Spatiotemporal analysis in the form of geographic information systems (GISs) can help monitor changes in crime patterns in comprehensive community initiative (CCI). This article presents a CCI in Worcester, MA, in which the monthly monitoring of crime data without the use of GIS indicated that violent and social disorder crimes were decreasing in the project area. Spatiotemporal analysis, however, revealed a persistent crime hot spot. Upon deeper analysis, the project team realized that this hot spot consisted of medical calls, calls to check on the welfare, and overdoses. The project's theory of change was not designed for these types of problems. Learning this with 9 months left in the project, the CCI's leadership team began to develop a community-based response to opioid addiction. Given these results, funders of CCIs could encourage the regular use of accessible, open-source tools for spatiotemporal analysis in projecting monitoring. Ultimately, the joining of logic models and GISs can greatly increase the effectiveness of CCIs by directing the right strategies and resources to accurately constructed community problems.
We surveyed 75 staff and administrators involved in Oakland (CA)’s Second Chance Initiative from diverse agencies (e.g., probation, behavioral health, public health/medical, education, community-based service providers) to assess the local juvenile reentry system. Sharing and using data across partner agencies, mutual trust, opportunities for interagency collaboration, system-level youth and family engagement, shared governance, and limited resources repeatedly arose as areas for improvement. Many defined reentry success using positive youth developmental outcomes. Government and community perspectives around barriers and effectiveness often differed with some similarities.
Most communities in the United States provide fire and police services through separate departments, but some operate a single consolidated one for police, fire, and, frequently, emergency medical services. The number of such public safety departments has grown in recent years, but little systematic research has been done on them. This article presents results of a census and subsequent survey of public safety departments in the United States to examine their prevalence, form, and function. It reviews characteristics of their distribution, capabilities and structure, staffing and management, budget, and approach to community policing. It concludes by identifying future research needs.
The aim of the present study was to determine whether latent class analysis (LCA) could obtain a measure of the aggregate firearm transfer law environment. LCA, analysis of variance, and multinomial logistic regression were used to analyze state-level firearm transfer laws. Results indicated that a three-class solution fit the data better than a two- or four-class solution. These classes were associated with the two covariates in patterns consistent with hypotheses. Results suggest that LCA is a useful technique for classifying states based on the restrictiveness of firearm transfer laws. This classification may be useful in intervention and prevention planning.
Although the number of Veterans Treatment Courts (VTCs) has been growing at a rapid rate, thus far, VTC components have not been standardized, due in part to a lack of empirical evidence on the extent to which components vary across VTCs nationwide and change over time. This study analyzed data collected by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Veterans Justice Program, on VTCs in 2012 (n = 173 Courts), 2013 (n = 266), and 2014 (n = 351), to describe Court characteristics, participant eligibility criteria, and Courts’ mentoring component. Despite growth in VTC numbers, the survey found consistency over time in these aspects of VTCs. Regarding characteristics, the majority of Courts had jurisdiction at the county level. Across survey years, the range of means was 22–24 for veteran participant census, 10–14 for number of months spent in the Court for misdemeanors, and 18–19 for number of months spent in the Court for felonies. Eligibility requirements suggested openness to veterans of different backgrounds and status. Less than two thirds of Courts had the mentoring component; Courts with the mentoring component had a higher participant census and a longer duration of participants’ time under Court supervision than Courts without this component. Existing mentoring programs were organized mainly by volunteers. VTCs’ adherence to policies supportive of veterans may benefit from having paid mentor coordinators in order to further ensure this hallmark of VTCs.
We analyze a set of 207 Dallas Police Department officer-involved shooting incidents in reference to 1,702 instances in which officers from the same agency drew their firearms but did not shoot at the suspect. We find that situational factors of whether the suspect was armed and whether an officer was injured were the best predictors of the decision to shoot. We also find that African Americans are less likely than Whites to be shot. It is important to collect data on encounters in which weapons are and are not discharged. Analyses examining only shootings is fundamentally limited in assessing racial bias.
