrs.aspensys.com to automatically receive a reply outlining NCJRS services. Users who wish to request specific information or services can send inquiries to askncjrs@ncjrs.aspensys.com. This enables international users to communicate directly with NCJRS staff and avoid the cost of an international phone call. -------------------------------------------------- NIJ at the United Nations Issues at the top of the criminal justice agenda in the United States -- violent crime, juvenile crime, violence against women, family violence, and child abuse -- are problems other countries worldwide are also facing. Although the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders held last spring in Cairo, Egypt, addressed crime that crosses borders -- firearms trafficking, international organized crime, and money laundering -- it also dealt with the kinds of "domestic" crimes that are becoming strikingly similar irrespective of geography.8 At the U.N. Congress, the major world forum for exchanging information and experiences about criminal justice issues, NIJ demonstrated how electronic communications technology can help in disseminating information and in linking practitioners, government administrators and officials, and researchers. In his keynote address to the workshop at which the demonstrations were presented, NIJ Director Jeremy Travis noted some of the new impetuses for the use of advanced information technology in criminal justice -- shared forms of crime, emerging types of crime, and the forces of economic globalization and liberalization that are helping to generate them. Facilitating worldwide information access. The NIJ-led demonstrations featured a presentation of the resources of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), now accessible via the Internet to the world community. "NCJRS Online" was discussed, as was NIJ's participation in designing the prototype of an Internet-based system of information exchange for the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme Network. The system, UNOJUST, will integrate the U.N.'s criminal justice information network with others. Joining the United Nations. NIJ's long-standing relationship with the United Nations was formalized at the U.N. Congress as NIJ became a member of the network of criminological research institutes affiliated with the U.N. The institutes, currently 12 in number, are joined under the leadership of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch. Headquartered in Vienna, the Branch is the central repository within the U.N. for technical expertise in crime prevention, criminal justice, and criminal law reform.9 For NIJ -- and through it, the criminal justice community in the United States -- affiliation has several benefits, among them the opportunity to provide input into the programs of the Branch, to request input into NIJ programs, and to obtain the services of experts associated with the Branch. For both signatories to the agreement, the new arrangement means greater opportunities to exchange information on criminal justice issues. NIJ also pledged to cooperate with the U.N. in assistance projects that would upgrade law enforcement and criminal justice systems in developing countries. -------------------------------------------------- Notes 1. Transnational crime is crime that violates the laws of several sovereignties or that is committed in one sovereignty and affects another. 2. The globalization of American crime problems is treated in Mueller, Gerhard O.W., et al., "American Crime Problems from a Global Perspective," Report of a Task Force of the American Society of Criminology for the Attorney General," unpublished paper, March 15, 1995:6. A summary of all task force reports is presented elsewhere in this issue of the National Institute of Justice Journal, and the full reports will be published by the National Institute of Justice. 3. United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Newsletter, 22/23 (July 1993):11, 12. 4. United Nations, "The Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 29 April-10 May 1995, Cairo, Egypt," no date. 5. In addition to NIJ, the OJP bureaus are the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Office for Victims of Crime, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. NCJRS also serves as a clearinghouse for information about the Office of National Drug Control Policy. 6. The NCJRS users' manual was recently revised and updated to reflect the new online services. It was published as NCJRS User's Guide, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 1995 (NCJ 155063). 7. The NCJRS International Coordinator can be reached by e-mail at askncjrs@ncjrs.aspensys.com or by phone at 800-851-3420 (outside the U.S. call 01-301-251-5500). 8. For an overview of the U.N. Crime Congress, see "Crime Congress Targets Terrorist Crimes, Firearms Regulation, and Transnational Crime," in CJ International, 11, 4 (July-August 1995), 1, 4-6. 9. Organizationally, the Branch is the secretariat of the United Nations' Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, which is a body of the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council. --------------------- G. Martin Lively, J.D., Director, International Program, National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, serves as NIJ's international liaison and technical information officer. He can be reached by e-mail at lively@justice.usdoj.gov and by fax at 202-307- 6256. --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- The Crime Act One Year Later: NIJ's Role Six years in the making and described as "the largest crime bill in the history of the country," the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 provided major new opportunities for the National Institute of Justice to launch research and evaluation initiatives. These undertakings will be in the areas of community policing, violence against women, drug courts, and boot camps. Community policing Within a year after the Crime Act's passage, NIJ awarded about $14 million in research and evaluation grants related to the Act's Title I, the Public Safety Partnership and Community Policing Act of 1994. Although probably best known for helping to fund deployment of thousands of additional police officers on the streets of the Nation's towns and cities and for supporting the expansion of community policing, Title I also calls for funds for evaluations and research related to community policing. Under Title I, NIJ is sponsoring evaluations designed to document how well community policing approaches are working. In addition, the Institute is supporting a large number of evaluations and research studies in such areas as organizational and management issues in community policing; the police and the community; and strategies, tactics, and programs that address crime and disorderly conditions. An area of special interest is the locally initiated research involving ongoing collaborations between police agencies and researchers. Illustrative of how NIJ has incorporated Title I provisions into its ongoing community policing research and evaluation activities are such recently awarded grants as the following: o Documenting and publicizing selected best practices and innovations in community policing. o Surveying police executives nationwide to determine their assessment of organizational readiness for community policing and the extent to which the additional funding provided by Title I advances the purposes of the statute. o Examining major elements of organizational transformation to community policing through a survey of police executives and through case studies of cities on the cutting edge of community policing. o Analyzing the relationship between citizen involvement in community policing and long-term outcomes. o Determining how residents in several neighborhoods learn about crime and disorder, how they shape their everyday lives to reduce risk, and how community policing affects citizen perceptions of fear and disorder. o Forming a partnership between university-based researchers and a police department to facilitate implementation of community policing by identifying and testing strategies for improving cooperation and building trust between police and citizens who may not share the same language or cultural heritage. Such NIJ-sponsored research and evaluations address the dual challenge that Congress wrote into Title I: ensure accountability and learn from doing. That is, evaluation findings will help document the effectiveness of funded programs, and the knowledge base built through research can be applied to reshape programs and create new ones. Violence against women NIJ also has responded quickly to provisions of the 1994 Crime Act relating to violence against women (Title IV), including the special needs of women in minority and Indian communities. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, nearly 5 million women experience violence annually. Title IV, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), provides funding for a variety of enforcement and prosecution programs. They include training law enforcement officers; developing, implementing, or expanding enforcement and prosecution units; devising more effective policies and services for police and prosecutors; collecting data; providing and strengthening victim services; and implementing anti-stalking programs. To determine the effectiveness of such programs, NIJ has awarded approximately $1 million for studies and evaluations, such as: o Evolution and patterns of stalking behavior; effects of stalking on victims; needs of stalking victims; factors related to subsequent violence in stalking cases; and the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of legal mechanisms for protecting stalking victims. o Identification of prosecution strategies associated with convictions on the original charges in domestic violence cases. o Nationwide evaluation of the activities funded under VAWA's law enforcement and prosecution provisions, conducted to develop and strengthen effective law enforcement, prosecution, and victim services in cases involving crimes against women. NIJ was designated to participate in a number of VAWA-authorized studies and to help prepare related reports in these areas: (1) a research agenda to increase the understanding and control of violence against women, including rape and domestic violence (through an interagency agreement with the National Academy of Sciences); (2) procedures by which States may develop centralized data bases on the incidence of sexual and domestic violence offenses; (3) medical and psychological basis of battered women's syndrome, and the extent to which evidence of the syndrome has been considered in criminal trials; (4) the means by which abusive spouses may obtain information concerning the addresses or locations of estranged or former spouses despite the desire of the victims to have such information withheld to avoid further exposure to abuse; and (5) information concerning the incidence of stalking and domestic violence, and evaluations regarding the effectiveness of State anti-stalking efforts and legislation. In awarding the grants and participating in the studies, NIJ builds on its broad experience in conducting research and evaluations in spouse assault, child abuse, and sexual assault. NIJ's family violence program now encompasses more than 20 projects. Drug courts NIJ is currently reviewing proposals solicited in response to the Crime Act's call for research and evaluative studies of drug courts. For purposes of Federal grants, a drug court is a specially designed court calendar or docket whose purpose is to reduce recidivism and substance abuse among adult and juvenile substance-abusing offenders and increase the likelihood of their successful rehabilitation through early, continuous, and judicially supervised treatment; mandatory periodic drug testing; use of graduated sanctions; and other rehabilitation services. The Institute anticipates awarding up to $1 million in fiscal year 1996 to support research in the development of drug court typologies and on the determinants of drug court success. The funds will also support impact evaluations of existing drug courts. The research and evaluation will be closely coordinated with the Office of Justice Programs' Drug Court Office and Bureau of Justice Assistance, which provide grants to support State and local drug courts. Boot camps NIJ-sponsored boot camp evaluations related to the corrections provisions of the Crime Act will be