Title: NIJ Journal 241 Series: Journal Author: NIJ Published: National Institute of Justice, October 1999 Subject: Crime mapping, inmate drug treatment, juvenile delinquency prevention, domestic violence, program evaluations, funding resources 59 pages 132,000 bytes ------------------------------- Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420 (877-712-9279 For TTY users). ------------------------------- U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice National Institute of Justice Journal Problem Solving with Maps by Thomas Rich Prisons Can Reduce Drug Use by Thomas E. Feucht and Andrew Keyser Teaming up for Community Safety by U.S. Attorneys Veronica Coleman, Walter C. Holton, Jr., Kristine Olson, Stephen C. Robinson, and Judith Stewart and Cultivating Leaders in Criminal Justice At-A-Glance: --School Safety --Domestic Violence Arrest Policies --Family Group Conferencing ------------------------------- National Institute of Justice Jeremy Travis Director The NIJ Journal is published by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, to announce the Institute's policy-relevant research results and initiatives. The Attorney General has determined that publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of the Department of Justice. Opinions or points of view expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Justice. For more information about NIJ activities, products, and publications, visit NIJ on the World Wide Web at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij. NIJ Journal Editorial Board David Boyd Deputy Director for the Office of Science and Technology Sally T. Hillsman Deputy Director for the Office of Research and Evaluation John L. Schwarz Deputy Director for the Office of Development and Communications Christy A. Visher Science Advisor to the Director Cheryl A. Crawford A. Trent DePersia James O. Finckenauer Mary G. Graham Sharla P. Rausch Gerald P. Soucy Laura Winterfield Managing Editors Brenner Brown, Palladian Partners, Inc. Jolene Hernon, National Institute of Justice ------------------------------- Director's Message This issue of the NIJ Journal demonstrates how sophisticated technologies and innovative partnerships among law enforcement, corrections, community leaders, and researchers are evolving. The partners are finding that collaborations can lead to new ways to restore and maintain safety in neighborhoods and correctional settings. Thomas Rich offers an overview of creative mapping applications that communities across the country are using to identify and address crime problems. By integrating crime data with other data--survey data on adolescents' behavior, for example--these applications go well beyond the traditional mapping methods. Today's technology offers expanded possibilities for a community's law enforcement, corrections, and social service agencies to collaborate on analyzing data within and across agency and jurisdictional boundaries. Thomas E. Feucht and Andrew Keyser describe a collaboration between prison officials and researchers that addressed drug use among prison inmates. In 1995 and 1996, six inmates died of drug overdoses in Pennsylvania's prisons. Recognizing the threat to inmate and correctional staff safety, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections developed a drug interdiction strategy that combined specific steps and actions with analytic evaluation of the outcome. Two years after the program was initiated, inmate drug use had declined dramatically. In a third feature article, five U.S. Attorneys describe partnerships in their cities that are targeting serious crime problems. Relying heavily on statistical data and information analysis, these U.S. Attorneys have become key problemsolvers by teaming with researchers and other community leaders to develop crime reduction strategies. Results of their efforts so far are preliminary, and the NIJ Journal will continue to report on progress in the five sites. The John B. Pickett Criminal Justice Policy and Management fellowship program at Harvard University provides an opportunity for mid-career criminal justice practitioners to hone their leadership and problem-solving skills. This issue's fourth article describes the experiences of four Pickett fellows who have become leaders in their fields. As we approach the new millennium, their experiences remind us that strong criminal justice leaders will be the key to developing and sustaining effective problem-solving efforts and to keeping our neighborhoods safe. Jeremy Travis Director U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, DC 20531 Janet Reno Attorney General Raymond C. Fisher Associate Attorney General Laurie Robinson Assistant Attorney General Noel Brennan Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jeremy Travis Director, National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov National Institute of Justice World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij The National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), a centralized national clearinghouse of criminal justice information, is sponsored by the Office of Justice Programs agencies and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Registered users of NCJRS receive the NIJ Journal and NCJRS Catalog free. To become a registered user, write NCJRS User Services, Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, call 800-851-3420, or e-mail askncjrs@ncjrs.org. Visit the NCRJS World Wide Web site at http://www.ncjrs.org. The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. JR000241 ------------------------------- Contents FEATURES Mapping the Path to Problem Solving Thomas Rich Reducing Drug Use in Prisons: Pennsylvania's Approach Thomas E. Feucht and Andrew Keyser Using Knowledge and Teamwork To Reduce Crime n U.S. Attorneys Veronica Coleman, Walter C. Holton, Jr., Kristine Olson, Stephen C. Robinson, and Judith Stewart The Pickett Fellowships: Cultivating Effective Leaders in Criminal Justice AT-A-GLANCE Recent Research Findings: --School Safety --Domestic Violence Arrest Policies --Family Group Conferencing DEPARTMENTS New & Noteworthy Events Solicitations & Awards NIJ in the Journals Final Reports ------------------------------- Reducing Drug Use in Prisons: As part of the Pennsylvania Department of Correction's drug elimination strategy, the department's K-9 unit increased its searches of inmate housing and institutional areas. See "Reducing Drug Use in Prisons: Pennsylvania's Approach," page 10. Photo: Susan McNaughton Using Knowledge and Teamwork U.S. Attorneys, community leaders, and researchers are teaming up to identify and solve specific crime problems. A pilot initiative in five cities builds on lessons learned in other communities where crime is dropping. See "Using Knowledge and Teamwork To Reduce Crime," page 16. Photo: Sergeant Joe Humkey ------------------------------- Mapping the Path to Problem Solving by Thomas Rich Computer mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) are used in a variety of criminal justice and public safety settings. Most of the data sets agencies and organizations routinely collect and maintain include location information--police files contain addresses of crimes and arrests, court files contain addresses of offenders, corrections files contain addresses of probationers. Other public agencies manage property databases, street and physical infrastructure files, licensing data, and public health data. The Census Bureau manages block-level demographic information. Many tools allow these data sets to be viewed and analyzed, but only computer mapping software can create a single map that combines multiple data sets into one display so that public agencies not only can isolate factors contributing to crime and other problems, but also reduce operating costs, manage resources more effectively, and assess the efficacy of interventions. In the last 10 years, advances in computer hardware, software, and networking have made mapping more widely available. Perhaps the most important of these advances has been the development of low-cost yet powerful mapping software. In 1989, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) had only one active grant involving computer mapping, although a second, more ambitious program--a five-city Drug Market Analysis Program--was under development. By the mid-1990's, mapping played highly visible roles in departmentwide transformations at the New York City and Chicago police departments. In 1997, NIJ established a crime mapping program to coordinate research, disseminate information on mapping, and provide training to spur development of new spatial analysis methods and software. (See "For More Information," page 9.) Mapping also captured the attention of both the Vice President, who established a Crime Mapping and Data-Driven Management Task Force in 1998, and more recently the President, who highlighted computer mapping of crime data in his 1999 State of the Union Address. Mapping in Law Enforcement Mapping in criminal justice agencies started with law enforcement agency crime analysts placing different colored pushpins on paper street maps. Today, automated versions of crime "pin maps" represent the most common mapping application among the estimated 36 percent of law enforcement agencies with 100 or more sworn officers that use computer mapping.[1] Several agencies around the country are following a process, developed by the New York City Police Department's CompStat (computerized statistics) unit, that adds mapping to the mix of information that flows among the department's leaders, precinct commanders, and patrol officers. Each week, the CompStat unit prepares a report that is the focal point of discussion at weekly briefings attended by department executives and commanders. The CompStat database is used to create maps depicting virtually any combination of crime and arrest locations, crime "hot spots," and other relevant information. The maps are used not only to analyze crime, but also to enforce accountability and evaluate performance. In Chicago, community police officers use the department's Information Collection for Automated Mapping (ICAM) program to produce maps of crime conditions in their assigned beats and share them with residents at neighborhood beat meetings. Other law enforcement agencies use mapping to support problem-solving and community policing, improve law enforcement operations, and apprehend and convict offenders.[2] Figure 1 (on page 3) shows the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Police Department's "Daily Crime Bulletin," through which the department shares maps and crime analysis so that all officers and staff are more aware and knowledgeable of crime trends in various neighborhoods. Regional Law Enforcement Systems. In some areas of the country, law enforcement agencies have established regional systems that merge crime and other police data from several, typically adjacent, law enforcement agencies. Although regional systems often are difficult to establish and maintain, they offer obvious benefits, most notably the ability to detect crime patterns that cross jurisdictional boundaries. Automobiles, for example, often are stolen in one jurisdiction and recovered in a neighboring one. A regional system that includes sophisticated query and mapping tools enables a crime analyst to spot patterns in these and other crimes that otherwise would likely go undetected. Collaborative Enforcement and Problem-Solving Efforts To address the many factors that contribute to crime and disorder, communities are forming partnerships between their law enforcement agency and other city, State, and Federal agencies. Because of its ability to merge mappable data from different agencies and organizations, GIS is an ideal information tool for these collaborations. Risk-Focused Policing. In Redlands, California, the police department has adopted "risk-focused policing," which systematically focuses on the underlying causes of disorder and the factors that place its youths and families most at-risk for criminal and other problem behavior.[3] The model is based on the extensive research literature on risk and protective factors.[4] Although Redlands had accurate data on crime, it did not have accurate data relating to risk and protective factors and behaviors of adolescents, such as the extent of substance abuse, delinquent and violent behavior, teen pregnancy, truancy, and weapon carrying. To fill the gap, the city conducted a series of citywide surveys of high school students. The police department then entered the findings into a database and used mapping software to display the results by Census block. Figure 2 (opposite) is a map that the Redlands Police Department used to examine levels of risk factors relative to the locations of community resources that provide an opportunity to develop skills and receive recognition. The effort enabled various city and county agencies and community-based organizations to better target their resources. For example, neighborhoods where a high percentage of students indicated "there's nothing for me to do" received additional youth recreation programming. In the future, the city hopes to make the maps and other survey results available to city agencies, community organizations, and the public through a regional Intranet. Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative. Over the past decade, the U.S. Department of Justice has funded a number of community revitalization efforts involving multiple local, State, and Federal agencies. Examples include the Comprehensive Communities Program and Operation Weed and Seed. Most recently the Justice Department initiated the Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative, or SACSI, a new strategy that builds from the lessons of these earlier programs. (See "Using Knowledge and Teamwork to Reduce Crime," page 16.) Each SACSI site is gathering data from its criminal justice and social service agencies and merging them into one database that will be accessible to each of the contributing agencies to help the site analyze its crime problem, assess the impact of interventions, and make adjustments in its strategy. Mapping Local Drug Markets and Treatment Needs. Officials in the 35 metropolitan areas participating in NIJ's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program, which tracks drug use trends among adult and juvenile arrestees, soon will have more information about the location and characteristics of their drug markets and the potential demand for treatment and other health services in different neighborhoods. In early 2000, the ADAM sites will begin collecting geographic information, including arrestees' ZIP codes and arrest locations. When these new data are combined and mapped with other ADAM data--such as the type and quantity of drugs purchased, the purchase price, and the arrestee's level of dependence on drugs and need for treatment--analysts will be able to better pinpoint where resources are most needed. Schools. Some communities, including many receiving funding from the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services' School-Based Partnership program, have begun to use mapping in conjunction with school-based problem solving. In these efforts, law enforcement agencies and schools form partnerships to develop and use the SARA (scanning, analysis, response, and assessment) model to address specific school-related crime problems. In Akron, Ohio, for example, the School-Based Partnership project is focusing on crimes occurring within a two-block area of a targeted school, and mapping software will plot the precise locations of juvenile crime occurring in the area. Mapping crime and disorder inside schools or on the school grounds requires a large-scale or "high-definition" mapping system that includes digitized floor plans, building blueprints, and detailed maps of school grounds and surrounding areas. Crime, victimization, and other data are then linked to specific locations (for example, a particular classroom or section of a parking lot). Temple University researchers recently conducted a pilot test of a high-definition mapping system at the university. Working with the campus police, Temple researchers constructed digitized maps of all campus buildings, including floor plans of multistory buildings. The campus police department modified its records management system to link crimes to one of several hundred specific campus locations. The study included a victimization survey in which students rated the safety of different geographic regions on campus.