The 2006 Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, established federal standards related to the content and operation of sex offender registration and notification systems across the United States. As of early 2017, over a decade following passage, 18 of 50 states had been designated by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as having substantially implemented SORNA—figures that might be initially interpreted as indicators of a failed policy. Yet a closer analysis suggests that SORNA implementation is complex and multifaceted and that viewing the policy’s “success” through such a binary prism may be inherently limited. In this context, the current study offers a multidimensional analysis of state-level SORNA implementation based on data abstracted from DOJ records. Findings indicate that many aspects of SORNA have been universally or widely implemented, that most states have adopted policies that are consistent with a majority of SORNA standards, and that barriers to SORNA implementation are concentrated among a limited subset of issues, notably those related to retroactive application, registration of juveniles, and means of classifying registrants. Implications for state and federal policy governing sex offender registration are discussed.
Contraband cell phones pose significant challenges for correctional administrators and policy makers. Data to examine the nature of the contraband cell phone problem remains elusive, rendering much...
Contraband cell phones pose significant challenges for correctional administrators and policy makers. Data to examine the nature of the contraband cell phone problem remains elusive, rendering much of the debate about how these issues have arisen and what can be done to resolve challenges informed by anecdotes. Using a data collection of 425,443 contraband cell phone-attempted transmissions, the present study provides important empirical evidence of contraband cell phone user behavior. Findings indicate that the calling patterns of contraband cell phone users mirror those of the general public. Phones are most likely used to maintain in-state contact with an intimate network of up to six partners, to entertain oneself, to manage personal finances, or a combination of these motivations.
Domestic violence courts (DVCs) have become an increasingly popular model in the problem-solving court system. To date, there have been no efforts to summarize the extant literature regarding the impact of DVCs on recidivism. The present study is a meta-analysis of 20 DVC outcome studies reporting on 26 unique DVC samples. The results indicated that DVCs are having a positive impact (i.e., lower odds) on general recidivism (odds ratio [OR] = .81, 95% CI [0.68, 0.98], k = 18) as well as domestic violence recidivism (OR = .81, 95% CI [0.67, 0.97], k = 21), compared to domestic violence offenders processed through the traditional court system. These results, however, became nonsignificant when considering studies of sound methodological quality (as assessed by the Collaborative Outcome Data Committee guidelines). The study also conducted a preliminary investigation of treatment quality (adherence to risk, need, and responsivity [RNR] principles) in the DVC literature. The results indicated that adherence to the RNR principles was low but significantly related to greater treatment effects. Future research should aim to increase the quality of evaluation designs and the courts should look to existing offender rehabilitation literature to inform best practices with domestic violence offenders.
Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings? The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading. LCMs are known to have been used in less than one third of 1% of mass shootings. News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were known to have been used, occurring in the United States in 1994–2013, were examined. There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload. In all of these 23 incidents, the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2- to 4-seconds delay for each magazine change. Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain such slow rates of fire that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.
Scholars often use administrative corrections data to identify the reasons that offenders return to prison, though such data usually obscure more complex processes underlying the cause of a return. This article describes the procedural nuances that make it difficult to record prison return paths and discusses these limitations. We focus on data elements and recording practices commonly found in administrative databases and discuss whether and how researchers may use these data to reliably identify/classify returns. We provide empirical demonstrations of these arguments using publicly available data and conclude that more extensive data are often needed to accomplish this objective.
A public health approach to violence prevention involves the empirical identification of groups and communities at the highest risk for violence to inform targeted interventions. We demonstrate the utility of complete incident-level crime data toward this end. Data for 32,056 unique incidents involving homicide, aggravated assault, and robbery were extracted from the 2013 Michigan Incident Crime Reporting system, a statewide National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data system. Differential victimization rates were calculated across demographic subgroups and jurisdictions to identify patterns in risk. Two-stage least squares regression models were estimated to examine correlates of variation in excess risk. Analyses identified young Black males and females at relatively high risk for violent victimization, and that this risk was amplified within cities with disproportionately high crime rates. Multivariate models suggested concentrated disadvantage as the most stable correlate of variation in excess risk across Michigan cities and towns. The results highlight the importance of expanding NIBRS adoption and the deployment of focused interventions involving both short-term enforcement and long-term social reinvestment.