conducted in two phases. In the first, now under way, NIJ is seeking to support evaluations of the impact of existing boot camps (those established before the availability of Crime Act funding). Findings are expected to contribute to the development of boot camp programs receiving Crime Act assistance. Phase-2 evaluations will focus on evaluations of the impact of selected boot camps funded under the Act. NIJ anticipates allocating up to $1.2 million to the two sets of evaluations. The ultimate objectives of this research are to expand the knowledge base and to provide a firm foundation for the future expansion, development, and implementation of adult and juvenile boot camp programs at State and county levels. More specifically, NIJ expects to sponsor research and evaluations that will add to the understanding of the effects of boot camp practices on inmates' behavior, public safety, the delivery of services, program costs and benefits, offenders' reintegration into the community, and the freeing of prison space for more violent offenders. Awards target priorities As a matter of policy, NIJ actively solicits views of criminal justice professionals to identify their most critical problems. The Institute pursued this policy within the research and evaluation framework developed for Crime Act programs. This was achieved, for example, by holding strategic planning sessions with criminal justice practitioners and researchers so that NIJ's Act-based solicitations and awards would address appropriate objectives and priorities. By so doing, the Institute enhances the usefulness of research to prevent and control crime and to improve the criminal justice system. ----------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------- Prison-Based Therapeutic Communities: Their Success With Drug-Abusing Offenders by Douglas S. Lipton The link between drugs and crime has been well established by research, but if reducing crime is a goal everyone agrees with, not everyone agrees that providing drug treatment to offenders is a worthwhile way to achieve that goal. Nevertheless, given the dramatic increase in the Nation's prison population -- fueled largely by a major influx of drug-using offenders -- it seems logical to consider the criminal justice system as a site for treatment. Evidence suggests that when drug offenders are outside the criminal justice system, they do not seek and are not interested in treatment -- a further argument for providing it while they are in custody. Moreover, there is broad public support for rehabilitating offenders in custody as a means of controlling crime. Perhaps most important is the growing body of research-based evidence that indicates treatment for drug-abusing offenders can work. This article brings together some of that evidence, focusing on the therapeutic community (TC) model, an approach that addresses the myriad problems of the lifestyle of addiction as well as the drug use itself. (See "What Is a Therapeutic Community?") Recently published evaluative studies of TC programs in several States, targeted to diverse populations and including offenders with histories of violent offending, substantiate major accomplishments with incarcerated drug-abusing felons. The studies show remarkably consistent reductions in recidivism for offenders who complete the programs. This evidence, combined with the current environment relatively favorable to rehabilitation, offers a window of opportunity for establishing treatment interventions that have been documented by research and supported by practice.1 The need The high proportion of substance abusers among people arrested and the even higher proportion among those incarcerated2 drives the need for in- custody treatment. In 1994, for the first time, the Nation's prison population passed the 1 million mark, having doubled in the past decade.3 The total number of adults in the criminal justice system now stands at almost 5 million.4 Much of this growth has come from the increased number of drug-abusing offenders. With the advent of crack use in the mid-1980's, the already strong relationship between drugs and crime heightened and swelled the ranks of inmates.5 By the end of the 1980's, about one-third of the people in State prisons were there because of drug offenses -- the highest proportion in history6 -- and 60 to 70 percent have a history of substance abuse. Drug-using offenders not only crowd the Nation's prisons, they also are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, and among them are the most predatory criminals. Compared to offenders who do not use drugs, drug-using "violent predators" commit many more robberies, burglaries, other thefts, and other crime.7 Studies have shown that heroin use tends to accelerate users' crime rate.8 Crack-related crime rates are as high or even higher than heroin- related crime, according to initial studies, and crack-related crime is certainly more violent.9 Drug-using felons constitute a disproportionate share of repeat offenders because they are a primary source of failure on parole. They are likely both to return to cocaine and/or heroin use shortly after their release and to become reinvolved in other criminal activity.10 During times when drug-abusing offenders are not incarcerated, they do not seek treatment and have no interest in it.11 All these factors combine to create a strong argument for treating offenders while they are in custody. What treatment is available now? In-custody drug treatment programs currently receive low priority, although that is changing. Only 4 percent of the prison population received drug treatment in 1979, but by 1991 the number had risen so that 13.5 percent of State prisoners and 7.2 percent of Federal prisoners were enrolled in drug programs.12 This represents a sizable increase, but still the majority of inmates with substance abuse problems do not receive in-custody treatment.15 In the Federal prison system, treatment has been spotty and slow in coming. Only 10 years ago, programming of all kinds for drug abusers served fewer than 4,200 inmates. Today, by contrast, the 30 percent of Federal prisoners with moderate to severe drug problems are treated in 34 residential TC's, and those with less severe problems also receive services. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) also provides for continuity of treatment on release. Depending on the outcome of the evaluation now under way,16 the comprehensive treatment strategy developed by the BOP in 1990 may serve as a model the States can use to create their own programs. Treatment for drug abusers in jails is more limited than in prison (although this is to be expected given the brief stay).18 A recent study which revealed that only 6.7 percent of jail inmates were enrolled in drug treatment, concluded that the need is acute.19 Treatment services were enhanced in many States as a result of Project REFORM, sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and Project RECOVERY, now funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. Begun in 1987 and adopted in 12 States, REFORM implemented, expanded, or improved many treatment components. Four years later, RECOVERY continued what REFORM had begun, providing technical assistance and training to demonstration programs. These programs did much to lay the groundwork for effective prison-based treatment. Other priorities. Today, corrections officials continue to have overriding concerns that can prevent them from assigning priority to treatment. They need to ensure adequate space to house inmates, and their budgets reflect that priority. Some see other problems with prison-based treatment programs, believing, for example, that it becomes difficult to manage inmate housing. Despite the objections, correctional authorities have begun to recognize the benefits of prison- based drug treatment programs (enhanced security, for example) and have given them greater priority during the past decade. The shifting attitudes toward treatment Perhaps the most important aspect of Project REFORM was its catalytic effect on the correctional community. Information about the principles of effective correctional change and the efficacy of prison-based treatment was disseminated, and it is likely that the receptivity of correctional officials to onsite drug programs increased as a result. This was part of the ideological shift away from the notion of "just deserts" that had characterized State corrections since the mid- 1970's and toward rehabilitation. In the past 20 years, corrections has been noteworthy for its failure to pursue rehabilitative goals. The anti- rehabilitation backlash grew out of research findings that were matched with deeply held beliefs regarding punishment, "just deserts," and general deterrence.20 I am partly responsible for this because the cynical notion that "nothing works" emerged from a summary of a 1975 study of the effectiveness of correctional treatment, which I conducted with other researchers.21 The summary's central conclusion was that "with few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have no appreciable effect on recidivism."22 The conclusion of our study was more guarded: "[T]he field of corrections has not as yet found satisfactory ways to reduce recidivism by significant amounts."23 Few people who espoused the view that nothing works questioned the validity of the research on which it was based or understood the problems in the design of most treatment programs and in the methodologies used to evaluate them. They also did not see that our study left open the possibility that rehabilitation could work. Consequently, the nothing works attitude has been a major factor in the reluctance of many policymakers to support prison-based treatment. New research supports rehabilitation Before 1980, there were relatively few research studies of therapeutic communities in prison settings. Since about that time, a growing body of evaluation studies has come under careful scrutiny, with researchers concluding that certain rehabilitation programs effectively reduce recidivism (although some researchers continue to be pessimistic). The approaches examined here were the subjects of the first large-scale research evaluations to offer solid evidence of the effectiveness of prison-based therapeutic community treatment. The evaluations show that TC's can produce significant reductions in recidivism among chronic drug- abusing felons and consistency of such results over time. Stay'n Out, New York State The Stay'n Out prison-based TC program was begun in New York in 1977 by recovered addicts who were ex-offenders. The rationale for establishing prison-based TC's was the success of TC's based in the community. Research also showed that program success (reduced crime and substance abuse and increased employment) was related to the amount of time in treatment.24 Hence, the evaluation of the New York prison-based TC, conducted in 1984, aimed to assess effectiveness and also to test the "time-in-program" hypothesis. It was expected that the prison environment, where residents were likely to remain a relatively long time, would produce a lower dropout rate than the community- based TC's and make it easier to test the hypothesis.25 Stay'n Out was found to be successful in reducing recidivism (rearrest) for both men and women. They had a significantly lower arrest rate than those receiving no treatment and those receiving all other types of treatment. The central conclusion of the evaluation was that hard-core drug abusers who remain in the prison- based TC longer are much more likely to succeed than those who leave earlier, and as time in TC treatment increases, recidivism declines. This was revealed in findings that showed male and female clients do significantly better on parole if they remain in the program 9 to 12 months rather than terminating earlier (or later). Cornerstone Oregon State Hospital's Cornerstone Program is somewhat similar to Stay'n Out, although the former has more professional staff. Cornerstone is a 32-bed TC for correctional inmates that began in 1975. Two evaluation studies produced similar results.26 The first followed inmates for 3 years to find out whether they had returned to prison and whether they had been convicted of a crime. Cornerstone graduates were found more successful on both measures than program dropouts and a sample of Oregon parolees. For example, 71 percent of graduates stayed out of prison in the 3-year period, while only 26 percent of the dropouts did so. The second evaluation