[5] Community Organizations. Community involvement in crime control and prevention efforts is a central tenet of community policing. One effective way of getting the community more involved in community policing is for city agencies--particularly the police department--to share information with the community. Recognizing this, many law enforcement agencies routinely make crime information available to the public, often through the department's Web site. A project in Hartford, Connecticut, is providing local crime prevention organizations with basic mapping and analytical tools to create their own maps and analyze incident-level calls for service, crime, and arrest data.[6] The mapping system enables community groups to quantify suspected problems, thus confirming--or disproving--the perceptions of neighborhood residents. In turn, this enables community groups to make a stronger case to residents, the police, and other city agencies to focus on particular problems. One community leader noted, "We were somewhat skittish about going after a problem if the only evidence was citizen perception." Other community leaders say the system improved communication between the police and residents by ensuring that they shared a common platform on which to judge the nature and extent of neighborhood problems. Mapping in Corrections Probation and parole departments also use mapping, often in conjunction with community corrections initiatives. Delaware recently undertook a systematic examination of the proximity of probationers' and parolees' homes to drug treatment, employment, and other social service centers and used the results to guide future placement of these centers.[7] Other uses include electronic monitoring and police-corrections partnerships. Electronic Monitoring. Electronic monitoring devices have been used for many years to help probation and parole officials enforce home detention, curfew, and restraining orders. A typical arrangement involves a device connected to a phone line and a special ankle bracelet worn by the offender; each time the device is polled, it reports whether the offender is at home or at some other location where he is supposed to be (or not supposed to be). An alternative approach, one with which some corrections agencies are beginning to experiment, involves continuously monitoring the location of offenders using global positioning system (GPS) technology. Computer mapping software is used in conjunction with GPS to display the location of the tracked offender on a digitized street map and, most importantly, to monitor his location relative to other areas. Thus, a corrections official could be alerted if an offender left a specific area (for example, the 1-mile radius of his house) or if he came within a certain distance of forbidden areas (such as a school, playground, or other location). Police-Corrections Partnerships. Many cities have implemented law enforcement-corrections partnerships as a way to provide enhanced supervision of probationers, apprehend persons who abscond from supervision, and implement joint problem-solving efforts.[8] Information sharing between law enforcement and corrections officials is a key component of these partnerships. In Phoenix, Arizona, for example, local law enforcement and probation officials are implementing a mapping system that links to a database containing both police crime data and information on probationers, including residential and work addresses, conditions of probation, and probation history. Teams of police and probation officials working in targeted areas will then use this system to plan and implement strategies for reducing burglary. For example, a map showing the addresses of current probationers convicted of or with a history of burglary might show that there are clusters of these probationers near clusters of recent reported burglaries. As a result, area probation officers might increase the frequency of visits to probationers residing near the burglary clusters.[9] Analytic Mapping Computer mapping can be a highly effective technique for presenting data and communicating ideas. However, maps are sometimes difficult to interpret and may appear simply as a jumble of dots. Comparing two maps that depict, say, crime locations in two different time periods can be even more difficult. The development of spatial statistic methods and software tools will expand the ability to interpret spatial data. Various techniques have been developed to identify clusters of spatial data, the most common example being the crime "hot spot." Researchers at the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority developed one of the first of such techniques, a computer program called STAC (Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Crime) that constructs ellipses around the densest concentrations of crime or other spatial point data. (See figure 3.) STAC has been distributed to more than 200 law enforcement agencies. Another technique used to show areas of high crime density was developed through a research partnership between the City University of New York and the New York City Police Department. It involves a statistical technique that blends, or "smooths out," the pinpoints that represent specific incidents to create an image that represents the overall density of crime rather than the specific locations of those crimes.[10] Research on hot-spot identification and other spatial statistics methods has applications beyond simply identifying areas where criminal justice resources should be focused. For example, measures of spatial correlation provide a means to judge the relationship between crime and bars, liquor stores, or other geographic features. Spatial statistics also can be used to quantify the extent to which spatial distributions have changed over time. Indeed, law enforcement and problem-solving efforts that focus on a particular geographic area must address two critical questions: (1) Did the interventions change the geographic distribution of crime, for example, by displacing the problem to other areas, and (2) to what extent can the detected changes be attributed to the intervention. A logical next question to ask is whether it is possible to forecast changes in hot spots or the emergence of new hot spots. Basic research in the area of predictive modeling is investigating whether spatial forecasting tools can be developed for use by law enforcement agencies to improve the targeting of enforcement and prevention efforts.[11] One approach involves testing the "broken windows" theory--that signs of physical disorder, such as abandoned cars, graffiti, and litter, will eventually lead to more serious crime--by studying the temporal and spatial relationships between public order and other "leading indicator" crime hot spots and serious violent and property crime hot spots. Another approach incorporates a "rational criminal" model and assumes that criminals search for geographic locations that offer a low risk and high return, such as a particular type of house or locations with easy access to getaway routes. These and other research efforts on spatial methods are all attempting to move computer mapping beyond simple pin maps and into analytic mapping. In the near future, it is likely that these tools will be standard features in computer mapping software and will be widely used by law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies. Notes 1. Mamalian, Cynthia, and Nancy La Vigne, The Use of Computerized Mapping by Law Enforcement: Survey Results, Research Preview, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1999 (FS000237). 2. La Vigne, Nancy and Julie Wartell, eds., Crime Mapping Case Studies: Successes in the Field, Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 1998. 3. Redlands Police Department, Transforming Community Policing for the 21st Century: Risk-Focused Policing, 1999. 4. This research is discussed in the report, Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders, by John J. Wilson and James C. Howell, Washington, DC: U.S. Depart-ment of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1993 (NCJ 143453). 5. This project is supported by the NIJ grant Using a High-Definition Geographic Information System To Enhance Community Policing on College Campuses, grant number 98-IJ-CX-0001. 6. This project is supported by the NIJ grant Development of a Neighborhood Problem-Solving System, grant number 97-IJ-CX-K017. 7. Harris, Richard, Charles Huenke, and John O'Connell, "Using Mapping To Increase Released Offenders' Access to Services," in Crime Mapping Case Studies: Successes in the Field, Nancy La Vigne and Julie Wartell, eds., Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 1998, 61-67. 8. Parent, Dale, and Brad Snyder, Police-Corrections Partnerships, Issues and Practices, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1999 (NCJ 175047). 9. With NIJ funding, researchers at Arizona State University are assessing the impact of this approach to reduce the incidence of burglary. The project is supported under the NIJ grant Combining Police and Probation Research To Reduce Burglary, grant number 98-IJ-CX-0059. 10. The statistical method used in this technique is called "kernel smoothing." The project to develop kernel smoothing is being supported by the NIJ grant Innovative Crime Mapping Techniques and Spatial Analysis, grant number 97-LB-VX-K013. 11. See, for example, Liu, Hua, and Donald E. Brown, "Spatial-Temporal Event Prediction: A New Model," proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernectics, October 1998, San Diego, CA. ------------------------------- Mapping Drug Flow into the United States Research funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy is examining the use of computer mapping to study how drugs flow from source countries into the United States. One project uses mapping to examine the spatial relationship between drug smuggling patterns and the use of drug-interdiction assets, such as ships, airplanes, radar, Federal agents, and drug-sniffing dogs. Mapping also provides a visual picture of the number of ships, trucks, passenger vehicles, pedestrians, airplanes, and other conveyors entering the country through ports of entry. ------------------------------- --community leaders say the mapping system improved communication between the police and residents by ensuring that they shared a common platform on which to judge the nature and extent of neighborhood problems. ------------------------------- Recent Trends in Analytic Mapping Aerial Photography. Overlaying criminal justice data on digital aerial photographs makes maps appear more "real," and, hence, easier to interpret. This also provides additional environmental context within which to interpret criminal justice data. When users of the Baltimore County Police Department's mapping system were asked what additional information would be most useful, digital aerial photographs were one of the top three choices, along with the last known address of offenders and the addresses to which incarcerated offenders are released. While only a few criminal justice agencies currently use aerial photographs, it is conceivable that in the future, as more cities commission aerial surveys of their jurisdictions and as data storage costs continue to decrease, map displays routinely will show aerial photographs instead of "stick" representations of streets. Geographic Profiling. A criminal investigative technique called geographic profiling produces a map that shows the probable home or work address of a particular serial offender. Figure 4 shows the locations of robberies thought to have been committed by a single person. The robber's likely residence is indicated with a house icon. Based on this map, investigators were able to focus their search for the offender, who was eventually arrested. Kim Rossino, a detective in the Vancouver Police Department, developed this technique in 1990, incorporating findings from the field of environmental criminology, such as the distances offenders travel to commit crimes.* While only three police agencies, all Canadian, currently have full-time geographic profilers, the use of geographic profiling should increase substantially in the future as DNA databases, ballistics identification systems, and other techniques improve investigators' ability to link crimes. * Note: For more information, see Rossmo, D. Kim, "Place, Space, and Police Investigations: Hunting Serial Violent Criminals," in John E. Eck and David Weisburd, eds., Crime and Place, Crime Prevention Studies, Vol. 4, Monsey, NY: Criminal Justice Press, 1985, 217-35. ------------------------------- For More Information NIJ has funded several of the efforts discussed in this article and is helping State and local law enforcement and corrections practitioners learn more about geographic information systems through grants, fellowships, workshops, annual conferences, Web sites, and a listserv. The Crime Mapping Research Center supports the development of new analytic software and training curricula, evaluation of best practices, and assessment of the practical applications of mapping as well as its use as a research tool. For more information about the Center, visit its Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc/. The Crime Mapping and Analysis Program, housed at the NIJ-funded National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center at Denver University, provides hands-on crime mapping workshops and technical assistance in the areas of crime and intelligence analysis and geographic information systems to State and local law enforcement and corrections practitioners. For more information about the Program, visit its Web site at http://www.nlectc.org/nlectcrm/cmap.html. Additional information on computer mapping applications discussed in this article is available at the following Web sites: Geographic Profiling: http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/police/structure/op-support/ geo/geo.html ADAM Program: http://www.adam-nij.net/ Mapping by Community Organizations: http://www.civic.com/pubs/1999/march/civ-communities-3-1-99.html Chicago Police Department ICAM Program: http://www.ci.chi.il.us/CommunityPolicing/AboutCAPS/NewTech/ICAM. html New York City Police Department CompStat Process: http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd/html/chfdept/process.html Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority's STAC: http://www.icjia.state.il.us/public/index.cfm?metaSection=data&metaPage =stacfacts ------------------------------- about the author Thomas Rich is an Associate in the Law and Public Policy area of Abt Associates Inc., a public policy and business research and consulting company headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ------------------------------- Reducing Drug Use in Prisons: Pennsylvania's Approach by Thomas E. Feucht and Andrew Keyser Drug use and crime are undeniably linked. More than half of all adult arrestees test positive for drug use at the time of their apprehension.[1] Self-reports from prison inmates indicate that their drug use prior to incarceration is typically chronic and linked to other criminal behavior. Although only a fifth of inmates in State prisons in 1997 were incarcerated for drug crimes, 83 percent reported past drug use and 57 percent were using drugs in the month before their offense.[2] Despite their segregation from society and continuous close supervision, prison inmates still manage to obtain illicit drugs. Such drug use in prison threatens the safety of inmates and staff, contradicts rehabilitative goals, undermines the authority of the correctional institution, reduces public confidence, and ultimately corrodes the safety of communities and neighborhoods to which offenders return after prison. Recognizing the Problem In 1994 and again in 1998, as part of a national focus on violent crime, its link to drugs, and the pivotal role prisons can play in treating drug addiction, Congress took legislative steps to encourage States to implement comprehensive prison drug-testing and addiction treatment policies.