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Intended for federal, state, and local policymakers in the area of criminal justice research and development, this report includes guidelines for improvement of the quality, relevance, and utilization of research results. In order to cover these issues, part two of this report focuses respectively on the needs of research and development policymakers who fund criminal justice research and development, researchers who conduct research and development, and practitioners who put research and development results into use. Guidelines and principles are proposed which should assist policymakers at all levels of government. However, some topics tend to be addressed more to the federal level, where major research and development decisions are often made. The first chapter of this part presents a detailed discussion of institutional support for criminal justice research and development. It describes the federal role in supporting this effort, focusing on who the agencies are, the extent of their involvement, and how the principal agencies are organized to manage their research and development programs. Recommendations regarding the research and development management activities of criminal justice funding agencies are included. Several important issues in the conduct of criminal justice research and development are examined in the second chapter. Among the topics discussed are constraints on research, ethical issues, research designs and methodologies, prerequisites for sound planning and project selection, ways of maintaining the confidentiality of data, and ways of making data more easily available for research and statistical purposes. The final chapter of this section discusses research and development utilization practices and the assumptions underlying current policies in this area. A criticism of these policies and recommendations for new strategies is presented. The final part of this report provides an analysis of the kinds of problems often encountered in research and development. Three general types of criminal justice research and development are discussed: technology (e.g., hardware) research, research on problems of criminal justice organizations (e.g., arrest, prosecution, sentencing, and parole), and research on new criminal justice problems. For each type of research and development, the relevant issues and recommendations are discussed. Most of these, however, still related to either the support or conduct of research and development. The report also attempts to provide concrete illustrative examples by raising the relevant issues in the context of crime prevention at commercial and residential sites (technology research), sentencing (research on problems of criminal justice organizations), and problems of the victim (research on new criminal justice problems).
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the nation's primary resource for advancing scientific research, development, and evaluation on crime and crime control and the administration of justice in the United States. Headed by a presidentially appointed director, it is one of the major units in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under its authorizing legislation, NIJ awards grants and contracts to a variety of public and private organizations and individuals. At the request of NIJ, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice assesses the operations and quality of the full range of its programs. These include social science research, science and technology research and development, capacity building, and technology assistance. The book concludes that a federal research institute such as NIJ is vital to the nation's continuing efforts to control crime and administer justice. No other federal, state, local, or private organization can do what NIJ was created to do. Forty years ago, Congress envisioned a science agency dedicated to building knowledge to support crime prevention and control by developing a wide range of techniques for dealing with individual offenders, identifying injustices and biases in the administration of justice, and supporting more basic and operational research on crime and the criminal justice system and the involvement of the community in crime control efforts. As the embodiment of that vision, NIJ has accomplished a great deal. It has succeeded in developing a body of knowledge on such important topics as hot spots policing, violence against women, the role of firearms and drugs in crime, drug courts, and forensic DNA analysis. It has helped build the crime and justice research infrastructure. It has also widely disseminated the results of its research programs to help guide practice and policy. But its efforts have been severely hampered by a lack of independence, authority, and discretionary resources to carry out its mission.