indicated a much higher percentage of graduates (three-fourths) stayed out of prison than did dropouts (37 percent). Moreover, more evidence was gathered in support of the "time-in program" hypothesis: Only a small percentage of those who dropped out after less than 2 months (8 percent) were arrested in the followup period. The arrest rate, the conviction rate, and the incarceration rate were lower for graduates than for each comparison group. And as time in treatment increased, recidivism declined. Cornerstone has now become a model for three additional therapeutic communities. California's Amity Prison TC California's decision to adopt a TC approach was made in response to the growing number of drug offenders in its corrections population. The Amity Prison TC program was established in 1989 to examine the effectiveness of a modified therapeutic community. Amity serves a 200-bed unit housing men with a history of drug abuse. Modeled on Stay'n Out, it consists of three phases lasting 12 months in all: observation, assessment, and orientation; involvement through encounter groups and counseling; and community reentry. The full course of treatment is a developmental growth process in which the resident becomes an increasingly responsible member of the community. Aftercare in a community-based TC is offered upon release. As measured by rates of reincarceration, the Amity Prison TC seems to be successful. An evaluation now under way examined outcomes for parolees 1 year after release and found that participants were reincarcerated less than either dropouts or parolees not in the program. Moreover, the reincarceration rate of those who completed both programs -- aftercare and the prison-based TC -- was lower than for parolees in the prison-based TC alone. While 63 percent of the control group was reincarcerated within a year after parole, this was true for only 26 percent of those who completed the program plus the aftercare. These rates are similar to those of Stay'n Out and compare favorably with national outcome evaluations of other community-based TC's. Findings regarding retention were also favorable: of those admitted to the prison TC, half have completed the program and one-third are still enrolled (and in good standing). The rest (17 percent) were dropped from the program or left on their own.27 Delaware's Key-Crest Key-Crest, in Delaware's correctional system, also is showing success in keeping participants drug- free and arrest-free. The program is built around two therapeutic communities: the Key, a prison- based TC for men; and the Crest, a residential work release center for men and women. The primary stage of treatment, the Key is modeled on Stay'n Out; it is a 12-month intensive residential TC based in the facility. Key-Crest is distinctive in offering a secondary stage of treatment -- a "transitional TC," the Crest -- a TC work release program. Inmates nearing release work for pay outside the institution while spending nonwork time in the setting of the TC. A third stage, not yet in operation, consists of after-care for released inmates living in the community. Inmates who participated in both phases tended to be more successful than others in staying drug- free and arrest-free. The researchers compared them with those in Key alone, those in Crest alone, and those who received only HIV prevention education. After 6 months, 94 percent of the Key- Crest group were drug-free and 92 percent were arrest-free. The figures for the HIV-education group were 38 and 62 percent, respectively. After 18 months, the Key-Crest participants (as well as Key-alone and Crest-alone) continued to do significantly better than the HIV-education group. A sound investment In addition to keeping people drug-free and out of prison, these programs are cost-effective -- a powerful argument in favor of implementation. It is true that programs like Stay'n Out cost about $3,000 to $4,000 more than the standard correctional cost per inmate per year, and programs like Cornerstone cost a little over twice as much because they have a higher number of professional staff members and lighter caseloads. However, the savings in crime-related and drug- use-associated costs pay for the treatment in about 2 to 3 years. It is an inescapable conclusion that treatment lowers crime and health costs as well as related social and criminal justice costs. The greater the investment in rehabilitating the most severe offender-addicts, the greater the probable impact. These studies have shown that chronic heroin and cocaine users (about 3 to 10 percent of all offenders), who commit a large percentage of crime, are responsive to TC treatment if it lasts long enough. This is cause for optimism about the ability to treat this type of offender. The studies also showed TC's are effective with diverse locales and populations, an unusual outcome in correctional evaluation research. Thus, there appears to be mounting evidence that high- rate addict-felons, each of whom commits many robberies and burglaries per year as well as many violent offenses, and each of whom may engage in thousands of drug transactions a year, can be helped. The evidence of a substantial reduction in recidivism promises to yield a tangible improvement in the quality of our lives through increased public safety. -------------------------------------------------- CDATE -- A Retrospective Overview of Evaluative Research To find out how effective drug treatment in general has been among offender populations, the Correctional Drug Abuse Treatment Effectiveness (CDATE) study was launched. Under the direction of National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., CDATE researchers are analyzing 25 years of research. Begun in 1994 with support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the study is giving special attention to drug offenders in custody although it is not limited to this group. CDATE is intended as a followup to the survey of evaluation studies published in 1975.17 Researchers are assembling and analyzing the findings of all evaluation studies conducted since 1968 here and abroad. Outcomes will include the following: o A data base of correctional treatment evaluation studies from all countries. o Evaluation of the studies' methodologies. o Meta-analysis of the effect of treatments on several outcomes, particularly drug abuse and recidivism. o Categorization of treatment by size, variety, type of clientele, goals, setting, and other factors. o Descriptions of policy implications of the findings. -------------------------------------------------- What Is a Therapeutic Community?13 Drug abuse treatment in prison, which began more than 50 years ago, has been influenced by the development of therapeutic communities (TC's). Grounded in the self-help tradition, TC's typically house clients in residential settings that offer opportunities for intensive intervention and support that may not be available on an outpatient basis. The original TC for drug addiction was California's Synanon, which based some of its concepts on psychiatric therapeutic communities and on the fellowship concept of Alcoholics Anonymous. TC's were originally developed to treat hard-core heroin-dependent criminals. They address not just drug use but also associated problems that reduce the drug user's capacity to function appropriately in society. For this reason, the TC has been described as "a way of defining the nature of individual drug problems as much as a therapeutic approach."14 What distinguishes TC's is the "community" or group as the primary facilitator of growth and change. As applied to corrections, clients live isolated from the rest of the prison population and receive treatment to change negative patterns of behavior, thinking, and feeling that predispose them to drug use. Participation generally lasts for an extended period. The time and the isolation are primary resources; the isolation, in particular, shields clients from competing demands of street, work, friends, and family. TC's have other features in common: use of ex-offenders and ex-addicts as staff, use of confrontation and support groups, a set of rules and sanctions to govern behavior, and promotion of prosocial attitudes. In prisons, TC's also focus on criminal behavior, sex abuse, and other issues. The drug users' transformations in conduct, attitudes, values, and emotions are monitored and mutually reinforced. It may be this multiple focus that explains why TC's are more likely to be successful in the long run than programs aimed mainly at drug abuse. ------------------------------------------------- Notes 1. The findings of evaluations of four TC's are summarized here. A fuller presentation, which also includes descriptions of other TC's and other prison-based drug treatment programs, is in Dr. Lipton's The Effectiveness of Treatment for Drug Abusers under Criminal Justice Supervision, Research Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1995. 2. Wish, Eric D., and Joyce O'Neil, Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) Research Update, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, January-March 1989; Drug Use Forecasting 1993 Annual Report on Adult Arrestees: Drugs and Crime in American Cities, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1994; U.S. General Accounting Office, Drug Treatment: State Prisons Face Challenges in Providing Services, GAO/HRD-91-128, Washington, D.C.: USGAO, September 1991; and Prendergast, M.L, Y.I. Hser, and J. Hsieh, "Drug Treatment Need among Offender Populations," paper presented at the American Society of Criminology, New Orleans, November 4-7, 1992. 3. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, "State and Federal Prison Population Tops One Million," press release, October 17, 1994. 4. Correctional Populations in the United States, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995. 5. Fagan, J., et al., "Why It Was Prudent to Expand the Correctional Substance Abuse Treatment Initiative," Bulletin from the Executive Director, No. l6, New York: Criminal Justice Policy Council, July 1990. 6. Reuter, P., Hawks Ascendant: The Punitive Trend of American Drug Policy, Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1992. 7. Chaiken, Marcia R., "Crime Rates and Substance Abuse among Types of Offenders," in B.D. Johnson and E.D. Wish, eds., Crime Rates among Drug- Abusing Offenders: Final Report to the National Institute of Justice, New York: Narcotic and Drug Research, Inc., 1986. 8. Ball, J.C., J.W. Shaffer, and D.N. Nurco, "Day- to-Day Criminality of Heroin Addicts in Baltimore: A Study in the Continuity of Offense Rates," Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 12 (1983):119-142; and Johnson, B.D., D.S. Lipton, and E.D. Wish, Facts about the Criminality of Heroin and Cocaine Abusers and Some New Alternatives to Incarceration, New York: Narcotic and Drug Research, Inc., 1986. 9. Bruce Johnson and his colleagues, however, have recently argued that the "social panic" attendant on the crack epidemic may not have been justified. They studied the impact of crack on users and sellers of it and other drugs in Manhattan in 1988-89. They found that the advent of crack did not appear to have substantially increased offenders' rates of committing most forms of non- drug criminality (except prostitution). Nor did crack use appear to be associated with the initiation of violent behaviors, such as assault, robbery, or rape. Johnson, Bruce D., Andrew Golub, and Jeffrey Fagan, "Careers in Crack: Drug Use, Drug Distribution, and Nondrug Criminality," Crime and Delinquency, 41, 3 July 1995:275-295. 10. Wexler, Harry K., D.S. Lipton, and B.D. Johnson, A Criminal Justice System Strategy for Treating Cocaine-Heroin Abusing Offenders in Custody, Issues and Practices, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, March 1988. 11. Lipton, D.S., Edmundo Morales, and Douglas S. Goldsmith, Pathways into Treatment: A Study of the Drug Treatment Entry Process, Final Report of NIDA [National Institute on Drug Abuse] Project 1R01 DA-03929-01, New York: Narcotic and Drug Research, Inc., 1989; and Peyton, E.A., A Coordinated Approach to Managing the Drug Involved Offender, Second Report of the Treatment Access Committee, Delaware Sentencing Accountability Commission, Wilmington, Delaware: March 11, 1994. 