[3] Even before the congressional impetus, however, Pennsylvania had acknowledged that drug use was pervasive in several of its prisons. Governor Tom Ridge appointed Martin F. Horn as secretary for corrections in 1995 and charged him with the responsibility of ridding the prison system of drugs. Several prisons within the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PDC) system were suffering from widespread drug availability and use: Six inmates died of drug overdoses during 1995 and 1996, assaults on corrections officers and inmates had increased, and the press reported corruption among the staff and collusion between inmates and staff in obtaining drugs. The system's existing policies and resources were overwhelmed by the scope of the problem. To rid Pennsylvania's prisons of drugs and to secure inmate and staff safety, Secretary Horn launched the Drug Interdiction Program, a broad-based strategy combining interdiction methods, drug testing, and drug treatment. Secretary Horn also asked the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to help assess the impact of the program in five prisons that represented a cross-section of the system. This article describes PDC's interdiction strategies, the evaluation effort, and the subsequent decrease in drug use. Although Secretary Horn cites interdiction as the main reason for the decrease, he stresses that it alone does not account for the results. All inmates now undergo an evaluation to determine if they need substance abuse treatment when they enter the State's prison system. Nearly 92 percent do. All of Pennsylvania's 24 prisons offer treatment; 7 also operate therapeutic communities in which inmates with severe substance abuse problems are housed separately and undergo intensive, long-term treatment. In 1997, PDC opened its first substance abuse treatment prison, which requires inmates to undergo difficult, intensive, and long-term treatment. PDC's Drug Interdiction Strategies At the heart of PDC's comprehensive strategy was a zero-tolerance drug policy: Inmates caught with drugs were to be criminally prosecuted. Those testing positive in PDC's routine urine drug-testing program were to serve disciplinary custody time. The strategy relied on greater surveillance of both inmates and visitors, increased frequency of random urinalysis, more cell searches and surprise raids, and increased use of drug-sniffing dogs. PDC also introduced highly sensitive drug detection equipment --ion mobility spectrometers--to detect drugs that visitors might try to smuggle into the prison, to inspect packages arriving in the mail, and beginning in 1998, to detect drugs that correctional staff might try to bring into the prison. In addition, new policies were issued for inmate movement and visitation, and new sanctions for drug violations were instituted. PDC also installed a new phone system, allowing staff to monitor inmates' calls on a random basis. Table 1 summarizes the major features of the Drug Interdiction Program put into place by PDC between 1995 and 1998. Evaluating the Effects of the Program PDC officials explored several options for measuring the impact of the Drug Interdiction Program and finally decided to measure drug use by adding hair testing to the urine testing already taking place. Hair analysis is particularly suited to prison-based situations where drug use may be episodic and sporadic. Hair tests can reveal drug use that occurred anytime within the previous 90 days, whereas urinalysis is limited to detecting drug use within the previous 48 hours or so.[4] PDC officers collected hair and urine specimens from inmates on two occasions: in March 1996 (the first wave) and in February/ March 1998 (the second wave). They collected about 1,000 hair specimens from a random sample of male and female inmates at the five prisons. A head hair specimen was obtained whenever feasible, but axillary (chest or underarm) hair was accepted in those cases where sufficient head hair was unavailable.[5] (See sidebar "The Challenges of Hair Analysis," opposite) Urine and hair specimens were collected at the same time.[6] To minimize the possibility of detecting drug use that had occurred prior to incarceration, only specimens from inmates who had been in the PDC system for at least 3 months were analyzed. The final sizes of the hair sample are shown in table 2. A Remarkable Decrease in Drug Use Results from the two waves of hair analysis drug tests show a dramatic decrease in the use of drugs in the prisons. (See table 3.) Results from the initial tests in 1996, taken before implementation of the new strategy, indicate that 7.8 percent of all inmates who provided a head hair specimen had used at least one illicit drug during the previous 90 days. Marijuana was the most frequently used drug (6.5 percent), followed by cocaine. Two years later, posttest results showed that marijuana use had dropped to 0.3 percent and that 1.4 percent had used at least one illicit drug during the previous 90 days. Similar declines were realized for cocaine and opiates. Hair samples were tested for evidence of use of marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, and PCP. Radio-immunoassay (RIA)--a common drug-screening technique--was used to identify samples presumed to be positive; gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS)--sometimes called the "gold standard" confirmatory test--was used to confirm the results.[7] Urinalysis was performed according to standard laboratory immunoassay drug-screening procedures. As table 3 shows, positive rates based on urinalysis were generally lower than rates based on head hair, and results based on head and body hair specimens were slightly higher than the results based on head hair only. Drug Use by Inmate Characteristic and Offense Type The first wave of drug tests done in 1996 provided sufficient variance in drug use to allow researchers to compare groups of inmates (see table 4), but by the second wave in 1998, the prevalence of positive drug tests was so low that similar comparisons could not be made. Demographic characteristics. Drug use was comparable among African-American, Caucasian, and Hispanic inmates and was largely unrelated to the length of time the inmate had been incarcerated. Marijuana use was slightly more prevalent among inmates 35 years of age or younger, while cocaine use was highest among inmates aged 26 to 45 years. Opiate use was limited almost exclusively to those age 36 or older. Type of offense. To learn more about the relationship between the offense and drug use, tests were analyzed using the PDC committing offense criterion and categorized into violent offenses (crimes against persons, including robbery), drug or alcohol crimes, property crimes, and other crimes. The analysis shows that inmates imprisoned for drug offenses may not be the most likely to test positive for drug use. Prisons Virtually 99 Percent Drug-Free The second wave of tests, 24 months after the first, showed dramatic declines in prison inmate drug use. The prisons were virtually 99 percent drug-free. The declines in positive urine and hair assay results were matched by similar declines in other measures collected by PDC: --The number of drug finds as a result of cell searches dropped 41 percent--from 1,866 to 1,109. --Assaults on staff decreased 57 percent. --Inmate-on-inmate assaults declined 70 percent. --Weapons seized during searches dropped from 220 to 76. These drops in drug use and assaults provide convincing evidence that PDC's efforts to remove drugs from the prisons were highly successful. Implications for Communities Because drug use in prisons erodes institutional authority and control, it also severely undermines the public's confidence in correctional institutions. It is disturbing to learn that inmates can continue drug consumption while serving their prison sentences. Eliminating drugs in prisons is a crucial aspect of ensuring that prison order and safety are maintained, but perhaps most important, eliminating the problem ensures that inmates abstain from drugs during the time they serve their sentences--a necessary first step on the road to long-term abstinence with important implications for the time when inmates return home to their families and communities. Notes 1. National Institute of Justice, 1998 Annual Report on Drug Use Among Adult and Juvenile Arrestees, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, April 1999 (NCJ 175656). 2. Mumola, Christopher, Substance Abuse and Treatment, State and Federal Prisoners, 1997, BJS Special Report, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, January 1999 (NCJ 172871). 3. See Title II, Subtitle A of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, as amended, P.L. 103-322, as well as the 1997 and 1998 appropriations bills. 4. See Mieczkowki, Tom, and Kim Lersch, "Drug Testing in Criminal Justice: Evolving Uses, Emerging Technologies," NIJ Journal, December 1997 (no. 234) for a discussion of the various types of drug-testing technologies. 5. Male inmates provided either head hair or body hair, not both. Females provided head hair only. 6. Before the Drug Interdiction Program was put into place, urinalysis had been part of PDC's routine testing protocol. Results were linked to individual inmates so prison officials could identify inmates who tested positive. Compliance rates were 95 percent or higher; inmates who refused to comply were written up for refusing to obey an order. Hair tests, however, were used solely for research purposes and were not part of the Interdiction Program. The results, therefore, were kept confidential so that individual test results could not be linked to specific inmates. 7. Presumptive positive tests for opiates were confirmed using GC/MS. Results reported here as positive for morphine were confirmed by GC/MS. Four other presumptive positive opiate results were confirmed as codeine only. All results for morphine are presented using the GC/MS results. For marijuana and cocaine, the RIA results are used; because of the large quantity of hair required for the marijuana GC/MS, the confirmatory test could not be performed on a number of presumptive positive samples. ------------------------------- To rid Pennsylvania's prisons of drugs and to secure inmate and staff safety, Secretary Horn launched the Drug Interdiction Program, a broad-based strategy combining interdiction methods, drug testing, and drug treatment. ------------------------------- The Challenges of Hair Analysis As they drew up their guidelines for using hair to test for drug use, PDC officials reviewed issues pertaining to inmate and correctional officer safety, hygiene, and religious restrictions on cutting hair. Guide-lines pertaining to religious and other grounds for refusing the test were reviewed and implemented. In accordance with accepted testing procedures, head hair was obtained whenever possible, but chest hair was accepted when an inmate's head hair was too short, shaved, or nonexistent. In addition, PDC developed procedures for protecting the confidentiality of individual results from the hair drug tests because hair tests were to be used for research purposes only. Staff at NIJ compiled the statistical data and made aggregate reports available to PDC. Corrections supervisors nominated officers to be trained in collecting, handling, and packaging the specimens. Head Hair vs. Body Hair: Implications for Analysis The proportion of body hair samples compared to head hair samples was greater than anticipated, particularly at two of the prisons. The substitution of body hair for head hair was not an entirely satisfactory alternative, primarily because of differences in the rate of growth. Rate of growth. Body hair and head hair grow at very different rates, and as a result, drugs may be incorporated into the two different hair types at different levels. While head hair grows at a fairly constant rate of about 1.3 centimeters per month, body hair grows to a given length, remains dormant for a period of time, and eventually falls out. Since dormant hair is not growing, drug metabolites cannot be efficiently incorporated into the hair shaft. At any given time, proportionally more body hair than head hair is dormant. Racial and ethnic differences. Some researchers have suggested that thicker or darker hairs may more readily absorb drugs and other chemicals, resulting in artificially inflated levels of drug use for some racial and ethnic groups, such as African Americans and Asian Americans. Laboratory procedures used to resolve this possible source of bias in test results are largely proprietary and remain a source of some debate. In the PDC sample, the differential effect of hair color is probably less problematic than the difference between head and body hair. Effects on the analysis. To the extent that inmates who lack adequate head hair differ from other inmates in important inmate characteristics (like gender, race, and age), the analysis does not represent drug use across the entire inmate population. If inmates who lack head hair differ from other inmates in terms of their use of illicit drugs, results based on head hair only will yield biased estimates of the actual prevalence of drug use in the inmate population. It should be noted, however, that body hair samples showed declines in drug use between 1996 and 1998 similar to those shown by the head hair samples. Note: A hair specimen of about 60 to 80 strands was collected from each inmate. Each specimen was analyzed by Psychemedics Corporation in accordance with rigorous laboratory procedures. (Psychemedics received a contract from NIJ to conduct the analysis.) Before analysis, hair samples were trimmed to a standard length of 3.9 cm, representing the average rate of growth of head hair over a 3-month period. Some hair shorter than 3.9 cm was collected, and some longer hair was not trimmed to length because the root ends could not be properly aligned. Further sample preparation and analysis of the sample were conducted to resolve issues of potential environmental contamination. ------------------------------- The authors would like to thank Daniel J. Woods, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, College Park, for his assistance in compiling the data, and Gary Zajac and Kathy Gnall of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for their contributions to the evaluation project. ------------------------------- about the authors Thomas E. Feucht, Ph.D., is Director of the Crime Control and Prevention Division of the Office of Research and Evaluation at the National Institute of Justice. Andrew Keyser is Director of Management Information Services at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. ------------------------------- Using Knowledge and Teamwork To Reduce Crime by U.S. Attorneys Veronica Coleman, Walter C. Holton, Jr., Kristine Olson, Stephen C. Robinson, Judith Stewart In recent years, women in the Memphis area--especially young women--have been falling victim to sexual assault at an alarming rate. General crime rates were falling in Memphis, but sexual assaults continued to rise. The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, Veronica Coleman, is leading an effort to do something about it. She heads a group formed to develop new approaches for reducing sexual assaults in Memphis. "We don't want to be known as the rape capital of the world,"she says. This is the story of how five U.S. cities, including Memphis, with five different crime problems are experimenting with a new way of doing business that makes heavy use of statistical data and information analysis, boosts the U.S. attorney's role as a key community problemsolver, and asks researchers to serve as navigators--observing, analyzing, and recommending changes in direction. (See "Key Players.") The pilot project is called the Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) and is supported by more than a dozen U.S. Department of Justice agencies.