Strengthening the National Institute of Justice

335 Pages·2010·2.43 MB·English

by  National Research Council, Committee on Assessing the Research Program of the National Institute of Justice

Committee on Assessing the Research Program of the
National Institute of Justice
Charles F. Wellford, Betty M. Chemers, and Julie A. Schuck, Editors
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Govern-
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councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineer-
ing, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for
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ate balance.
This study was supported by Contract No. 2007-IJ-CX-0001 between the National
Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Department of Justice. Any opinions, fndings,
conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the
author(s) and do not necessarily refect the views of the organization or agencies
that provided support for the project.
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Suggested citation: National Research Council. (2010). Strengthening the National
Institute of Justice. Committee on Assessing the Research Program of the National
Institute of Justice, C.F. Wellford, B.M. Chemers, and J.A. Schuck, Editors. Division
of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National
Academies Press.
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
COMMITTEE ON ASSESSINg THE RESEARCH PROgRAM
OF THE NATIONAL INSTITuTE OF JuSTICE
CHARLES F. WELLFORD (Chair), Department of Criminology,
University of Maryland
GEORGE F. SENSABAUGH, JR. (Vice Chair), School of Public Health,
University of California, Berkeley
CHARLES E. ANDERSON, JR., Engineering Dynamics Department,
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
ROBERT D. CRUTCHFIELD, Department of Sociology, University of
Washington
JOEL S. ENGEL, JSE Consulting, Armonk, New York
JOHN L. HAGAN, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University
ADELE V. HARRELL, Independent Consultant, Washington, DC
DAVID D. JENSEN, Knowledge Discovery Library, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst
TRACEY L. MEARES, Yale Law School
EDWIN MEESE III, Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC
DANIEL S. NAGIN, H.J. Heinz School of Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon
University
ALEX R. PIQUERO, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice,
Florida State University
CHARLES H. RAMSEY, Philadelphia Police Department
MARY ANN SAAR, Independent Consultant, Baltimore
JAY A. SIEGEL, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Indiana
University–Purdue University, Indianapolis
CAROL H. WEISS, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard
University
BETTY M. CHEMERS, Study Director
CAROL PETRIE, Director, Committee on Law and Justice
JULIE ANNE SCHUCK, Research Associate
JACQUELINE R. SOVDE, Program Associate