12. The 1979 figure is from Drug Abuse Treatment in Prisons, Treatment Research Report Series, Washington, D.C.: National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1981; the 1991 figures are from Harlow, Caroline Wolf, Comparing Federal and State Prison Inmates, 1991, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 1994:11. The numbers rise if the percentages who have completed treatment in prison are added. Between 1979 and 1990 the percentage of inmates in some form of treatment more than tripled. See Lipton, D.S., G.P. Falkin, and H.K. Wexler, "Correctional Drug Abuse Treatment in the United States: An Overview," in C.G. Leukefeld and F.M. Tims, eds., Drug Abuse Treatment in Prisons and Jails, NIDA Monograph No. 118, Rockville, Maryland: National Institute on Drug Abuse, May 1992. 13. The description of therapeutic communities was drawn largely from Dean R. Gerstein and Henrick J. Harwood, eds., Treating Drug Problems, vol. 1: A Study of the Evolution, Effectiveness, and Financing of Public and Private Drug Treatment Systems, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1990:154-155; Wexler, H.K., and Craig T. Love, "Therapeutic Communities in Prison," in Frank M. Tims, George De Leon, and Nancy Jainchill, eds., Therapeutic Community: Advances in Research and Application, National Institute on Drug Abuse Monograph 144, Rockville, Maryland: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1994:181-208; Wexler, H.K., "Success of Therapeutic Communities for Substance Abusers in American Prisons," Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 27, 1 (January-March 1995): 57-66; De Leon, G., "Residential Therapeutic Communities in the Mainstream: Diversity and Issues," i.c.: Ibid.: 3-15; Hooper, R.M., D. Lockwood, and J.A. Inciardi, "Treatment Techniques in Corrections-Based Therapeutic Communities," Prison Journal, 73, 3 and 4 (September/December 1993):290-306; De Leon, G., "Therapeutic Communities," M. Galanter and H.D. Kleber, eds., Textbook of Substance Abuse Treatment, Chicago: American Psychiatric Press, 1994; and Pan, H., et al., "Some Considerations on Therapeutic Communities in Corrections," in James A. Inciardi, ed., Drug Treatment and Criminal Justice, Newbury Park, California: Sage, 1993. 14. Gerstein and Harwood, eds., Treating Drug Problems, vol. 1:154. 15. Prendergast et al. (in "Drug Treatment Need among Offender Populations"), note the treatment needs of arrestees in cities covered by the Drug Use Forecasting Program. 16. Pellisier, B., and D. McCarthy, "Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Drug Treatment Programs," in Leukefeld and Tims, eds., Drug Abuse Treatment in Prisons and Jails, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992:261-278. Preliminary results will be available soon. 17. Lipton, D.S., R. Martinson, and J. Wilks, Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. 18. Peters, R., and B. May, "Drug Treatment Services in Jails," in Leukefeld and Tims, eds., Drug Abuse Treatment in Prisons and Jails: 38-50. 19. Peters and May, "Drug Treatment Services in Jails." 20. Lipton, D.S., "The Correctional Opportunity: Pathways to Drug Treatment for Offenders," Journal of Drug Issues, 24, Nos. 1 and 2 (1994):331-348. 21. The study was Lipton, Martinson, and Wilks The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment. It was inaccurately summarized by R. Martinson as "What Works? Questions and Answers about Prison Reform," The Public Interest, 35 (1974):22-54. Subsequently, Martinson revised his conclusion, writing that "some treatment programs do have an appreciable effect on recidivism." See Martinson, R., "New Findings, New Views: A Note of Caution Regarding Sentencing Reform," Hofstra Law Review, 7 (1979): 243-258. 22. Martinson, R., "What Works?": 25. 23. Lipton, Martinson, and Wilks, Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment:627. 24. De Leon, G., et al., "Therapeutic Community Dropouts: Criminal Behavior 5 Years after Treatment," American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 6 (1979):253-271; and Simpson, 1979, 1980; Simpson, D.D., "The Relation of Time Spent in Drug Abuse Treatment to Posttreatment Outcome," American Journal of Psychiatry 136 (1979):1, 449-1,453; and Simpson, D.D., Followup Outcomes and Length of the Time Spent in Treatment for Drug Abuse, Fort Worth, Texas: Institute of Behavioral Research, Texas Christian University, 1980. 25. Wexler, Harry K., et al., "Outcome Evaluation of a Prison Therapeutic Community for Substance Abuse Treatment," in Leukefeld and Tims, eds., Drug Abuse Treatment in Prisons and Jails:156-175. The study was funded by NIDA and conducted by National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. 26. Field, G., "The Cornerstone Program: A Client Outcome Study," Federal Probation, 48 (1984):50- 55; and Field, G., "A Study of the Effects of Intensive Treatment on Reducing the Criminal Recidivism of Addicted Offenders," Federal Probation, 53 (1989):51-56. 27. Wexler, H.K., "Amity/Righturn: One Year Outcome Results," unpublished report submitted to National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., 1995. --------------------- Douglas S. Lipton, Ph.D., is senior research fellow and principal investigator with the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. This article is an abridgment and adaptation of the presentation Dr. Lipton made at the 1995 conference on research and evaluation sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, held in Washington, D.C. The full presentation, The Effectiveness of Treatment for Drug Abusers under Criminal Justice Supervision, Research Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1995 (NCJ 157642) is available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, 800-851-3420. Ask for NCJ 157642. --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- Violence Against Women: Reflections on NIJ's Research Agenda by Jeremy Travis The genius of the Violence Against Women Act1 is that through it Congress created a Federal initiative to encourage -- indeed to require -- the coming together of various professions and perspectives to forge partnerships in responding to violence against women in all its forms. In framing the legislation, Congress wisely heeded the advice of advocates, practitioners, and service providers at the local level who know from their own experience that a coordinated, communitywide response is the best response. Because the Federal Government is both listening and leading, there is great hope. Looking at the issue from a historical perspective reveals how far we have come. Twenty years ago most criminal justice practitioners thought it inappropriate even to allow victims a voice in criminal proceedings. Shelters for battered women were rare, and the latest reform in policing was the idea that officers should be trained to respond to family disputes by serving as mediators and counselors and to use arrest only as a last resort. Without for a moment suggesting we should rest on our laurels, I think it is accurate to say that today our Nation's commitment to addressing violence against women is strong and, in a time of changing political dynamics in Washington, remarkably stable. We should not forget the distance that has been traveled. The role of research in shaping the response Research has played a major role in bringing us to this point and will play an equally prominent role in setting guideposts for what lies ahead. The area of family violence, including violence against women, has been a strong part of the NIJ research portfolio, and enactment of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has strengthened this area of activity. The Institute is sponsoring four projects specifically mandated by the Act: o Development by a National Academy of Sciences panel of a research agenda that will help to build knowledge in a number of areas -- prevention, education, and legal strategies -- with particular emphasis on underserved populations. o Assessment of the feasibility of creating State data bases to record the number of incidents of sexual and domestic violence. o A study of the means by which abusive partners obtain the addresses of domestic violence victims. o Examination of battered women's syndrome from a variety of perspectives, to be conducted in conjunction with the State Justice Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health. In addition, NIJ is sponsoring research studies associated with the Act. The grants awarded and now under way fund a range of studies, including: o An examination of patterns of stalking behavior and the effects of this crime on victims. o An assessment of the effectiveness of mandatory arrest and a no-drop prosecution strategy for domestic violence. o An analysis of how criminal justice and other organizations that aid domestic violence victims combine their responses. o A study of the risk of serious injury or death in cases of violence between intimates. o A study of the extent and nature of sexual victimization of college women. NIJ also will be evaluating the effectiveness of the Act from three perspectives. One is an overall assessment of the programs created under Chapter II of VAWA, designed to strengthen law enforcement, prosecution, and victim services. The statute requires that the Attorney General report to Congress annually on the grants awarded. The report must include such basics as the number of grants, funds distributed, and similar information, but it must also address the effectiveness of the programs. We want to know how these programs are affecting levels of crime and the ability of government agencies to respond. Second, because we know it is important to learn from programs that are taking innovative approaches to the problem of violence against women, NIJ will sponsor evaluations that identify the "ingredients" of success, the elements of failure, and the obstacles to effective program implementation. We want to identify these components quickly so that the experiences of these cutting-edge efforts can be shared. Third, NIJ will fund basic research to ensure development of a broader and deeper understanding of the phenomenon of violence against women. A conference held in spring 1995 by NIJ and the Department of Health and Human Services to plan research strategy strengthened our belief in the need to accelerate an interdisciplinary approach. Research needs to reflect the complexity of the issue and extend to violence between intimates and between children and parents. It also needs to reflect the emerging trend of a community response to these forms of violence. In response, NIJ, along with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will issue a joint solicitation for interdisciplinary research. The proposed research will encompass several areas: the causes, treatment, management, and prevention of violence against women and within the family, as well as the health and legal consequences of this type of violence for its victims. The interdisciplinary approach will enable the perspectives of several agencies to be brought to bear on the issues of criminal justice, mental health, public health and prevention, alcohol and substance abuse, and child development. Past research laid the groundwork Over the past two decades, research has produced some valuable findings that have informed the development of our response to the problem of violence against women. NIJ has had a major role in some of that research, with one area of particular note -- our study of the effects of mandatory arrest in cases of spouse assault. The first path-breaking study, conducted more than 10 years ago in Minneapolis, found that when police officers made an arrest, the person charged was less likely to recidivate than if they took another course of action (removing the suspect from the home or providing counseling and mediation).2 These findings, in combination with successful litigation challenging the constitutionality of differential arrest policies for domestic violence and an effective feminist critique of criminal justice treatment of crimes against women, had a dramatic impact throughout the Nation. In the short period from 1984 to 1986, the adoption of policies favoring arrest grew markedly in major urban areas. By the late 1980's, arrest policies became almost universal in these cities, with most police departments using mandatory arrest.3 The story of the translation of research findings into a reform of police practice should not be assessed too quickly as a victory for policy- related research. The Minneapolis experiment should be viewed as a cautionary tale, ironically demonstrating the limits of such research. Consider, for example, what the expectations for policy would have been had the research