[1] The pilot sites and their targeted crime problems are: --Indianapolis, Indiana--homicide and gun violence. --Memphis, Tennessee--sexual assault. --New Haven, Connecticut--gun-related crime and community fear. --Portland, Oregon--youth gun violence. --Winston-Salem, North Carolina--youth violence. (See "The Five Pilot Sites.") The sites are in the beginning of the second year of a 2-year project and results are preliminary. The NIJ Journal will present findings and further developments, including findings from a national evaluation, as they become available. The Theory Behind the Program SACSI is testing the assumption that crime is most effectively reduced by: --Bringing together the various perspectives and capacities of community groups and agencies to address a major crime problem. --Gleaning knowledge from street-level practitioners and working hand-in-hand with researchers to determine the exact nature and scope of a targeted crime problem and to design interventions based on the opportunities the analysis reveals. --Adapting the strategy when ongoing analysis of information reveals failures or inefficiencies in specific aspects of the strategy. SACSI builds on the lessons learned from crime analysis efforts like the New York City Police Department's CompStat unit,[2] which emphasizes using data to solve problems, and the Weed and Seed strategy,[3] which emphasizes coordination of resources to revitalize neighborhoods. Most directly, SACSI is an outgrowth of Boston's highly successful Gun Project,[4] which was responsible for dramatic reductions in youth homicides in that city. Key components of the Boston Gun Project included strong emphasis on partnerships, knowledge-driven decisionmaking, and ongoing strategic assessment. David Kennedy, a senior researcher at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the chief architect of the Boston Gun Project, is providing guidance to the SACSI sites. The SACSI model follows five major steps or stages: 1. Form an interagency working group. 2. Gather information and data about a local crime problem. 3. Design a strategic intervention to tackle the problem. 4. Implement the intervention. 5. Assess and modify the strategy as the data reveal effects. (1) Form an interagency working group. The U.S. attorneys spearheading the projects are working in concert with a core group of their communities' decisionmakers and local research partners.[5] Each site has tailored its partnership to meet local needs and characteristics. Winston-Salem's initiative to reduce juvenile violence includes the school superintendent and the local mental health director as key partners. In New Haven, with its focus on gun violence, the core team relies most heavily on law enforcement agencies. In Portland, key members of the group include the presiding judge of the State courts, State and Federal public defenders, and representatives of schools, businesses, faith-based organizations, and medical and public health providers. One difficulty in forming these groups has been making sure that all the key players are at the table while at the same time keeping the group small enough to ensure efficiency and progress. (2) Gather information and data about a local crime problem. Sources of information about a problem differ, but all sources--whether firsthand knowledge from street-level practitioners or data collected by the probation office--systematically address the where, when, what, and how of crime incidents. All sites are going beyond examination of formal police records. Winston-Salem, for example, is analyzing specific incidents of juvenile violence and discussing them with a diverse group of police officers, school resource officers, and probation counselors. Indianapolis brought together street-level law enforcement and criminal justice agencies to examine the factors involved in each homicide incident. Combining data with street-level information helps paint a dynamic, real-life picture of the problem. Many police officers report that they have never before shared information with other agencies in such detail or analyzed it so systematically. (3) Design a strategic intervention to tackle the problem. Once the problem has been precisely defined, the teams begin designing the intervention strategies. This is perhaps the most creative part of the project: combining local data, street-level information, crime control theory, best practices, and organizational capacities to develop strategies that attack the soft, vulnerable aspects of the problem that are most susceptible to intervention. Harvard's David Kennedy says, "The groups should continue to explore strategic options until they find a strategy that will have the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time, using the least amount of money and State authority." Sites use Kennedy's basic decision-making questions: How big an impact is the intervention likely to have? How long will it take before we see the impact? Do we have the capacity and resources to do it? Why do we want to use this intervention rather than another? What are the side benefits or drawbacks? In New Haven, some gun-related cases that would have been declined in the past are now likely to be prosecuted federally because of the strategic impact a serious Federal-level sentence can have on the problem. Recently, police apprehended a 26-year-old suspect after he fled in a high-speed chase. Upon arrest, police found two bullets in his possession. He was identified by police as a person frequently responsible for violent crimes. He was charged in Federal court with felonious possession of two rounds of ammunition, brought to trial, and convicted. He was then sentenced to incarceration for a term of 10 years. This case, and others in which similar sentences have been imposed on violence-prone felons illegally in possession of firearms, are being communicated to key groups of known offenders in the community to deter them from carrying and using guns. (4) Implement the intervention. At this stage, to enhance the deterrent effects of their interventions, team members send the message out through their criminal justice and community networks to let potential offenders and the larger community know their plans. For those who continue to break the law, the team then follows through with clear, swift, and certain consequences, as New Haven did in prosecuting the young man mentioned earlier. Indianapolis sends its message regarding intolerance for violence through an existing network of law enforcement and community leaders.[6] The project encourages probationers to bring someone who is important in their lives (such as a mother, grandmother, or girlfriend) to mandatory meetings at which they hear the message of intolerance for violence and receive a list of community resources that can help them make better choices, stay clean, and reduce their risk of recidivism. When Winston-Salem's research revealed that one-fourth of the juvenile violent offenses involved young adult offenders who were "tutoring" juveniles in criminal behavior, the team began notifying 18-year-old and older suspects not only to stop their own violent acts but also to stop involving juveniles in the violence. If they persist, the older offenders are told, they will face enhanced penalties and prosecution under Federal gun and drug statutes that forbid the use of juveniles in criminal activity. (5) Assess and modify the strategy as the data reveal effects. In many ways, the SACSI team operates like mission control launching a satellite: Once it has determined the satellite's path, it observes carefully, takes measurements, makes adjustments, observes again, and makes more adjustments so the satellite's course remains sure and steady. To accomplish this task at the SACSI sites, the teams' research partners collect and measure data and report back on how the strategy is working. If the original plan isn't having its intended effect or is having unintended consequences, the partners can make adjustments until it succeeds. Facing the Challenges As the SACSI partners strive to create new, effective, and lasting relationships across agencies and disciplines, they are recognizing how difficult and rewarding their pioneering efforts are and how their agencies' cultures differ. Although local dynamics present problems and opportunities unique to each site, some common themes appear across all the sites: --Among the more significant challenges have been balancing the desire for quick action with the need to collect and analyze sufficient information so that the problem and best points of intervention can be defined as precisely as possible and the maximum impact and effectiveness achieved. --All the sites recognize how easy it is to slip back into the old ways of doing business--for example, for research partners to revert to their traditional role as neutral observer or for police to believe their job is done when they arrest a suspect. --Balancing the day-to-day workload and integrating the traditional way of doing business into the new and additional requirements of the SACSI approach also has been a challenge. The SACSI partners don't have the answers yet for overcoming these challenges; they are still devising and revising their responses, but they hope to come up with directions and warnings and to encourage others to follow where they are leading. Funding the Projects The Justice Department has funded the SACSI project coordinator position in the five U.S. attorneys' offices, the research grants, technical assistance from experts, and frequent cluster meetings at which the sites share lessons learned. To increase the analytic capability of each site, NIJ's Crime Mapping Research Center is helping to develop, design, install, or improve each site's crime mapping and data analysis capability. The resulting system, called the Community Safety Information System, will be an integrated, user-friendly, interagency, Internet-based system that will allow partner agencies to merge data from several sources and analyze information across agencies. A national assessment of the pilot project, which is being conducted jointly by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the State University of New York at Albany, will document the processes and their impact. Long-Range Outlook The five SACSI sites have found that criminal justice agencies are not just doing business differently; they are also defining success differently. They continue to count arrests, convictions, and recidivism rates, but they also are defining success by how much crime they have deterred and by how much safer their citizens feel. One goal is for the sites to institutionalize the project by the summer of 2000, when Federal support comes to an end. No one thinks that all the problems will be solved by then, but it is hoped that an infrastructure will be in place to continue supporting this way of working together, analyzing data, developing strategies, and fine tuning interventions so the sites can continue to apply the approach to other crime problems and so the model can be replicated in other sites. A SACSI infrastructure is already becoming apparent in and around Winston-Salem and the Middle District of North Carolina. The City of High Point has learned from its neighbor Winston-Salem how to implement a SACSI-like approach for reducing gun homicides. High Point experienced 14 murders between January and November 1998--all by guns. Between November 1998, when the SACSI approach began, and July 1999, there have been none. In addition, assaults and robberies with guns have been significantly reduced. Because of High Point's tremendous success, Durham and Greensboro are now applying similar strategies based on data and information analysis. Cities that have experienced some of the greatest reductions in crime, such as Boston and New York, have learned that cooperative efforts to gather and analyze information from multiple agencies can reveal opportunities for strategic interventions and illuminate more efficient ways to employ limited resources. Sustaining such an intense new way of doing business will be the challenge for the future of SACSI. Notes: 1. The Office of the Associate Attorney General; the Criminal Division; Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys; the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services; and the Office of Justice Programs (Office of the Assistant Attorney General, National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office for Victims of Crime, and Executive Office for Weed and Seed). 2. The CompStat (computer statistics) unit of the New York City Police Department compiles and analyzes crime statistics, generates electronic pin maps, tracks crime patterns, and holds twice weekly briefings with high-level officials and precinct commanders in which the participants examine local crime patterns, devise and select tactical plans, and coordinate resources based upon the crime patterns in particular precincts. 3. The Weed and Seed strategy aims to mobilize resources in a coordinated way. Law enforcement efforts work to remove crime, human services and neighborhood revitalization efforts work to prevent and deter further crime, and com-munity policing efforts work to engage the community in problem solving. 4. For a full description of the Boston experience, see David Kennedy, "Pulling Levers: Getting Deterrence Right," NIJ Journal, July 1998 (no. 236). 5. Research partners include criminologists, preventive medicine and public health specialists, sociologists, psychologists, and public policy professionals. 6. Indianapolis partners include the mayor's office; the Indianapolis Police Department; the Indiana State Police; the Indiana Department of Corrections Parole Commission; Marion County's Probation Department, Prosecutor's Office, Sheriff's Department, and Superior Court; the Indiana Attorney General; the United States Attorney's Office; The Hudson Institute; Indiana University; Indiana 10 Point Coalition; Weed and Seed representatives; the U.S. Department of Justice's Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Marshals Service, and Immigration and Naturalization Service; representatives of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the U.S. Customs Service; the Postal Inspection Service; and the Secret Service. ------------------------------- Key Players Three special roles are key to the SACSI project: U.S. Attorney. Through SACSI, U.S. attorneys are demonstrating a new, emerging role for Federal lawyers: that of prosecutor as proactive problemsolver. They are taking a more direct, active interest in finding solutions to the problems that jeopardize public safety in particular communities. Project coordinator. This critical team member manages the daily process, facilitates the conversation, moves the group toward the collective goal, ensures that different components of the partnerships are working effectively, holds the group to task, and works with the research partner to think through the nexus of operational capacities, local data analysis, and crime control theory. Researchers. Unlike traditional research involving neutral observation, SACSI expects research partners to be fully engaged in problemsolving. The researchers are charged with gathering crime data and street-level knowledge, analyzing it, and reporting on what they find. They bring knowledge of crime control theory and the literature about "what works" into the strategy development and help craft an intervention to reduce the target crime problem. ------------------------------- Key components of the Boston Gun Project included strong emphasis on partnerships, knowledge-driven decisionmaking, and ongoing strategic assessment. ------------------------------- The Five Pilot Sites Indianapolis Indianapolis Violence Reduction Partnership (IVRP) Target problems: Homicide (particularly drug-related homicides) and gun violence. Goals: To reduce homicides, bring the community into the problemsolving process, and improve communication and relationships