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
COMMITTEE ON LAW AND JuSTICE
JAMES Q. WILSON (Chair), University of California, Los Angeles
PHILIP J. COOK (Vice Chair), Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke
University
CARL C. BELL, Community Mental Health Council, Inc., Chicago
ROBERT D. CRUTCHFIELD, Department of Sociology, University of
Washington
GARY LaFREE, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and
Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland
JANET L. LAURITSEN, Department of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, University of Missouri, St. Louis
GLENN C. LOURY, Department of Economics, Brown University
CHARLES F. MANSKI, Department of Economics, Northwestern
University
TRACEY L. MEARES, Yale Law School
TERRIE E. MOFFITT, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience,
Duke University
RUTH D. PETERSON, Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice
Research Center, Ohio State University
ROBERT J. SAMPSON, Department of Sociology, Harvard University
JEREMY TRAVIS, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University
of New York
DAVID WEISBURD, Department of Administration of Justice, Center for
Evidence Based Crime Policy, George Mason University
PAUL K. WORMELI, IJIS Institute, Ashburn, Virginia
JANE L. ROSS, Acting Director
BETTY M. CHEMERS, Senior Program Offcer
LINDA DEPUGH, Administratie Assistant
i
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
Preface
xperience strongly suggests that few people or organizations seek
public assessments of their performance. This is especially true for
Egovernment agencies, for which the consequences of such reviews
can be painful and seldom seem to result in agency enhancements. It was
therefore both surprising and exciting when the National Institute of Justice
(NIJ) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to conduct an assessment
of its operations, research, and impact. Although NIJ was prompted to seek
this review by the requirements of the Offce of Management and Budget’s
Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) process and the results of some
assessments by the Government Accountability Offce, the agency’s genuine
interest in having a comprehensive and objective assessment impressed me
as well as the other members of the committee. Having worked at NIJ for a
year following completion of my graduate work and in a number of differ-
ent capacities over the years since then, I knew how important the decision
of the NIJ leadership to seek this review was to the committee’s ability to
conduct the assessment.
While the committee received admirable cooperation from NIJ and
other components of the U.S. Department of Justice, the reader will see that
our assessment was at times limited by the absence of basic data describing
NIJ’s work and accomplishments. Time and again, information that any
effective agency would be expected to maintain as part of its review of its
operations was diffcult to access or not available. We detail these prob-
lems in the report and call for changes in management and record-keeping
that, if implemented, will mean that future assessments will not face this
problem.
ii
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
iii PREFACE
A vibrant and effective federal research agency addressing issues of crime
and justice continues to be vital to an improved ability to reduce crime and
increase justice. The committee concluded this after a careful review of NIJ
and a consideration of the role that other federal, state, and nonproft orga-
nizations can and do play in advancing knowledge about crime and justice.
Nothing in this report should be construed to suggest otherwise. We expect
there will be debate about some of our recommendations, but there should be
no debate on whether an NIJ is important to facing the “challenge of crime
in a free society.”
This report is the product of collective contributions. We could not
have completed our work without the assistance of the NRC staff who
provided wise counsel as well as invaluable support in drafting our report,
and of numerous scholars, practitioners, policy offcials, and program man-
gers who met with the committee and provided the information, data, and
research necessary for our assessment.
We are grateful for the involvement of staff from NIJ. The director,
deputy directors, and division chiefs briefed the committee on their pro-
grams and felded numerous questions. These staff included David Hagy,
director; Marc Caplan, chief, Operational Technologies Division; Christine
Crossland, acting chief, Violence and Victimization Research Division;
Thomas Feucht, executive science advisor and previous director of the Of-
fce of Research and Evaluation; William Ford, acting chief, Information
and Sensor Technology Division; Nancy Merritt, chief, Justice Systems
Research Division; John Morgan, director, Offce of Science and Technol-
ogy; Winifred Reed, chief, Crime Control and Prevention Research Divi-
sion; Mike Sheppo, chief, Investigative and Forensics Sciences Division;
Cindy Smith, chief, International Center, Offce of the Director; and Edwin
Zedlewski, senior science advisor. We also recognize the NIJ staff that as-
sisted the committee in assembling documents and data on the agency and
clarifying information on their programs. These included Portia Graham,
associate director, Offce of Operations; Jolene Hernon, director, Offce of
Communications; Angela Moore Parmley, acting director, Offce of Re-
search and Evaluation; John Picarelli, social science analyst; and George
Tillery, associate director, Offce of Science and Technology. A special
note of thanks goes to Patrick Clark, senior social science analyst, and
Karen Stern, social science analyst, who served as the NIJ liaisons to the
committee.
We also thank the many individuals who served as presenters and
discussants at our meetings and provided perspective on NIJ from the
feld as well as inside the Department of Justice. These included Richard
Thornburgh, former U.S. Attorney General (1988-1991); Janet Reno, former
U.S. Attorney General (1993-2001); Alfred Blumstein, J. Erik Jonsson uni-
versity professor, urban systems and operations research, Carnegie Mellon
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
PREFACE ix
University; Charles Bostian, alumni distinguished professor, electrical and
computer engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and University; Ronnie
Earle, district attorney, Travis County, Texas; Michael J. Farrell, deputy
commissioner, New York City Police Department; Jeff Frazier, global justice
and public safety director, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Bruce Goldberger, professor,
toxicology, University of Florida College of Medicine and ex offcio trustee
of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences; Martin F. Horn, commis-
sioner, Corrections and Probation, New York City; Gary LaFree, professor,
criminology and criminal justice and director of the National Consortium
for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of
Maryland; John M. Pellegrino, director, Sensors and Electron Devices Di-
rectorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory; Richard Rosenfeld, professor,
criminology and criminal justice, University of Missouri; David G. Ross,
former circuit court judge, Seventh Judicial Circuit, Maryland; and Howard
Silver, executive director, Consortium of Social Science Associations.
We are particularly grateful that several former Department of Justice
offcials took time out of their schedules to meet with committee members.
We thank former NIJ directors Sarah Hart, James K. Stewart, and Jeremy
Travis for their perspectives on challenges facing NIJ as well as NIJ’s role in
priority setting and dissemination, and former assistant attorneys general,
Offce of Justice Programs (OJP), Deborah Daniels and Laurie Robinson for
their perspectives, respectively, on the need for a criminal justice research
institute and on transition activities of the new administration and their
effect on NIJ. Laurie Robinson, at the time she briefed the committee, was
director, Master of Science in Criminology Program at the Jerry Lee Center
of Criminology, University of Pennsylvania, and has since been reappointed
as assistant attorney general, OJP.
We also received briefngs from agency directors and program division
directors of several federal research agencies. We thank those individuals
who provided perspective on the roles and responsibilities of a research
agency: Wilson Compton, director, Division of Epidemiology, Services and
Prevention Research, National Institute of Drug Abuse; Rolf Dietrich,
deputy director, Research Division, U.S. Department of Homeland Security;
Christopher Doyle, director, Infrastructure and Geophysical Division, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security; Naomi Goldstein, director, Planning,
Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services; Wayne Goodman, director,
Division of Adult Translational Research, National Institute of Mental
Health; Patricia Gruber, director of research, Offce of Naval Research;
Susan Haire, project offcer, Law and Science Program, National Science
Foundation; Ralph Hingson, acting director, and Vivian Faden, deputy
director, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, National Institute on
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; David Lightfoot, assistant director, Social,
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.