Female staff members are overrepresented among perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities. That is the basic message of Allen Beck’s thought-provoking article. This commentary provides a practitioner’s perspective of his study and highlights the need for courageous leadership in preventing and responding to female staff sexual misconduct. The author considers the implications of the study’s results for systems change and correctional organizations. While it is critical to acknowledge Dr. Beck’s conclusions and to insure accountability for any staff engaging in sexual misconduct, the author emphasizes the need to also prevent this misconduct through leadership and healthy organizational cultures. Recommendations for further research and improved correctional practice are provided by the author.
Increased research attention to sexual violence in recent decades has resulted in greater understanding about these crimes. This work consistently finds that younger females are at the greatest risk for sexual assault and that certain correlates are related to sexual violence. Little is known about the situational contexts in which sexual assault, particularly rape, occurs as well as possible differences between adolescent and emerging adult female victims. We analyze 2012 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data using conjunctive analysis of case configurations to identify the situational contexts most commonly occurring for these age-groups for rapes reported to police. We also discuss the policy implications of our findings and how NIBRS might be used to better inform policy.
The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) has been a repository for crime data for almost 25 years. This work explores the uses and applications of these data to shed light on a variety of crime and policing issues since the data became available in the early to mid 1990s. Specific attention and discussion is devoted to some of the advances that NIBRS data affords as well as some of the limitations that have been discovered. Documenting both the challenges and opportunities that NIBRS data have provided was the aim of this work. Both the research and practice communities can profit from further data collection and analysis of this important source of information relative to crimes that become known to the police.
While most prisoners serve their time and are released without incident, approximately 3,000 state prisoners (less than 1%) die annually. The mortality rate of state prisoners (259 per 100,000) between 2001and 2010 was considerably lower than the mortality rate of the U.S. resident population (826 per 100,000), despite the disadvantaged social and economic background of prisoners prior to incarceration. Using data from the Deaths in Custody Reporting Program and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research model, we compared state prisoner deaths to deaths of their U.S. resident counterparts through direct standardization to determine differences in the mortality rates after adjusting for demographic differences between the two populations. Our findings show that male prisoners between the age of 18 and 75 have a lower overall mortality rate (248 per 100,000) than their counterparts in the adjusted resident population (325 per 100,000). With a few exceptions, gaps observed in cause-specific mortality rates between male prisoners and their U.S. resident counterparts shrink or disappear once the resident population is adjusted for demographic differences. This finding suggests that mortality outcomes may be the function of being an adult male between the ages of 18 and 75 rather than being a prisoner. However, mortality rates related to liver disease, septicemia, and AIDS-related causes were higher among males in prison than among males in the adjusted resident population. These higher rates suggest that these deaths may be linked to the social and economic disadvantages of prisoners and to their risky lifestyles prior to incarceration.
This is a study of female staff sexual misconduct, drawing on reports of victims identified in large-scale national surveys of adults in prison and jails and youth in juvenile facilities. Past research has often emphasized the inmate roles and staff member vulnerabilities. More recent scholarship has moved beyond the traditional conception of sexual abuse by female correctional workers as the consequence of manipulative and predatory actions by male inmates and placed greater responsibility on the women for their actions. Although the surveys conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics over the last decade in response to the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act are unable to speak to the motivations of the victims or the perpetrators, they provide an assessment of the magnitude of the problem and offer extensive detail on the circumstances surrounding female staff sexual misconduct. The findings indicate that female staff members are overrepresented among perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities. The data reveal a high level of staff misconduct, involving abuse of power, trading in favors, offers of special privileges and protection, and offers of alcohol and drugs, which co-occurs with female staff sexual misconduct.