among all agencies--Federal, State, and local--operating in Indianapolis. The IVRP team analyzed data for every homicide in 1997 and 1998 and identified four elements common to approximately 60 percent of them: young men, firearms, drug use and distribution, and groups of chronic offenders known to the police. In response, the team has begun ordering chronic offenders who are on parole or probation to attend meetings with law enforcement, neighborhood residents, and representatives from social service agencies to inform the offenders about the city's intolerance toward violence and link them with services designed to reduce recidivism. Although it is too soon to confirm any direct causal effect, there are promising signs that the partnership between law enforcement and community groups is having a positive effect. Homicides are down 36 percent for the first 6 months of 1999 compared to the first 6 months of 1998. Memphis Strategic Team Against Rape and Sexual Assaults (STARS) Target problem: Sexual assault. Goals: To reduce the number of vehicle-related sexual assaults and the number of sexual assaults by repeat offenders, enforce a policy of intolerance regarding sexual assaults committed by adult males against teenage girls, and increase the effectiveness of investigative methods for prosecuting offenders and services provided to victims. According to the FBI, the five-county Memphis metropolitan area ranked first in the Nation in 1997 with 107 forcible rapes per 100,000 population. The team's research found that a significant portion of these cases involve teenage girls and older men (generally 25 years old and older) and that approximately 10 percent involve repeat offenders. They also learned that a large proportion involve women who are abducted by men in cars. Memphis is applying different types of interventions to different types of sexual assault cases. For example, incidents involving vehicles--both forced abductions and situations in which women voluntarily get into cars with men--have occurred in specific areas and suggest the need to combine crime prevention through environmental design techniques with community policing strategies. New Haven New Haven Gun Project Target problems: Gun-related crime and community fear. Goals: To reduce assaults and robberies with firearms, shots fired, illegal gun possession, and community fear of gun violence. The larger drug gangs in New Haven have been dismantled through concerted law enforcement efforts, resulting in dramatic reductions in violent crime. However, fear of gun crimes remains high. The Gun Project team is targeting offenders associated with the most violent groups of drug dealers. Other groups are being specifically advised that they will be targeted next if violence continues. The groups are offered social services and other alternatives to crime--and possibly incentives to use them. The project's achievements will be communicated to the public as part of a broad community effort to more accurately present New Haven as a safe locale for residents, businesses, and entertainment centers. New Haven's efforts have been enthusiastically embraced by government and community groups that do not ordinarily participate in the research and planning for anti-crime strategies led by law enforcement agencies. Portland Strategic Approaches to Community Safety (STACS). Target problem: Youth gun violence, with special attention to 15- to 24-year-olds and the role of alcohol in youth-related violence. Goals: To reduce youth gun violence; strengthen and institutionalize interagency, street-level collaborations; and ensure that strategies are culturally relevant and have minimum disparate impacts on ethnic groups and people of color. Portland linked its project to a standing committee, the city's 35-member Public Safety Coordinating Council. The personal and professional relationships already established through the Council have helped to formalize and institutionalize collaboration among the frontline professionals who deal with crime and street realities every day. STACS is concentrating its efforts on a few critical issues: --Research shows that 60 percent of the city's 400 high-risk offenders are under probation or parole supervision in three of the city's ZIP code areas. These inner-city neighborhoods are receiving special attention through joint law enforcement, parole, and probation intervention and youth outreach strategies. --The STACS team is anticipating the release of the first wave of prison inmates and juvenile offenders serving time for "three-strikes" offenses. Many have strengthened their gang affiliations during their incarceration. Team members have targeted these youthful offenders to make sure they receive the outreach services and supervision they need to transition smoothly from incarceration back into the community. --People of color are disproportionately represented in Portland's criminal justice system--both as victims and offenders. STACS has funded research to measure, report, and combat any disparate treatment of ethnic and racial minorities and is designing a youth outreach network to address the unique cultural conditions in Portland's ethnic communities. Winston-Salem Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI) Target problem: Violent and assaultive crimes committed by youth, age 17 and younger. Goal: In recent years, violent crime arrest rates for youth younger than 18 in Forsyth County generally have been higher than both State and national levels. Although juvenile arrest rates decreased slightly in 1998, arrests for such crimes as robberies and weapons violations increased, as did arrests for simple assaults, which for many youth is a precursor to more violent behavior. SACSI's goal is to reduce violent and assaultive crime below State and national levels. SACSI draws upon an extensive collaborative process already in place in Winston-Salem called Forsyth Futures, which focuses on youth violence and has helped the community build an electronic network linking youth-serving agencies. Analysis has shown that juvenile violence is concentrated in four target areas and accounts for 60 percent of overall juvenile violence. Within these areas, there is evidence that older offenders are "recruiting" juveniles into criminal activity, particularly in the drug trade. A small number of repeat juvenile offenders, who are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violent crime, has been identified. As a result of SACSI analysis, Winston-Salem has put several specific strategies in place, including: --Notifying older offenders to stop involving juveniles in their illegal activity and responding swiftly to violations through Federal and State prosecution. --Expanding the notification process to include (1) repeat juvenile offenders and their parents and (2) more extensive monitoring by police and probation officers. --Enhancing collaboration among community groups to ensure that these repeat offenders receive priority for intervention services and treatment needs and developing a case-management system based on the Forsyth Futures electronic network. --Developing resources (such as mentors, job skills training, and after-school activities) specifically geared toward repeat offenders and others identified through SACSI analysis as emerging offenders. ------------------------------- Once the problem has been precisely defined, the teams begin designing the intervention strategies. This is perhaps the most creative part of the project: combining local data, street-level information, crime control theory, best practices, and organizational capacities to develop strategies that attack the soft, vulnerable aspects of the problem that are most susceptible to intervention. ------------------------------- As the SACSI partners strive to create new, effective, and lasting relationships across agencies and disciplines, they are recognizing how difficult and rewarding their pioneering efforts are and how their agencies' cultures differ. ------------------------------- For More Information Amy Solomon, Policy Analyst, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 810 Seventh Street, N.W., Room 7435, Washington, DC 20531, 202-305-7941, solomona@ojp.usdoj.gov. Tom Roberts, Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Room 2217, Washington, DC 20530, 202-307-3950, tom.roberts3@usdoj.gov. Dunworth, Terence, Gregory Mills, Gary Cordner, and Jack Greene, National Evaluation of Weed and Seed: Cross-Site Analysis, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice and Executive Office for Weed and Seed, 1999 (NCJ 176358). Eck, John E., and William Spelman, Problem Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News, Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 1987. Goldstein, Herman, Problem-Oriented Policing, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. Kennedy, David, "Pulling Levers: Getting Deterrence Right," NIJ Journal, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (July 1998, Issue no. 236). This article describes in detail Boston's Ceasefire strategy. Kennedy, David, "Research for Problem Solving and the New Collaborations," J. Phillip Thompson, "Changing Role of the Researcher in Working With Communities," Lisabeth Schorr, "Replicating Complex Community Partnerships," and Jeffrey L. Edleson and Andrea L. Bible, "Forced Bonding or Community Collaboration? Partnerships Between Science and Practice in Research on Woman Battering," in Viewing Crime and Justice From a Collaborative Perspective: Plenary Papers of the 1998 Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1999 (NCJ 176979). What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice and Executive Office for Weed and Seed, 1998 (NCJ 172210). Collected papers from a symposium sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice and held in January 1998. ------------------------------- about the authors Veronica Coleman is the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee; Walter C. Holton, Jr., is the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina; Kristine Olson is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon; Stephen C. Robinson is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut; Judith Steward is the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. ------------------------------- The Pickett Fellowships: Cultivating Effective Leaders in Criminal Justice Today, D'Arcy Morgan, a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer and Vancouver (British Columbia) City Police officer, is developing a training and technical assistance program with his colleagues at the Justice Department's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. He took the position after earning his master in public administration (MPA) degree at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The master degree became possible because of NIJ's John B. Pickett Criminal Justice Policy and Management fellowship program. At Harvard, Morgan pursued his ideal education--he took classes not only from the Kennedy School but also from Harvard's business and law schools and thus achieved a dual concentration in public financial management and leadership. "I built an unbelievable network of colleagues--former fellows and Harvard students from both criminal justice and the business sector," Morgan says. "I studied with people who were identifying problems and actually solving them." Morgan also says his degree has taken him to a higher level of performance. "I've become more tenacious and have the skills to implement my ideas in more sophisticated, systematic ways." The John B. Pickett Fellowships in Criminal Justice Policy and Management provide assistance to practitioners who are interested in attending a 1-year Mid-Career Master in Public Administration program at the Kennedy School. (See "Applying for the Mid-Career Master Program.") Students are required to select at least one course from each of the Kennedy School's core methodological areas: quantitative methods, public management, and politics/leadership/ethics and can choose courses from selected other Harvard graduate and professional schools. In addition, Pickett fellows select courses in criminal justice policy. Since 1992, when the fellowship program began, 16 master degree students have received fellowships, which were established to honor the memory of John B. Pickett, NIJ's first director of planning and management. Pickett attended one of the Kennedy School's executive programs and worked closely with the faculty and staff at the school's Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management to address issues on policing strategies. He was instrumental in establishing the Executive Session on Policing, a 7-year Kennedy School project. The fellowships encourage criminal justice professionals to continue Pickett's legacy of commitment to public service and criminal justice administration. NIJ also provides funds for a 3-week program at the Kennedy School for senior executives in State and local government. When former Pickett fellows talk about their experiences at Harvard, they echo several recurring themes: The broad diversity of the student body gave them an expanded perspective on the problems in their field and a ready-made network of professional friends from around the world whom they can call upon to talk through a tough problem. The invigorating academic environment stimulated their intellectual skills, sharpened their management skills, and enhanced their overall performance. Frank Dwyer is a lieutenant with responsibility for special projects who works directly with New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir. A former patrol officer, Dwyer was working for the New York City Police Department's Office of Management and Planning when he decided to return to school for his MPA to gain new analytical skills and learn fresh ways of looking at policing and community issues. Dwyer received his degree from the Kennedy School in 1993. He says the fellowship offered him the opportunity to study with a diverse, stimulating group of people and to gain a better understanding of non-law enforcement professionals' perspectives on the role of police in government. Today, when Dwyer confronts tough issues, he finds himself asking broader questions and considering a wider range of resources and models, from both inside and outside government, to resolve problems. Margaret Poethig worked in a very intense, challenging environment at the Chicago Police Department before undertaking her MPA. She managed the Chicago Process Mapping Project, the lead pilot program of the Police Executive Research Forum's 21st Century Policing program. She also had been a member of Chicago's Alternative Policing Strategy management team. Poethig views her Kennedy School experience as a refreshing sabbatical. "I wanted to obtain a master's degree in a way that had the least negative impact on the course my career was taking," she says. When she graduated in 1997 and returned to the Chicago Police Department, Poethig says she had "gained a better understanding of the different roles people play in government and of the necessary balance between career professionals, appointees, and publicly elected officials. Each has a necessary role, even though each may not share the same vision of an organization's goals." Poethig is currently the Policing for Prevention Strategy coordinator for the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department. She helped to conceptualize the department's new policing strategy and expects to tap into her Harvard contacts as the program progresses. At the Iowa Department of Corrections, Patrick Coleman directed 10 prison-based substance abuse treatment programs and managed the Iowa Treatment Alternatives to Street Crimes program before completing his Mid-Career MPA in 1997. He credits his Pickett fellowship education with helping him to obtain a position as a resident practitioner at the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). He is currently BJA's deputy director for policy and management. Coleman says his career had reached the limits of his education and experience. "There's