findings from Minneapolis been different. What if arrest had made no difference in the level of subsequent violence? What if arrest actually increased the man's violence? Is a policy of nonenforcement or de facto decriminalization really an option? Granted, the Minneapolis experiment fortunately found a deterrent effect of criminal justice intervention, but this issue is separate from the policy question -- what should the police do? This question can be answered only by reference to the values at stake in policy choices. Here, the value at stake is the societal value expressed in the criminal law itself: that acts of violence are sufficiently detrimental to society that invocation of the criminal sanction is appropriate. The need to separate the discussion of values from the discussion of research findings became even clearer when NIJ replicated the Minneapolis experiment. In these subsequent studies the results were not as definitive as in the original. In some cities the Minneapolis findings were confirmed; in others the findings were mixed, with reduced violence observed among men who were arrested, but only among those men who were employed. By contrast, unemployed men were just as likely to engage in violence again whether or not they had been arrested for the initial incident.4 These findings are consistent with the notion that people who are less invested in society are more prone to criminal behavior. But again, what should be the policy implications? To many, it is obvious that the cities with mixed results could hardly have mandated arrest for employed men and allowed police discretion for unemployed men. In this situation, a different overriding value must be preserved -- that of equal enforcement of the law. The Minneapolis experiment and its replications reinforce an important lesson about social science research: Just as it is essential to ask the right questions at the outset of research, so it is essential to recognize that some questions already have answers -- answers rooted in our values. The limitations of the criminal justice system response The Minneapolis experiment, which focused exclusively on the law enforcement response, also calls to mind how heavily we rely on the criminal justice system to deal with the issue of domestic violence. At the most recent annual conference on criminal justice research and evaluation held by NIJ and other Department of Justice agencies, Professor Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University reflected on the state of research and the effectiveness of criminal justice intervention in the area of domestic violence. He noted that research has produced little evidence indicating that the criminal justice response to domestic violence has long-lasting effects. He also noted that it is premature to draw final conclusions about the efficacy of the criminal justice response since we have not really tried it. We have not yet implemented the type of coordinated response -- linking criminal justice to other community agencies -- envisioned in the Violence Against Women Act.5 Need for a theoretical framework These observations present a major challenge as we stand on the threshold of a new era, implementing the Violence Against Women Act. We need answers to a number of questions: Will the type of coordinated response required in VAWA ensure greater safety for women? Will it deter violent behavior? Will it break the cycle of violence within the family? In considering these questions, we should also push the limits of belief in the appropriateness of the criminal justice response. Should domestic violence be treated just as severely as (or even more severely than) violence committed against strangers? Does a belief in a criminal justice response mean we advocate domestic violence versions of preventive detention statutes, boot camps, and three-strikes-you're-out laws? And if not, why not? These multiple questions suggest the need for a theoretical framework for shaping an "ideal" response to domestic violence. In shaping that framework, we should look to innovations happening elsewhere that can provide guidance, while still taking into account the uniqueness of this type of criminal behavior. Innovations suggest a direction In conceptualizing a new theoretical framework, two innovations can inform our thinking. The first is found in community policing, whose philosophy is grounded in the twin notions of problem solving and partnership with the community. The police, in concert with the community, identify a problem involving crime or disorder, define a strategy for responding, and subsequently evaluate the effectiveness of the response. Few crime problems lend themselves as well to this pragmatic, results-oriented approach as does violence in the family. From this perspective, the mission of the police becomes not just to enforce the law but also to solve the problem. And solving the problem means reducing violence. Creative police departments are experimenting with a number of strategies -- location histories that record all responses to a particular residence, home visits to violent households by police officers and victim advocates explaining mandatory arrest policies and offering service referrals, emergency orders of protection to provide immediate safety, transportation to battered women's shelters, and personal call buttons that enable victims to activate 911. They are all premised on the notion that the police are responsible not just for enforcement of the law but also for preventing the next crime. The other innovation is the domestic violence court of Dade County, Florida, where judges mix criminal and civil jurisdictions and keep a case on their calendar long enough to determine whether the attitude and behavior of the defendant are changing. Counseling and other services are offered to the men, the women and, interestingly, the children, who are silent victims of this violence. An entire community has been mobilized to support this court -- from resident psychiatrists who provide pro bono service to the school counselors who note changes in children's behavior in the classroom. As in the community policing model, this court focuses on problem solving. Traditional measures of judicial efficiency are discarded as judges keep cases on their calendars for long periods. Traditional notions of adversarial procedure are set aside as public defenders acquiesce in extended State control over their clients during periods of drug treatment and other therapies, and prosecutors forego convictions and prison sentences in favor of therapeutic outcomes. These relatively new approaches demonstrate that in seeking to build a framework for dealing with violence against women, we need more than simply a better-coordinated system of law enforcement and criminal justice. Criminal justice can make a difference, but for that to happen the system needs re-engineering that matches flexible governmental responses to this unique form of criminal behavior. A unique form of violence Indeed, the unique nature of domestic violence will ultimately condition both the research agenda and the criminal justice response. This is a particularly egregious form of violence, to be distinguished from other forms in three respects. First, domestic violence becomes an integral part of the lives of its victims. The victim knows the offender, and the incidents, far from being isolated acts, are often part of a series of criminal events building up from low-level assault to serious assault and homicide. As a result, these women live in constant fear for their safety. The second distinguishing feature is the "multiplier effect" of domestic violence. The criminal act -- even if an isolated event -- is part of a continuum of control exercised over the woman that includes such noncriminal behavior as emotional duress, financial control, and psychological manipulation. The multiplier effect transforms each act of control into a threat of violent behavior, and noncriminal and criminal ends of the spectrum combine to create an environment of terror and powerlessness. The third characteristic is the public nature of this crime. Although typically perceived as a private crime, domestic violence is often well known to certain government agencies and to the broader community. Often these crimes are public knowledge, but all too often the response is to look the other way. This is because the knowledge consists of fragments of information -- medical records, patterns of absence from work due to illness, visible signs of battering, fears whispered by relatives, and disoriented children. Combining all these indicators into a public record makes it difficult to call this a truly private crime. The challenge then becomes developing a comprehensive response that calls on the broad community of police, physicians, religious leaders, educators, and others to make prevention and appropriate criminal justice response everyone's responsibility. The ultimate challenge, then, lies beyond the power of the criminal justice system because it involves societal values. The solution is in the hands of the broader community. The challenge is to find ways to teach girls and boys to respect each other and learn to be loving and intimate without being abusive. It is the broader community -- the "entire village" that, according to the African proverb, is needed to raise a child -- that must meet this challenge. Notes 1. The Violence Against Women Act is Title IV of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. 2. Sherman, Lawrence W., and Richard A. Berk, Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment, Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation, 1984; and Sherman, L.W., and R.A. Berk, "Specific Deterrent Effects of Arrest for Domestic Assault," American Sociological Review, 49(2) (April 1984):261-272. 3. Sherman, Lawrence W. (with Janell D. Schmidt and Dennis P. Rogan), Policing Domestic Violence: Experiments and Dilemmas, New York: The Free Press, 1992: 110. 4. The Minneapolis experiment was replicated in several jurisdictions, and these experiments were studied under NIJ sponsorship. The studies include those by Dunford, Franklyn W., David Huizinga, and Delbert S. Elliott, "Role of Arrest in Domestic Assault: The Omaha Police Experiment," Criminology, 28 (2)(May 1990): 183-206; Sherman, Lawrence W., et al., "Predicting Domestic Homicide: Prior Police Contact and Gun Threats," and Hirschel, J. David, and Ira Hutchinson, "Police-Preferred Arrest Policies," in Michael Steinman, ed., Woman Battering: Policy Responses, Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing Company, 1991:73-93; Berk, Richard A., et al., "Bayesian Analysis of the Colorado Springs Spouse Abuse Experiment," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 83(1)(spring 1992): 170-200; Pate, A., E.E. Hamilton, and S. Annan, "Metro- Dade Spouse Abuse Replication Project," Draft Final Report, Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation, 1991; and David, Hirschel, et al., "Charlotte Spouse Assault Replication Project," Final Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1990. 5. Dr. Fagan's presentation was published as The Criminalization of Domestic Violence: Promises and Limits, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1996. --------------------------- Jeremy Travis is the Director of the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice. This article is an adaptation of a presentation he made at a conference entitled "Collaborating to STOP Violence Against Women," sponsored by the Violence Against Women Grants Office of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Held in Washington, D.C., on July 28, 1995, the conference brought together representatives of States and local jurisdictions receiving Crime Act funding to support programs on violence against women. ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Street Gang Migration: How Big a Threat? by Cheryl L. Maxson, Kristi J. Woods, and Malcolm W. Klein Deeply imbedded within the twin contexts of gang proliferation and drug market expansion is public concern about gang migration -- the movement of gang members from one city to another. That concern is reflected in the reports of State legislative task force investigations; government-sponsored conferences; and law enforcement accounts at the local, State, and Federal levels.1 In these documents the evidence cited is most often anecdotal, rarely the result of a systematic assessment of the prevalence, nature, and consequences of gang migration. With a single exception, the findings of research on this topic contrast sharply with the perspective presented in the government and law enforcement reports as well as in the media. These research studies show that the impact of gang migration is far less than has been believed.2 Resolving the disparate views The disparity between the empirically based studies and the law enforcement and media reports can be resolved through analysis of the patterns of gang migration. The study whose findings are summarized here examines these patterns by drawing on a nationwide sample of cities and reporting information from law enforcement, community informants, and gang members. The study revealed that although overall the pattern of migration and the characteristics of migrants point to a less dramatic effect than has been believed, variations in the dominant patterns may explain that belief. Because this study is the first to investigate gang migration systematically and on a national scope, it should be viewed as exploratory.3 (See "How the Information Was Gathered.") National scope of gang migration Gang migration, broadly defined, is widespread. Of the 190 larger cities (those with a population of more than 100,000), 155 (80 percent) cited at least some migration, as did another 555 smaller cities. These cities are located throughout the country: 44 percent in the West, fewer in the Midwest and South (26 and 25 percent, respectively), and only about 5 percent in the Northeast. Gang migration is a recent phenomenon; relatively few cities (13 percent) report their first gang migration as occurring before 1986. In most cities the emergence of local, indigenous gangs either preceded the onset of migration (54 percent) or occurred the same year (41 percent); in just 5 percent, the onset of migration preceded the emergence of local gang problems. Numbers. Estimates of the total number of migrants vary widely, from as low as a dozen and under (30 percent of the 600 cities that could provide figures) up to the thousands (16 cities, or just 3 percent). A more reliable but still quite variable estimate is the number of migrants who arrived the previous year. Less than half (47 percent) of the cities reported the arrival of 10 or fewer migrants in that period, while only 34 (5 percent) estimated as many as 100 or more recent arrivals. Thus, although in recent years hundreds of cities have seen the arrival of gang members, their numbers have been relatively low. As a result, their potential for increasing local gang activity and crime rates would appear to be limited. Characteristics of gang migrants and migration More detailed information was drawn from interviews with law enforcement gang experts in the cities that reported at least 10 migrants in the previous year. Age, gender, ethnicity. For each of these cities, the migrants' age ranged from 13 to 30, with the typical age about 18 years. Female gang migrants were uncommon, as were Asians and whites. Compared with the ethnic distribution of gang members nationally, migrants were somewhat more likely to be black. About half the cities reported that at least 60 percent of their migrants were black; in 28 percent they were predominantly Hispanic. These characteristics are roughly similar to those of gangs in general. Place of origin. Where do gang migrants come from? Cities within the Los Angeles area were cited by 63 percent of the respondents. One-third mentioned Chicago area cities, with far fewer reporting the New York or Detroit areas. About one-fourth cited the city of Los Angeles (rather than the larger Los Angeles area) as their primary source of migrants; Chicago was noted by 14 percent. The primary source of migration was typically within 100 miles of the destination city; only 12 percent cited primary source cities more than 1,000 miles away. A regional migration pattern, or a clustering of three or more source cities within 30 miles of each other, was evident in about one- fourth of all cities. Motives/length of stay. The average length of stay was typically 3 months or longer; only about one- fourth of the cities reported typical visits shorter than a month. This pattern is consistent with the motivations for migration. When police officers were asked to select which of several reasons explained why most of the gang members who moved to their city did so, they cited family moves (39 percent) along with stays with relatives and friends. Combined into a category of "social" primary motivations, these reasons accounted for 57 percent of the cities. The second most frequently cited primary motivation was drug market expansion (20 percent of the cities). This the researchers combined with other criminal opportunity motivations to create a category of "extra-legal attractions" that accounted for 32 percent of the total in the destination cities. Influence on local gangs and crime The ways in which migrants participated in gangs in the destination cities exhibited no dominant pattern. In about one-third there was a prevailing pattern in which migrants recruited for former gangs or to establish branch operations. In about 20 percent, migrants largely joined pre-existing local gangs, and about the same percentage reported that migrants retained their affiliation with their former gang only. Few respondents felt that migrants discontinued gang activity altogether; however, this is difficult to determine, since individuals who ceased gang activity might be less likely to come to the attention of the police. Effect on crime. Most officers interviewed (86 percent) reported that migrants have had an impact on local crime rates or patterns, primarily through increases in thefts (50 percent of the cities), robberies (35 percent), other violent crimes (59 percent), and gun use or sophistication of firearms used (36 percent). Migrants were somewhat or heavily involved in drug sales in about three-fourths of the cities, according to the law enforcement respondents. This pattern extended to both black and Hispanic gang migrants, with rock or crack cocaine most commonly distributed by blacks, and marijuana by Hispanics. But despite the reportedly widespread involvement of gangs in drug sales, gang migrants were generally not perceived as having a substantial impact on the local drug market, probably because of their relatively low numbers. Variations in the dominant pattern These general characteristics might obscure more specific patterns that would have different implications for criminal justice response. The researchers examined motivations to migrate, involvement of migrants with drugs, and number of migrants and found that only on the first factor did differences emerge. The larger cities and cities in the South were more likely than other sites to attract migrants drawn by the prospect of extra-legal activities. Migrants to these cities also traveled longer distances, stayed less time, were more likely to be older, and tended to be black. In cities where social reasons for migration predominated, migrants were more likely to be Hispanic. Local responses to gang migration Law enforcement officers were asked about the use of specific strategies and their effectiveness in reducing the volume of gang migrants or their impact. Most departments have not developed specific strategies to deal with gang migrants (e.g., targeting of entry points). Many responded to questions about strategy by citing their gang intelligence and operational activities. Analysis revealed informational and operational coordination to be weak. Although the officers cited several strategies for dealing with gang migrants, including routine field contacts, arrests, and use of informants, few viewed them as effective. Selective enforcement of violations (e.g., use of narcotics laws) and gang sweeps and other suppression strategies were less common but were perceived to be effective by a majority of officers. Although prevention was rarely mentioned (by 15 percent), it was considered effective by more than half the departments using it. Joint efforts with other agencies. Collaboration of the police with community agencies and institutions was reported in nearly two-thirds of the cities, most often taking the form of information exchange or gang awareness education. However, this rarely involved service referrals or direct participation in service provision. Although officers in more than half the cities viewed community collaboration as an effective response to migration, less than one-fourth could provide the name of someone outside law enforcement who was informed about gang migration. Lack of innovation. Not only were the strategies not viewed as particularly effective, but they did not meet the study's definition of "innovative and promising" responses to gang migration. The officers reported that they saw the adverse impacts of gang migration as substantial, yet their views were not reflected in departmental policy or systematic enforcement approaches. Only 18 percent of the officers said their department sees gang migration as a severe problem, while fully one-third said their department sees it as a minor problem or not a problem. This departmental assessment may help explain the absence of innovation, and that absence also likely reflects the recent occurrence of migration and its relatively minor role in the overall gang problem in many cities. Community response The interviews with community respondents revealed several locales that have recently recognized the problem and were just beginning to work with police. Of the 42 respondents, only four reported that no steps had been taken. But of those in which steps had been taken, only three mentioned migrants specifically. All three included the involvement of law enforcement and school or housing authority collaboration to identify migrants or to share information about newcomers. In the remaining responses, an array of prevention or intervention activities related to gangs or to crime generally -- not to migrants -- were noted. Over half specified distinct roles for law enforcement, a confirmation of the high levels of police/community collaboration reported in the interviews with police. Little attention was given to the development of coordinated responses to gang migration. Case studies Indepth studies of three cities that experienced a high volume of migration revealed that the reasons for migration are far more complex than has been believed. They also revealed a range of relationships between newcomers and established gangs, and great variety in the level and nature of connections with gangs in the departure sites. In general, migrants reported getting in less trouble with the law in their destination city. For policymakers the issue then becomes weighing such reduced gang activity against concern with the spread of gang culture from city to city. In all three cities, remedies were directed at gangs in general rather than gang migrants. One city adopted a social service approach geared to individuals. In another, there seemed to be little in the way of services directed to at-risk youth. Policy implications Although the attempts to identify promising law enforcement and community strategies that address gang migration were not successful, the study findings suggest several directions that local and Federal policy might take. The findings indicate that the core policy issues are as follows: 1. Migration is not the cause of local gang problems. Most cities had local gangs before the onset of migration, and many respondents felt their city would have a gang problem regardless of migration. In view of the generally small number of migrants, it may be appropriate that there is little specificity in programs to deal with gangs and in law enforcement strategies. Communities are grappling with the root causes of gang activity, and they must continue to invest in targeted prevention and intervention. The variety of such programs described by community respondents, coupled with high levels of police- community collaboration, suggest that such efforts are under way in many cities. More active recruitment of gang migrants into these programs could yield benefits for them as well as for the larger community. 