Completed Projects

Community Supervision and Desistance from Crime

In Parole, Desistance from Crime, and Community Integration prison releasees represent a challenge, both to themselves and to the communities to which they return. Will the releasees see parole as an opportunity to be reintegrated into society, with jobs and homes and supportive families and friends? Or will they commit new crimes or violate the terms of their parole contracts? If so, will they be returned to prison or placed under more stringent community supervision? Will the communities to which they return see them as people to be reintegrated or people to be avoided? And, the institution of parole itself is challenged with three different functions: to facilitate reintegration for parolees who are ready for rehabilitation; to deter crime; and to apprehend those parolees who commit new crimes and return them to prison.

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Improving Research Information and Data on Firearms

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Fairness and Effectiveness of Policing: The Evidence

Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing explores police work in the new century. It replaces myths with research findings and provides recommendations for updated policy and practices to guide it. The book provides answers to the most basic questions: What do police do? It reviews how police work is organized, explores the expanding responsibilities of police, examines the increasing diversity among police employees, and discusses the complex interactions between officers and citizens. It also addresses such topics as community policing, use of force, racial profiling, and evaluates the success of common police techniques, such as focusing on crime “hot spots.” It goes on to look at the issue of legitimacy—how the public gets information about police work, and how police are viewed by different groups, and how police can gain community trust.

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Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence

Deadly Lessons is the outcome of the National Research Council’s unique effort to glean lessons from six case studies of lethal student violence. These are powerful stories of parents and teachers and troubled youths, presenting the tragic complexity of the young shooter’s social and personal circumstances in rich detail. The cases point to possible causes of violence and suggest where interventions may be most effective. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the potential threat, how violence might be prevented, and how healing might be promoted in affected communities.

The cases point to possible causes of violence and suggest where interventions may be most effective. Readers will come away with a better understanding of the potential threat, how violence might be prevented, and how healing might be promoted in affected communities.

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Measurement Problems in Criminal Justice Research:
Workshop Summary

This workshop was designed to consider similarities and differences in the methodological problems encountered by the survey and criminal justice research communities and what might be the best focus for the research community. In addition to comparing and contrasting the methodological issues associated with self-report surveys and official records, the workshop explored methods for obtaining accurate self-reports on sensitive questions about crime events, estimating crime and victimization in rural counties and townships and developing unbiased prevalence and incidence rates for rate events among population subgroups.

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Informing America’s Policy on Illegal Drugs:

Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs recommends ways to close gaps in our understanding-by obtaining the necessary data on drug prices and consumption (quantity in addition to frequency); upgrading federal management of drug statistics; and improving our evaluation of prevention, interdiction, enforcement, and treatment efforts.

The committee reviews what we do and do not know about illegal drugs and how data are assembled and used by federal agencies. The book explores the data and research information needed to support strong drug policy analysis, describes the best methods to use, explains how to avoid misleading conclusions, and outlines strategies for increasing access to data. Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs also discusses how researchers can incorporate randomization into studies of drug treatment and how state and local agencies can compare alternative approaches to drug enforcement.

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Juvenile Crime, Prevention, Treatment, and Control

The Juvenile Panel identified and analyzed the full range of research studies and data sets that bear upon the nature of juvenile crime, highlighting key issues and data sources that provided evidence of prevalence and seriousness; race, gender, and class bias; and impacts of deterrence, punishment, and prevention strategies. The panel also analyzed the factors that contribute to delinquent behavior, including a review of the knowledge on child and adolescent development and its implications for prevention and control; assess the current practices of the juvenile justice system including the implementation of constitutional safeguards; examine adjudication, detention and waiver practices; explore the role of community and institutional settings; assess the quality of data sources on the clients of both public and private juvenile justice facilities; and assess the impact of the de-institutionalization mandates of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 on delinquency and community service.

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The Committee on Pathological Gambling

The Committee on Pathological Gambling identified and analyzed the full range of research studies that bear upon the nature of pathological and problem gambling, highlighting key issues and data sources that can provide hard evidence of prevalence and multiple impacts. Study participants assessed the connections among normative behaviors, pathological and problem gambling, and mental illness; analyzed the factors that cause, encourage or mitigate pathological and problem gambling behaviors, and whether they are increasing; described the negative social and economic costs of pathological and problem gambling; identified and analyzed relevant cross cultural factors; and identified the circumstances that both impede and support prevention and control strategies.

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The Workshop on Transnational Crime

The Workshop on Transnational Crime considered new theory and emerging research and identified critical new areas for research on transnational crime. The workshop focused on: the definition of transnational crime; the organization of transnational crime; problems in the measurement of transnational crime; the interface between legal and illegal activities; and implications of transnational crime for local law enforcement.