only so much you can learn from trial and error," he says. His Kennedy School education supplied what he needed to know about business and management strategies and practices. Coleman said the Pickett fellowship allowed him not only the opportunity to obtain a master's degree from an exceptional academic institution, but a chance to meet and learn from a rich variety of highly educated and experienced people, many of whom have remained his close colleagues. "Harvard University brings together people from all over the world--about half of the 260 people gathered in my class were from outside the United States," says Coleman. "The group included people from the military and from private and nonprofit organizations, as well as from public sectors at both the State and Federal levels." Before his Pickett fellowship, Coleman focused primarily on program details. Now his vision has expanded--he sees more clearly the essential interrelationships among the three branches of government, the public sector, advocacy groups, and constituents at the grass-roots level, which must be considered when program decisions are made. "Someone has an interest in every move we make," he says, "and the Pickett Fellowship helped me see that more clearly." ------------------------------- Applying for the Mid-Career Master Degree To be selected for a Pickett fellowship, candidates must demonstrate the qualities of integrity, professionalism, and dedication to public service exemplified in John Pickett's character and distinguished career. They must have the motivation and values to lead in their fields and to meet society's need for excellence in government. In addition: --Applicants must have an outstanding academic and professional record and be enrolled in or admitted to the Kennedy School of Government. --Applicants should have at least 7 years of experience in law enforcement, corrections, courts, or other criminal justice professions. --Preference is given to applicants who demonstrate a desire to continue in the field of criminal justice policy and management, although not necessarily in their current capacity. NIJ supports one Mid-Career master degree tuition each year--either for one student or split among two or more students, depending on the pool of applicants. The Kennedy School manages the application and selection process. The admissions process for entering the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration in fall 2000 begins in March 2000. For information, contact: Mid-Career Master in Public Administration Enrollment Services John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: 617-495-1152 NIJ also supports a 3-week executive education program at the Kennedy School--the Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government. This Program usually takes place in the summer, although a special session will be offered in January 2000. For information about the 3-week program, contact: Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: 617-495-0652 ------------------------------- At-A-Glance: Recent Research Findings The summaries in this section are based on recent NIJ reports and/or ongoing research. The ongoing research was presented as part of the NIJ Research in Progress seminar series, which features well-known scholars discussing their work with an audience of researchers and criminal justice professionals and practitioners. The reports and 60-minute VHS videotapes of the Research in Progress seminars are available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) at 1-800-851-3420. Videotaped seminars are $19 ($24 in Canada and other countries). Many reports also can be downloaded from the NIJ Web site at http://www.ojp. usdoj.gov/nij. School-Based Prevention of Problem Behavior: What's Being Done, Where, and How Well NIJ Research in Progress seminar: available on videotape from NCJRS Schools should not necessarily increase the number of delinquency prevention activities, but many could improve those already in place, according to preliminary findings of the National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools. The study found that schools engage in many prevention activities, but that the quality of these programs varies greatly. The study's authors found that important predictors of quality and extensiveness of school-based prevention activities include the amount and quality of training; the supervision of workers carrying out the activity; support from the principal; the degree of structure involved; local responsibility for initiating the activity; the use of multiple sources of information to shape the program; and the extent to which the activity is part of the regular school program. Gary Gottfredson of Gottfredson Associates, Inc., and Denise Gottfredson of the University of Maryland led the NIJ-sponsored study. The researchers collected, examined, and classified examples of prevention models used in schools and gathered data on the implementation and quality of programs in nationally representative surveys of principals in more than 845 schools and activity coordinators in more than 550 schools. They obtained detailed information about more than 3,700 activities directed at preventing problem behavior or promoting safe and orderly schools. The most common prevention approach involves curriculum, instruction, or training, with 76 percent of schools reporting that they implemented at least one such activity. Other common approaches include counseling/social work programs, the use of outside personnel, creating or maintaining a climate of expectations for student behavior, and behavioral programming or modification. The researchers used the scientific literature to develop scales for rating prevention programs. They identified attributes required for an activity to be judged "adequate." For example, a behavior modification program was judged "adequate" if 70 percent or more of the following attributes were present: one or more persons conducted the activity on a regular basis, 70 percent or more of best practices with respect to both content and methods were used, and students participated in the activity at least daily. The best practices the researchers examined differed according to activity type. The researchers found that 73 percent of security and surveillance activities met the criteria for adequate, whereas 42 percent of services for family members and 57 percent of prevention curriculum, instruction, or training programs were rated as adequate. There was great variability in quality of implementation for each kind of prevention activity. Better programs usually involved more structure, more supervision, better training, and the use of more information--suggesting that there are mechanisms for improving the quality of delinquency prevention in schools. Guidelines for Making Schools Safer Report available from the NIJ Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or from NCJRS Recent, tragic instances of violence in the Nation's schools have brought the issues of school security and safety to the top of the agenda of public policymakers, school administrators, and the public. Causes and solutions remain a matter of debate, but guidance on the benefits and limitations of various security technologies is available in a handbook NIJ recently published for school administrators and their law enforcement agency partners who are considering ways to make schools safer. The Appropriate and Effective Use of Security Technologies in U.S. Schools covers products that can be used to address violence, with separate chapters on video surveillance, weapons detection, entry control, and alarm devices. In language accessible to the nonexpert, the guide presents information about the kinds of devices on the market; explains how they work; lists their advantages and disadvantages and their expected effectiveness; and explores legal implications for their use. Although one of the most attractive features of technology-based devices is the possibility for savings, cost remains a consideration. Thus the guide also contains information about the costs of installation, long-term operation and maintenance, staffing, and training. The report's appendix features an extensive list of resources containing the names of organizations, books and other publications, Web sites, and conferences concerned with school safety and security. Future volumes in the series will deal with such issues as door, lock, and key control devices; glass-break sensors; explosives detection; and drug and alcohol use detection. The guidelines were the product of an interagency agreement between NIJ and the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories and were developed with the participation of the U.S. Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools program and officials responsible for school security in various school districts and police departments nationwide. The Appropriate and Effective Use of Security Technologies in U.S. Schools: A Guide for Schools and Law Enforcement Agencies, by Mary W. Green (Research Report, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, September 1999), can be downloaded from the NIJ Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or ordered from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJ 178265). The Impact of Arrest on Domestic Violence: Results From Five Policy Experiments NIJ Research in Progress seminar: available on videotape from NCJRS Arresting domestic violence suspects has modest deterrent effects, according to the preliminary findings of a study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Researchers also found that younger men and men with prior arrests are more likely to recidivate. The Spouse Assault Replication Program (SARP) collected and archived arrest and outcome data in five jurisdictions: Charlotte, North Carolina; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Dade County, Florida; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Omaha, Nebraska. The study was conducted by Christopher Maxwell of Michigan State University, Joel Garner of the Joint Centers for Justice Studies, and Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University. To some extent, SARP is modeled after the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment of the early 1980's, which is considered a landmark study of responses to domestic violence because it was the first to focus on victim safety. (Previous research concentrated on the safety of officers responding to domestic disputes.) The Minneapolis experiment showed that arresting the offender was more effective than officers advising and informally mediating or separating the couple. The study's authors, the Attorney General's Task Force on Family Violence, and the scientific community called for replication of the Minneapolis experiment. Although SARP is an outgrowth of the Minneapolis research, it is not a direct replication: The researchers redesigned the victim interview procedures, enhanced the analytic procedures, and chose not to use the procedures for randomization used in Minneapolis. SARP's primary data sources were police arrest reports, supplementary reports about the incidents, initial and followup interviews with the victims, and police records about subsequent complaints or arrests involving the suspects and their victims. Common data included the nature of the incident, the treatment assigned and delivered by the police officers, demographic information about the parties, and outcomes pertaining to later violence. According to the victim interviews, postincident aggression occurred on average 30 percent less often against the victims whose batterers were arrested. These data also showed that suspects who were older and employed reoffended less often. However, white batterers committed about 35 percent more acts of aggression against their victims than did African-American and other minority suspects. Suspects who were under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident offended more frequently against the victim than those who were not drinking or using drugs. Having at least one prior arrest increased by 56 percent the likelihood that a suspect would have at least one more incident of aggression after the experimental incident. According to the official records, approximately 60 percent of all suspects never reoffended during the study's followup period, which for some suspects lasted more than 3 years. With the exception of arrest and race, the relationship between other measures and reoffending were similar to those from the victim interviews. With regard to the effect of arrest, the researchers found consistently that the level of aggression was only slightly less among suspects arrested at the time of the experimental incident. The researchers also found that minority suspects were 30 percent more likely to have a subsequent officially recorded incident of aggression than were white suspects. Analysis of the official records also found no significant variation among the sites in terms of the relationship between arrest and subsequent offenses against the victim. But the researchers did find that the longer the period between the experimental incident and the last victim interview, the more likely the suspects were to have reoffended against the victim. The researchers describe several areas needing further research, including the level of deterrence created by more severe sanctions and the effects of arrest policies on the overall rate of domestic violence. They recommend research on the impact of sanctions in more serious domestic violence cases and situations in which the suspect is not present when the police arrive, as well as studies to develop enhanced measures of aggression and injury. Family Group Conferencing Final report available from NCJRS Restorative justice is an innovative concept generating a great deal of interest as an alternative to the conventional, retributive approach. It is grounded in ancient tradition, aiming to "restore" all parties affected by a crime--victims, offenders, and communities--by bringing them together to work out a resolution. Among its appeals are the considerable empowerment of victims and the requirement that offenders take steps to repair the harm they have done. NIJ has been promoting the understanding of restorative justice in a number of ways. One was through a study of a family group conferencing project operated by the Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) Police Department. Family group conferencing, which originated in New Zealand, is a form of restorative justice that diverts young offenders from court by involving their families and their victims' families in the adjudication process. In Bethlehem, uniformed community policing officers conduct the conferences. The police-based model was developed in Australia, where some of the Bethlehem project staff were sent for training. NIJ evaluated the project to find out if the approach was acceptable to the community and whether it helped solve ongoing problems. Researchers Paul McCold and Benjamin Wachtel of the Community Service Foundation concluded that police officers are indeed capable of conducting the conferences, provided they receive adequate training and supervision; that while conferencing did not transform the attitudes, organizational culture, or role perceptions of officers overall, citizens who were exposed to it became more favorable to community-oriented policing; and that victims, offenders, and offenders' parents were satisfied with the conferencing process. However, when the researchers measured satisfaction with their particular case on the part of those involved, they found no difference between participating and nonparticipating groups. When the researchers examined how the program affected recidivism, they found that for property offenses, the rearrest rates of participants were no lower than those of nonparticipants, although for violent offenses the rate for participants was lower. The researchers cautioned that the likely reason for this lower rate was that participation was voluntary, producing a self-selection effect. The final report of the study, "Bethlehem