2. The adverse effects of migrants are substantial, according to law enforcement officers, yet few departments have policies or coherent strategies to address them. Special intervention strategies might be warranted if gang migrants present unique threats. However, the evidence to substantiate concern about this threat is mixed. Because the demographics of gang migrants are roughly similar to those of the country's gang population in general, there is little support for the contention that only the "worst" gang members migrate. This is not to say that the law enforcement accounts of substantial adverse effects on local gang dynamics and crime patterns should be dismissed. The data are necessarily perceptual, but the views of the officers interviewed were quite consistent -- gang migrants commit a lot of crime and exacerbate local gang problems. In view of the officers' perceptions, the lack of departmental policies and strategies was surprising. 3. Different types of migration require different responses. The finding that drug market expansion and other illegal pursuits are the primary motivation in one-third of the cities indicates that judicious exercise of interdiction and suppression may be beneficial. However, a proactive social service policy might fare well even in these cities. Since social reasons were far more common as a migration motive, gang prevention and early intervention programs that provide alternative activities and opportunities may be more promising in these cities than aggressive law enforcement. 4. The need for developing a national file of gang members is not supported by the study. In the past few years, some Federal law enforcement agencies have joined with local police officials to promote establishment of a national file on gang members. In light of the findings of this study, the costs and benefits of such an undertaking should be weighed carefully. The majority of gang migrants were found not to travel great distances, so a national gang data base would not yield substantial benefits. On the other hand, because a substantial minority report clusters of "source cities" within 30 miles of one another, regional gang data bases may be useful. Future research Future research should include systematically organized ethnographies of several carefully selected migration cities. Study of selected sites could much more effectively investigate migrants' influence on local gang cultures, the transition of gang members to their new environments, and the critical junctures in shifting gang identities. A nationwide survey of law enforcement should be repeated in order to update the findings reported here. Close attention should be paid to migration patterns. As the current study revealed, the primary reasons for relocation are associated with the characteristics of the migrants and the destination cities. Systematic assessment of response strategies, now in their infancy, is very much needed before more effective policies can be developed. As suggested here, some gang migrants may be responsive to social programming. Communities could be encouraged to provide such programs on an experimental basis and assess their effectiveness with gang migrants as well as with local gang clients and at-risk youths. The issues of foreign gang immigration and emigration, the diffusion of gang culture through the media, and criminal profiles of gang migrants also require further assessment. Migrants' individual histories of criminal activity should be investigated to identify the circumstances in which relocation to a different city might prove an effective crime reduction technique. Judges and family members employed this tactic years before gang migration studies were conducted. It is time that we identify the conditions in which such moves should be encouraged. ---------------------------------------------- How the Information Was Gathered The study was conducted in four phases. In the first phase, cities that had experienced gang migration were identified through a questionnaire sent to law enforcement agencies in 1,105 cities. The number included all 190 U.S. cities with populations over 100,000 and a number of smaller cities and towns. "Candidate" cities also were obtained from law enforcement contacts, researchers, and survey respondents. Ninety-two percent of the police departments contacted responded to the survey. The 480 cities in which at least 10 migrants arrived the past year became the basis for the law enforcement interview part of the study (phase 2). Interviews were conducted in 226 of these cities4 and produced the detailed descriptions of gang migrant characteristics, crime patterns, and law enforcement responses. The telephone interviews with community respondents in a sample of 42 of these cities constituted the third phase. The case studies of three cities, selected as exemplars of three patterns of gang migration, comprised the fourth and final phase of the study. The cities were Lawndale and Napa, California, and Milwaukee. -------------------------------------------------- Notes 1. Bonfante, Jordan, "Entrepreneurs of Crack," Time, February 27, 1995; Hayeslip, D.W., Jr., "Local-Level Drug Enforcement: New Strategies," NIJ Reports, 213 (March-April 1989):2-6; California Council on Criminal Justice, State Task Force on Gangs and Drugs: Final Report, Sacramento, California: CCCJ, 1989; Genelin, M., and B. Copelin, Los Angeles Street Gangs: Report and Recommendations of the Countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee Interagency Gang Task Force, Los Angeles, California: Interagency Gang Task Force, 1989; McKinney, K.C., Juvenile Gangs: Crime and Drug Trafficking, Juvenile Justice Bulletin, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, September 1988; and National Drug Intelligence Center, Bloods and Crips Gang Survey Report, Johnstown, Pennsylvania: NDIC, 1994. 2. Rosenbaum, D.P., and J.A. Grant, Gangs and Youth Problems in Evanston, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, 1983; Hagedorn, John, People and Folks: Gangs, Crime, and the Underclass in a Rustbelt City, Chicago: Lakeview Press, 1988; Huff, C. Ronald, "Youth Gangs and Public Policy," Crime and Delinquency, 35 (1989): 524- 537; Zevitz, R.G., and S.R. Takata, "Metropolitan Gang Influence and the Emergence of Group Delinquency in a Regional Community," Journal of Criminal Justice, 20 (1992):93-106; and Waldorf, Dan, "When the Crips Invaded San Francisco: Gang Migration," The Gang Journal, 1(4) (1993). The exception is the study by Skolnick, J.H., et al., "The Social Structure of Street Drug Dealing," American Journal of Police, 9(1) (1990):1-41; and 0Skolnick, Gang Organization and Migration, Sacramento, California: Office of the Attorney General of the State of California, 1990. 3. A related study is Maxson, Cheryl L., Street Gangs and Drug Sales in Two Suburban Cities, Research in Brief, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, September 1995 (NCJ 155185). 4. Information gathered from cities with drug gang migrants only is not included in this report but may be found in the final, unpublished report submitted to NIJ. ----------------------------- Cheryl L. Maxson, Ph.D., is director of the Center for the Study of Crime and Social Control at the Social Science Research Institute, University of Southern California (USC). Kristi J. Woods is a doctoral candidate at USC. Malcolm W. Klein, Ph.D., is director of the USC Social Science Research Institute. The research for this study was supported by NIJ grant 91-IJ-CX-K004. The full, final report will be available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. The authors gratefully acknowledge the research assistance of Lea Cunningham and Karen Sternheimer and the field staff of Napa, Milwaukee, and Lawndale. Staff in the police departments and community agencies generously shared their knowledge, as did many gang members. Members of NIJ's Gangs Working Group contributed expertise in selecting case study sites. ---------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------- Rethinking Criminal Justice Policy: A View From the Research Community During the 1994 meeting of the American Society of Criminology (ASC), Attorney General Janet Reno asked the assembled scholars to provide pertinent research findings that could assist in developing crime control policy. In articulating her request, the Attorney General explained: "You have the knowledge and the scientific tools to help us understand what is going on, not just at the national level but in our local communities. Universities and researchers can be catalysts in this effort." The Attorney General recognized the need to strengthen communication between scientists and policymakers, and ASC's response was immediate. The day after the speech, the ASC National Policy Committee formed 12 task forces to examine what in their judgment are the country's most critical criminal justice issues and to formulate policy recommendations based on major research findings. In June 1995 the Attorney General convened a meeting of the task force chairs (see "ASC Task Force Members") to discuss their findings. This article highlights the task forces' proposals according to the subjects they addressed. It should be noted that these proposals represent the opinions of the individual ASC task force members and are not the official position of the ASC or the U.S. Department of Justice. Youth violence Violence among juveniles, both those who commit crimes and the victims of such violence, has increased sharply in the past 10 years, causing fear, especially among residents of urban areas. In response, lawmakers have passed increasingly harsher deterrence sentencing statutes. But these type of statutes have proven ineffective. Short-term law enforcement strategy. In order to decrease youth violence, guns need to be seized from juveniles through better enforcement of existing legislation at the local level, and Federal personnel should be available to offer technical assistance. At the same time, gun markets, especially ones that traffic to young people, should be better controlled. Dealing with drug markets is also crucial. To reduce business, demand needs to be decreased by expanding treatment and prevention programs and providing at-risk youths with positive socialization skills. Long-term prevention approach. According to many research studies, adolescent delinquency and adult criminality have been associated with early deficiencies and problem behavior. Research demonstrates that it is less costly to provide early childhood intervention and prevention programs than to maintain a system for juvenile delinquents. Early parent-child intervention programs need to be implemented immediately, and early childhood education, such as Head Start, should be supported and expanded. Placement alternatives for children of abusive or incompetent parents, as well as of pilot residential and community schools, need to be funded. Violence against women Results of legislative reforms enacted 20 years ago to reduce violence against women have not met expectations, although the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), part of the Crime Act of 1994, holds great promise to strengthen law enforcement, prosecution, and victim services and to improve education and prevention. A mandatory part of every school's curriculum should be materials on issues of violence against women. Traditional and cultural beliefs and values that lead to violence against women need to be challenged. It is especially essential to educate young people in this regard. Outreach needs to be expanded to reach minorities. Again, VAWA holds promise in this area because it contains a variety of provisions that respond to special needs of minority and Native-American women who are violently victimized. Public service announcements and other materials should be produced to educate the public at large. Systems to collect data on violence against women, including statistics on the incidence of rape, need to be improved and expanded. Focus on rape issues. Shelters, as well as rape crisis centers and victim-witness units of police departments and prosecutors' offices, need to receive increased resources. To improve enforcement of rape laws and to encourage victims to report rape, marital rape must be recognized as a crime in every State, and victims' identities must be protected when they pursue prosecution. Victim redress and compensation need to be implemented or expanded at all levels of government. Special training for criminal justice personnel must continue, as should units that deal exclusively with "sex crimes." Law enforcement Community- and problem-oriented policing. Police responsiveness and accountability are critical if officers want to gain the community's trust and to ensure their adherence to an overriding ethic of constitutionality