Police Family Group Conferencing Project," by P. McCold and J. Stahr, is available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJ 173725). NIJ has explored restorative justice in a series of regional symposia, one product of which was a "notebook" of symposia materials, accessible online at NIJ's Web site. The concept and its prospects are examined by John Braithwaite in "Restorative Justice: Assessing Optimistic and Pessimistic Accounts," in Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, vol. 25, ed. Michael Tonry, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming. For an overview, see Leena Kurki's Incorporating Restorative and Community Justice into American Sentencing and Corrections, Sentencing and Corrections--Issues for the 21st Century, Research in Brief, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, September 1999 (NCJ 175723). ------------------------------- New & Noteworthy Child Maltreatment the Focus of Planning Meeting Although the rates of violence toward children generally have declined during the past few years, the total number of child abuse fatalities has remained stable. Schools, courts, community-based organizations, and social service and law enforcement agencies all play important roles in responding to child maltreatment. NIJ, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services last spring sponsored a strategic planning meeting to delineate successful, collaborative, and interdisciplinary responses to child abuse. More than 50 people, including researchers, administrators, and practitioners, attended the meeting. Representatives from Westminster, California; New Haven, Connecticut; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Manatee County, Florida, gave presentations on how their communities have developed innovative interventions in response to child maltreatment. Cathy Spatz Widom, Professor of Criminal Justice and Psychology at the State University of New York at Albany, moderated the meeting discussion. Joyce Thomas, a guest speaker from the Center for Child Protection and Family Support in Washington, D.C., described a cross-system protocol for domestic violence and child maltreatment that is being implemented jointly by the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police, the city's Office of the Corporation Counsel, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Emergency Domestic Relations Project at the Georgetown University Law School, and the Child and Family Superior Court. For more information about NIJ's research portfolio in this area or for a copy of the planning meeting summary, contact Cynthia A. Mamalian at 202-514-5981 or mamalian@ojp.usdoj.gov. Health Care Issues in Correctional Facilities New findings suggest there have been improvements in many aspects of the United States' policy response to HIV/AIDS, STD's, and TB in correctional facilities. NIJ recently released copies of 1996-1997 Update: HIV/AIDS, STD's, and TB in Correctional Facilities, which updates the latest statistics from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' surveys on the extent of HIV/AIDS infection among inmates. The statistics are combined with the findings on policy and practice from the ongoing series of national surveys sponsored by NIJ and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report indicates that collaboration to solve these health problems is increasing among correctional, public health, and community-based agencies. There remains, however, much room for improvement, particularly in the area of comprehensive prevention programs, discharge planning, community linkages, and continuity of treatment. Obtain copies of 1996-1997 Update: HIV/AIDS, STDs, and TB in Correctional Facilities (NCJ 176344) by visiting NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/nij or by calling the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 1-800-851-3420. ------------------------------- International Perspectives on Crime and Justice Research NIJ is involved in many ongoing activities focused on international perspectives on crime and justice research. Several of these activities are highlighted below. Drug Treatment in Thailand and the Philippines A therapeutic community (TC) is a self-contained drug treatment model that focuses on treating the whole person, building an offender's self-esteem, and changing his values and attitudes. It is employed in residential settings, including prisons. The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs is supporting the development of the TC model in a number of foreign settings. To help the State Department assess developments in other countries, James O. Finckenauer, Director of NIJ's International Center, and Spurgeon Kennedy, Program Manager for NIJ's Breaking the Cycle program, visited TC initiatives in Manila, the Philippines, and Bangkok, Thailand. The Philippines has very recently established nonresidential TC programs in government-run correctional facilities. Although officers hold a weekly "morning meeting" with drug offenders (a formal component of the TC model), these programs cannot be considered true therapeutic communities because they are not residential. Approximately 30 nongovernmental inpatient or residential treatment and rehabilitation centers for drug users also operate in the Philippines, and approximately half of these use the TC treatment modality. Some have been doing so for a number of years. However, the clients of these centers are not necessarily criminal drug offenders as are the clients of the government-run facilities. Rather, they have admitted themselves voluntarily and pay for their treatment. Thailand has a somewhat longer history in implementing the TC model in its correctional facilities. Currently, Thai government facilities have a relatively small number of correctional personnel trained in TC, but the country is investing in new prison construction and is expanding its capacity to provide TC treatment. Each country has a distinctive style of treatment delivery, but in both there are stark differences with the generally harsher and more intrusive methods associated with TC as employed in U.S.-based programs. The differences between American and Asian styles seem to reflect the traditional Asian emphasis on politeness and respect for personal dignity and esteem. For more information about NIJ's activities in this area, contact Finckenauer at 202-616-1960 or at finckena@ojp.usdoj.gov. Women in the Criminal Justice System To Be Focus of UN Workshop The Tenth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders will convene in Vienna, Austria, April 10-17, 2000. To promote the exchange of information and experiences among UN members on efforts to improve the situation of women in criminal justice, the UN Congress plans to conduct a workshop on women in the criminal justice system. The workshop will examine this issue from several perspectives, including female criminality, the treatment of female offenders, and women as criminal justice practitioners. NIJ has been invited to organize a presentation focusing on women as victims and survivors. This presentation will feature several practitioners representing both developed and developing countries who will discuss best practices in the areas of prevention, victim advocacy, combating forced prostitution, and the improvement of social services. NIJ's Director of Planning and Management, Edwin W. Zedlewski, last April traveled to Helsinki, Finland, to participate in a planning meeting for the workshop. "Eurogang" Workshops Bring Together International Researchers An increase in youth violence has been a concern in Europe much as it has been in the United States, though in Europe, youth violence has not been accompained by crack sales and the proliferation of sophisticated firearms. Researchers from Europe and the United States gathered a year ago in Schmitten, Germany, to discuss the similarities and differences between and among European and American youth gangs and youth groups and to develop collaborative research efforts. A second workshop was held in September in Oslo, Norway. At last year's meeting, which was sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Justice, the Dutch Ministry of the Interior, the German Ministry of Justice, the University of Southern California, and NIJ, researchers discussed both the relevance and the limitations of generalizing the American body of knowledge on gangs to the European situation. The researchers agreed that the similarities in the U.S. and European situations, such as gang proliferation, the marginalization of minorities, and common gang structures, are strong evidence that the U.S. gang research can provide useful starting points for research that would have policy implications for Europe. The second workshop, which was hosted by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, built on the first meeting and included policy personnel interested in developing and implementing interventions. NIJ and the Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention sponsored the U.S. researchers who participated in the workshops. NIJ anticipates publishing a report based on the workshop papers and the group's related discussions. ------------------------------- Events Annual Research and Evaluation Conference "Enhancing Policy and Practice" was the theme of this year's Annual Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation sponsored by the Office of Justice Programs' Bureaus and Offices. Highlights of the event included an account of trends and issues in crime and justice by Jan Chaiken, Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and a reception on Capitol Hill to celebrate NIJ's 30 years of scientific endeavor to understand crime and improve justice. More than 60 sessions, including panels, workshops, a cybercafe, and 5 plenary sessions, were available to the more than 800 people who attended the annual Washington, D.C., event. The plenary papers from last year's research and evaluation conference now are available. (See "Viewing Crime and Justice From a Collaborative Perspective.") Environmental Crime the Focus of Research Forum Little research is available on the most effective means to promote compliance with environmental regulations among regulated entities. To learn more about these issues, NIJ partnered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Justice Department's Division of Environment and Natural Resources to host a research forum. The primary goal of the forum, which was held in July, was to develop priorities for a research program on promoting compliance with environmental regulations. Felice Levine, Executive Director of the American Sociological Association, facilitated the discussions. Approximately 50 people attended the forum, including Justice Department and EPA staff, criminal justice and environmental researchers, and policymakers and experts on the environment from the State and local levels. Elaine G. Stanley, Director of the EPA's Office for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, discussed EPA data available for research on deterring environmental crime. Papers on environmental regulation compliance issues were presented by Robert Kagan of the University of California at Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society; Walter Mugdan of the EPA; David Word of the Georgia Natural Resources Department; Daniel S. Nagin of Carnegie Mellon University; Mark Cohen of Vander-bilt University; Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland; and Richard Lempert of the Russell Sage Foundation. Their papers focused on the following topics: --The relationship between Federal and State enforcement activities and the range of government responses to noncompliance and their impact on deterrence. --General research on deterrence and how it can be applied in the context of environmental enforcement. --Existing research on deterrence and compliance in the context of environmental enforcement. --Issues warranting new or additional research. Participants discussed such issues as the motivations of regulated entities to violate or comply with environmental regulations; comparisons of the deterrent impacts of inspections, enforcement actions, penalties, and compliance assistance; and the possibility of secondary benefits, such as preventing pollution, of enforcement efforts. Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections: First Papers Published NIJ just released the first four papers from the Executive Sessions on Sentencing and Corrections, which NIJ sponsors with the Office of Justice Programs' Corrections Program Office. This series of executive sessions brings together distinguished practitioners and scholars to examine the complex, often conflicting issues in the field. Patterned on the influential Harvard University executive sessions on policing held under NIJ sponsorship, the series aims to find out whether current policies and practices are achieving their intended purposes. The first four papers, which deal with the competing conceptions of sentencing and corrections that coexist today, serve as a framework for understanding the issues: --"Incorporating Restorative and Community Justice into American Sentencing and Corrections," by Leena Kurki (NCJ 175723). --"The Fragmentation of Sentencing and Corrections in America," by Michael Tonry (NCJ 175721). --"Reconsidering Indeterminate and Structured Sentencing," by Michael Tonry (NCJ 175722). --"Reforming Sentencing and Corrections for Just Punishment and Public Safety," by Michael E. Smith and Walter Dickey (NCJ 175724). In all, approximately 16 papers will be published in the series. To obtain copies of the papers, watch the "What's New" section of the NIJ Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/nij or contact the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 1-800-851-3420. DNA Commission Continues To Hear Testimony The National Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence held its sixth meeting in Boston on July 25-26, and its seventh meeting in Washington, D.C., on September 26-27. The members discussed privacy and evidence storage issues and heard reports from several working groups. At the sixth meeting, Lynn Fereday from the Forensic Science Service in Great Britain described developments in technology needed to gather DNA from fingerprints. Representatives from the Los Angeles Police Department testified about evidence storage issues. For more information and copies of the proceedings, visit the Commission's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/dna or call the Commission's executive assistant, Robin Wilson, at 202- 307-5847. What Every Officer Should Know About DNA Evidence Every law enforcement officer knows to look routinely for fingerprints. And now officers also must routinely think about gathering evidence that might contain DNA. Today's investigators can solve crimes using the DNA collected from the perspiration on a rapist's discarded baseball cap, the saliva on a stamp of a stalker's threatening letter, and the skin cells shed on a ligature of a strangled victim. NIJ recently published a handy pocket flyer for law enforcement officers that explains where to find DNA, how to collect it, how to avoid contaminating it, and how to transport and store it. NIJ is providing free copies of the flyer to every law enforcement agency in the country. Copies also can be downloaded from NIJ's Web page at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ nij/dna or obtained by calling NCJRS at 1-800-851-3420. Law Enforcement-Corrections Partners Share Experiences To tackle youth gun violence in Boston, the Boston Gun Project and its Ceasefire Working Group brought together the Boston Police Department's gang unit, the departments of probation and parole, the U.S. Attorney's and county prosecutor's offices, the Office of the State Attorney General, school police officers, youth corrections staff, youth workers, religious leaders, and other community advisors. The resulting decline in Boston's youth homicides demonstrated the effectiveness of such successful partnerships. To facilitate similar efforts, a 3-day Midwest regional workshop recently was held in Minneapolis. The meeting brought together 18 interdisciplinary teams from jurisdictions with experience or interest in forming law enforcement-corrections partnerships. The partnership teams discussed issues of mutual concern with national experts and experienced practitioners, shared information and experiences, discussed the concepts and research associated with law enforcement-corrections partnerships, and developed strategies to combat an identified crime problem in their communities. Representatives from 12 Midwestern States--Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin--were invited to apply to send jurisdictional teams to the workshop. A similar meeting was held in Boston for Northeast and mid-Atlantic States; additional workshops are scheduled to take place in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Seattle, Washington. The workshop was sponsored by the Boston Police Department, the Ford Foundation, NIJ, and the Justice Department's Corrections Program Office and Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, in cooperation with the Justice Department's National Institute of Corrections and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. For more information, contact Alanna LaFranchi at the Institute for Law and Justice at 703-684-5300. Crime Mapping Conference Goes International NIJ's third annual crime mapping research conference, Mapping Out Crime: Expanding the Boundaries, will feature presentations from researchers and others from around the world who will highlight their innovative uses of computerized crime mapping for research and practice. The conference will take place at the Renaissance Hotel in Orlando, Florida, December 11-14, 1999. Participants at the 4-day international conference can attend plenary sessions, panels, and workshops conducted by more than 70 leading experts, including police managers, crime analysts, geographers, and criminal justice researchers. More than 750 people participated in last year's conference. To register for the conference, contact the Institute for Law and Justice at 703-684-5300 or register online at http://nijpcs.org/upcoming.htm. Confidentiality, the Internet, and Crime Mapping Criminal justice agencies are using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for a variety of applications: to allocate resources, to identify crime "hot spots," to aid in criminal investigations, and to support data-driven decision-making processes. Despite the widespread use of crime mapping, standards or guidelines addressing privacy, confidentiality, data sharing, and the dissemination of geocoded crime data have not yet been developed. To generate discussion on these complex issues, NIJ's Crime Mapping Research Center hosted a 2-day Crime Mapping and Data Confidentiality Roundtable. Participants included representatives from law enforcement, the research community, the legal profession, the GIS field, the media, and victims' rights advocates. The roundtable discussions were guided by the following questions: --Where is the balance between the public's right to know and a victim's right to privacy? --When information passes from one agency to another, who is liable or accountable for the inappropriate use of crime maps or the sharing of inaccurate geocoded data? --Should professional standards or guidelines be developed for crime mapping as it pertains to privacy and freedom of information issues? If so, what should these standards look like and who should promote them? --What is the appropriate model for partnerships between law enforcement agencies and researchers with regard to sharing geocoded crime data? --What security measures are available for sharing geocoded crime data over Internet or intranet environments, and how can they be disseminated to local agencies? A white paper based on the transcripts of the discussion will be developed and posted on the Crime Mapping Research Center Web page at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/cmrc. For more information, contact Debra Stoe at 202-616-7036 or stoed@ojp.usdoj.gov. American Society of Criminology To Meet in Toronto The American Society of Criminology (ASC), an international organization that represents criminologists and others concerned with criminology and scientific research on the etiology, prevention, control, and treatment of crime and delinquency, will convene its annual meeting in Toronto this year. The meeting will cover topics of general interest to the membership, rather than concentrate on a particular theme. The meeting will be held November 17-20 at the Royal York Hotel. Registration is $75 for ASC members, $85 for nonmembers, and $15 for student members. Registration fees increase after November 1. For more information, contact the ASC at 614-292-9207 or visit its Web site at http://www.asc41.com. Methamphetamine Task Force Hears Final Opinions The Methamphetamine Task Force, which over the past 2 years has been exploring issues associated with methamphetamine abuse, will convene its final meeting November 30-December 1 in Washington, D.C. Community stakeholders will present opinions and concerns about a wide range of drug issues at the November meeting. Invited guests include drug abuse experts from the fields of medicine and public health, neighborhood revitalization specialists, family advocates, and prevention and education specialists. Attorney General Janet Reno and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Barry McCaffrey cochair the task force. The executive cochairs are NIJ Director Jeremy Travis and ONDCP Deputy Director Donald R. Vereen, Jr. Other members of the Task Force include representatives of the secretaries of the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education, members of the judiciary and public health agencies, researchers, substance abuse specialists, and law enforcement officials. The Task Force released its interim report in September. The final report, which NIJ anticipates releasing in December, will propose recommendations to Congress. Copies will be available on NIJ's Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj. gov/nij. ------------------------------- Viewing Crime and Justice From a Collaborative Perspective The plenary papers from last year's Research and Evaluation conference are now available in the report, Viewing Crime and Justice From a Collaborative Perspective: Plenary Papers of the 1998 Conference on Criminal Justice Research and Evaluation (NCJ 176979). The plenary presentations last year were: --David Kennedy, "Research for Problem Solving and the New Collaborations." --J. Phillip Thompson, "The Changing Role of the Researcher in Working With Communities." --Lisbeth B. Schorr, "Replicating Complex Community Partnerships." --Jeffrey L. Edleson and Andrea L. Bible, "Forced Bonding or Community Collaboration? Partnerships Between Science and Practice in Research on Woman Battering." Download a copy from the NIJ Web site at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij or contact the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 1-800-851-3420. ------------------------------- Solicitations & Awards NIJ will soon issue open solicitations to the criminal justice research field to propose innovative research endeavors. The Office of Science and Technology accepted proposals from the physical sciences field until October 7, 1999. The Office of Research and Evaluation will solicit social science research proposals, which will be due January 18, 2000. This year, there will be one funding cycle for each of the two parts of the solicitation, rather than two cycles for one solicitation, as in previous years. The broad themes that have guided NIJ's research agenda in recent years still apply: --Rethinking Justice --Understanding the Nexus --Breaking the Cycle --Creating the Tools --Expanding the Horizons Both parts of the "Solicitation for Investigator-Initiated Research" will include a discussion and examples of how proposed research can fit into these themes. A discussion of these themes also can be found in Building Knowledge About Crime and Justice: the 1998 Research Prospectus of the National Institute of Justice (Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, November 1998, NCJ 172883, and National Institute of Justice 1997 Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, August 1998, NCJ 171679). Visit NIJ's Web site at http://www. ojp.usdoj.gov/nij for the publications mentioned above and for the latest information on the release of the "Solicitation for Investigator-Initiated Research." NIJ publications also are available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service by calling 1-800-851-3420. ------------------------------- NIJ in the Journals The following summarizes key articles of interest to the Journal's readers. Most are based on studies sponsored by NIJ. Copies are available on loan from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS); in some cases, photocopies may be obtained and a corresponding fee charged. For information on availability, contact NCJRS at 1-800-851-3420 or askncjrs@ncjrs.org. Please cite the accession (ACCN) number when contacting NCJRS. "Criminalizing White-Collar Misconduct: Determinants of Prosecution in Savings and Loan Fraud Cases," Crime, Law, and Social Change, 26 (1997), 53-76, by Tillman, R., K. Calavita, and H. Pontell, grant number 90-IJ-CX-0059, ACCN 175387. This analysis focused on three explanations for the differential handling of white-collar offenders. Using data on individuals suspected of having committed serious crimes against savings and loan institutions, researchers sought to determine the factors that influenced prosecutors to file criminal charges against some suspects and not others. The findings indicated that all three models may be limited in their ability to explain low rates of prosecution involving white-collar crimes. "School Disorder: The Influence of Individual, Institutional, and Community Factors," Criminology, 37(1) (1999), 73-115, by Welsh, W.N., J.R. Greene, and P.J. Jenkins, grant number 93-IJ-CX-0038, ACCN 176452. This study examined the influence of individual, institutional, and community factors on misconduct in Philadelphia middle schools. Using data from the U.S. Census, school districts, police departments, and a survey of "school climate"--the unwritten beliefs, values, and attitudes that become the style of interaction among students, teachers, and administrators--researchers studied the following predictors of school misconduct: community poverty and residential stability; community crime; school size; student perceptions of school climate; and individual student characteristics. The authors found that the level of crime in a community has less effect on student misconduct than individual student characteristics, such as belief in rules and positive peer associations. They conclude that the assumption that "bad" communities produce "bad" schools is unwarranted and that a school is neither blessed nor doomed entirely on the basis of where it is located, nor on the basis of its student demographics. "Stick-Up, Street Culture, and Offender Motivation," Criminology, 37(1) (1999), 149-73, by Jacobs, B.A., and R. Wright, grant number 94-IJ-CX-0030, ACCN 176453. This article explores the decision-making processes of active armed robbers in real-life settings and circumstances. The authors attempt to understand how and why offenders move from an unmotivated state to one in which they are determined to commit robbery. They conclude that street culture represents an essential intervening variable linking criminal motivation to background, or behavioral, risk factors and the conditions of the subjective "foreground"--the immediate context in which decisions to offend are activated. "Violent Crime and the Spatial Dynamics of Neighborhood Transition: Chicago, 1970-1990," Social Forces, 76(1) (September 1997), 31-64, by Morenoff, J.D., and R.J. Sampson, grant number 93-IJ-CX-K005, ACCN 175654. Integrating ecological, demographic, and criminological theory, the authors examined the roles of violent crime and socioeconomic disadvantage in triggering population decline in Chicago neighborhoods from 1970 to 1990. Although both black and white populations declined in response to high initial levels of homicide and socioeconomic disadvantage, increases in neighborhood homicide, spatial proximity to homicide, and socioeconomic disadvantage were associated with black population gain and white population loss. ------------------------------- Final Reports The following final reports of completed NIJ-sponsored research were submitted by the authors in manuscript form. The reports are available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) through interlibrary loan and as photocopies. For information about fees, call NCJRS at 1-800-851-3420. "Civil Remedies for Controlling Crime: The Role of Community Organizations," by Roehl, J., ACCN 175519, 1998, 19 pp., grant number 93-IJ-CX-K010. This paper reviews civil remedies used by community organizations to control crimes. It presents the results of a national survey on the types and prevalence of civil remedies used, problems encountered, and outcomes. The two most common forms of civil remedies were environmental changes and enforcement strategies. Community organizations often used nuisance and drug abatement ordinances and municipal codes; sometimes they collaborated with police, prosecutors, and other government agencies. These methods displaced rather than eliminated crime and drug problems. "Exploration of the Experiences and Needs of Former Intimate Stalking Victims," by Brewster, M.P., ACCN 175475, 1998, 81 pp., grant number 95-WT-NX-0002. This research explored the nature of the stalking experiences of noncelebrity, former intimate victims. The victims provided data on the relationship between victim and stalker, victims' responses to the stalking, consequences of the stalking for the victims, and the fulfillment of victims' needs in terms of victim services and the criminal justice system. The paper includes policy recommendations for law enforcement agencies, the courts, State legislatures, and victim service agencies. "Fast Track Program Study," by Collier, L., P. Phelps, M. Barnett, K. Gewerth, and M. Hedberg, ACCN 175476, 23 pp., grant number 96-IJ-CX-0072. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Bay City, Michigan, Fast Track Program in curbing and retracking nonviolent juvenile delinquents. The program was designed to provide immediate sanctions for status offenders and nonviolent juveniles who committed minor delinquent acts. Successful completion of the program expunges the charge for which a youth entered the program. "Improving the Management of Rental Properties With Drug Problems: A Randomized Experiment," by Eck, J.E., and J. Wartell, ACCN 175516, 1998, 25 pp., grant number 90-IJ-CX-K006. A randomized experiment was conducted in 121 San Diego, California, rental properties to test the theory that property managers can help prevent illicit activities. It also tested a drug sales prevention tactic designed to pressure landlords with drug-plagued rental properties to improve their management practices. Two experimental groups received different interventions; a control group received no further police actions. Followup analysis revealed more evictions of drug offenders for both experimental groups relative to the control group. The findings support the hypothesis that place management is causally related to crime and drug dealing. "On-Campus Victimization Patterns of Students: Implications for Crime Prevention by Students and Post-Secondary Institutions," by Fisher, B.S., J.J. Sloan III, F.T. Cullen, and C. Lu, ACCN 175504, 25 pp., grant number 93-IJ-CX-0049. This study reports on the victimization experiences of college students and the crime prevention challenges facing campuses today. It also examines the frequency and nature of on-campus victimizations; the crime-prevention behavior of students; and the crime-prevention programs, services, and measures at selected schools. ------------------------------- JR 000241