and the law. Community-oriented policing and problem-oriented policing initiatives should be instituted to engage officers and community residents in a partnership to combat crime and disorder. Police agencies need to develop a meaningful standard of care for their operations. For example, police manuals rarely tell officers how to respond to a crime; many departments lack guidelines for making arrests or handling emotionally disturbed individuals. An operational standard of care that includes citizen input should be created. In addition, civilian police advisory boards and review panels should be expanded. "Good faith" exceptions and other exclusionary rules should be eliminated because they often invite, rather than deter, police incompetence and violations of citizens' constitutional rights; and abuse by law enforcement officers should be combatted at every opportunity. Corrections "Three strikes and you're out." The "three strikes" initiative to imprison repeat offenders has found much resonance with the public and legislators around the country as the solution for dealing with persistent, serious, and violent criminals. Advocates promise that long-term incarceration of these types of offenders will both reduce crime and, ultimately, save taxpayers' money. A recent RAND evaluation of California's "three strikes" law has shown that while it appears to reduce serious, violent crime, the costs involved are estimated to be $5.5 billion over the next 25 years. An increase in costs for health care also is anticipated as these inmates become elderly. Short-term effects of this legislation include clogged court systems and rising costs associated with them and early release of other felons to make room for "three strike" detainees. More studies and regional conferences are needed to evaluate the impact of this type of legislation on Federal and State criminal justice systems as well as to explore the costs and benefits of other sentencing programs and legislation. Investment in youth crime prevention, early intervention, and alternative sentencing policies may be more effective than "three strikes" legislation, and more attention should be given to alternative sanctioning policies. For example, "surveillance plus treatment programs" should be considered for drug-involved probationers. Other community-based sanctions (e.g., house arrest, intensive supervision) -- tougher than probation but less stringent and expensive than prison -- have been shown to reduce recidivism by 20 to 30 percent. Drug control policy Two task forces identified three distinct areas related to drug research and its effect on policy. Lessons from epidemics. Lawmakers enacted policies in reaction to various drug epidemics (e.g., heroin in the 1960's, crack in the 1980's) that emphasized deterrence and penalties over treatment and prevention, but these often created new problems. For example, criminal sanctions for low- level crack users focused resources away from treatment of such users, whose behaviors were vectors for HIV transmission through high-risk sexual activity. Policies need to focus on reducing the harmful consequences of drug use and place criminal penalties within a framework recognizing the scale of drug problems. The cornerstone should be alcohol and drug treatment opportunities at all stages of the criminal justice system. Drug courts should be expanded, and defendants should have access to treatment at all stages of the system, including aftercare. Lawmakers should allow nonviolent drug offenders access to alternatives to incarceration so offenders who commit violent crimes can be imprisoned. Drugs and the urban community. The inner-city drug subculture created by the introduction of the drug trade and gangs has rules different from those of society at large. They include a belief in manipulation and the use of violence to settle conflicts; the wide-ranging negative impact has contributed to the decline of inner-city neighborhoods. Research indicates that despite harsher punishments, drug trafficking and the violence associated with it in urban areas have not decreased. Treatment should be mandatory for chronic abusers who are imprisoned, and community-based sentencing and treatment programs should be implemented for those arrested for drug crimes. A strategy needs to be implemented that combines drug prevention with education, job training, and psychological support systems for inner-city youths to improve the conditions that foster drug use. Drugs and the rural community. Youngsters in rural communities are just as likely to use drugs as their counterparts in urban areas (inhalants, stimulants, and alcohol are prevalent in rural areas; cocaine and crack are used more often in cities). Besides drug use, rural areas are frequently used as transshipment points by drug traffickers, and most of the marijuana grown for commercial use is produced in provincial localities. Rural communities often are remarkably diverse; community-specific policies, rather than national strategies, should be developed to meet each locality's specific needs. Federal law enforcement should provide support to rural task forces, which can facilitate better relations between rural, State, and Federal authorities. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's State and Local Training Division should continue its program of rural drug enforcement training as well as engage the comprehensive network of community colleges in many States for this express purpose. Designing out crime Private and public agencies have been successful in controlling specific crimes by identifying ways to decrease opportunities that invite such transgressions (e.g., use of credit card photos, burglar alarms). The Department of Justice should establish a crime-prevention agency, modeled after those in some European countries, to provide research and to initiate efforts to "design out crime." Justice also should develop a Crime Prevention Extension Service among local universities to furnish small businesses and local communities with crime- prevention recommendations from experts. U.S. crime problems: a global perspective Transnational crime has grown over the past 20 years. Although U.S. law enforcement has had limited success in responding to this type of crime, it lacks an extensive commitment to a centralized, coordinated international effort to combat these offenses. Authorities should continue to further develop a United Nations Convention on Organized Crime (as called for in Section 32098 of the 1994 Crime Act), and the Omnibus Counter-Terrorism Act of 1995 needs to be forcefully implemented. Data bases and strategies to deal with transnational crime should be developed by the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and collaboration needs to be enhanced with the U.N. Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch and with scholars in the United States. International and domestic organized crime. Of particular concern is the growing threat of the "Russian mafia," which operates in and from the former Soviet Union and includes Soviet emigres in the United States. The Federal Government should assist Russian officials in drafting anti-racketeering legislation. Aid to Russia from the United States and other Western nations should be specifically targeted toward enforcement against the mafia. In addition, a data bank on Russian organized crime should be established, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network should be expanded. Training should be provided to criminal justice officials in the former Soviet Union not only by the Federal Government but by State and local officials, criminologists, educators, researchers, and private-sector experts. The next step According to Freda Adler, then-president of the ASC, the Attorney General expressed her satisfaction with the ASC's prompt, thorough, and helpful exploration of key topics and noted that "many of these findings have already found their way into the policymaking process." On the basis of ASC's recent membership survey that revealed a large number of members engaged in policy relevant research, the Attorney General also asked for a report on this ASC survey. NIJ will publish Critical Criminal Justice Issues, which will contain the complete text and summaries of the task force reports (available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, call 800-851- 3420; ask for NCJ 158837). ----------------------------------------- ASC Task Force Members The State of the Police James J. Fyfe, Temple University, chair Jack R. Greene, Temple University Harvey McMurray, North Carolina Central University Jerome Skolnick, University of California- Berkeley Samuel Walker, University of Nebraska-Omaha Ralph Weisheit, Illinois State University Early Prevention of and Intervention for Delinquency and Related Problem Behavior Marcia Chaiken, LINC, co-chair David Huizinga, University of Colorado, co-chair Violence Against Women Edna Erez, Kent State University, chair Joanne Belknap, University of Cincinnati Susan Caringella-MacDonald, Western Michigan University Meda Chesney-Lind, University of Hawaii-Manoa Kathleen J. Ferraro, Arizona State University David A. Ford, Indiana University at Indianapolis Julie Horney, University of Nebraska-Omaha Susan L. Miller, Northern Illinois University Elizabeth A. Stanko, Brunel University, England Youth Violence Alfred Blumstein, Carnegie Mellon University, chair Drug Control Policy Options: Lessons From Three Epidemics Steven Belenko, New York City Criminal Justice Agency, co-chair Jeffrey Fagan, Rutgers University/Columbia University, co-chair Drugs and the Rural Community Coramae Richey Mann, Indiana University- Bloomington, chair Leon Pettiway, Indiana University-Bloomington Ralph Weisheit, Illinois State University Designing Out Crime Ronald V. Clarke, Rutgers University, chair Patricia Brantingham, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia Paul Brantingham, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia John Eck, Crime Control Institute, State of Maryland Marcus Felson, University of Southern California American Crime Problems From a Global Perspective Gerhard O.W. Mueller, Rutgers University, chair Paul Friday, University of North Carolina- Charlotte Robert McCormack, Trenton State College Graeme Newman, SUNY Albany Richard H. Ward, University of Illinois at Chicago Domestic and International Organized Crime Jay Albanese, Niagara University, co-chair James O. Finckenauer, Rutgers University, co- chair A Crime Control Rationale for Reinvesting in Community Corrections Joan Petersilia, University of California-Irvine, chair "Three Strikes" Legislation Edith E. Flynn, Northeastern University, chair Timothy Flanagan, Sam Houston State University Peter Greenwood, RAND Barry Krisberg, National Council on Crime and Delinquency Delinquency: A New Vision for Inner-City Schools Ross D. London, Municipal Court Judge, Hoboken, New Jersey, chair Rethinking Criminal Justice Policy: A View From the Research Community --------------------------------------- Update on CALEA Study The previous edition of the National Institute of Justice Journal reported on the findings of an NIJ- sponsored study of the CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) standards--the national accreditation standards for law enforcement agencies. As noted in the article, written by Dr. Gary Cordner and Dr. Gerald Williams, the study focused on the earlier (second) edition of the CALEA standards. During the course of their work, a new set of standards was issued (March 1994). These revised standards were subsequently analyzed by Drs. Cordner and Williams and this study is now being completed. Both studies examine the question of whether the standards accommodate the philosophy of community policing. For police departments seeking accreditation, the self-assessment required as part of the process can itself be an opportunity to help institutionalize community policing. The process offers, for example, the means for agencies to study and redefine their mission, statement of values, and "vision" of policing. And in addressing issues of organization and management during the accreditation process, police agencies will focus on such community policing precepts as decentralized authority and flattened organizational hierarchies. Information about the national accreditation standards for policing agencies can be obtained from CALEA, at 10306 Eaton Place, Suite 320, Fairfax, VA 22030-2201, by telephoning 800-368- 3757, or by faxing 703-591-2206.