In 2018, the Baltimore Police Department established Baltimore City Intelligence Centers (BCICs) to strengthen criminal investigations and support more effective directed patrol operations. The BCICs were modeled after the Chicago Police Department's Strategic Decision Support Centers-more generically known as "crime information centers." Like real-time crime centers (RTCCs), BCICs integrate technologies and intelligence to combat crime. However, while RTCCs are generally centralized within a jurisdiction, BCICs operate at the district level. This localized structure enables personnel to gather and disseminate intelligence tailored to specific geographic areas, supporting more targeted and proactive policing strategies. This study analyzes 10 years of Baltimore crime data (April 2013 to June, 2023) using micro-synthetic control models to evaluate the impact of four BCICs on crime levels. Findings reveal mixed effects across BCIC districts; however, the centers were generally associated with increases in recorded crime, particularly person crimes and incidents occurring outdoors. These findings likely reflect an improved capacity to detect and document crime that may have otherwise gone unreported.

Correctional climate—the perceptions staff and incarcerated people hold about their institution—can influence well-being for everyone living and working in prison. This study explores differences in perceptions of safety, quality of sleep, psychological and emotional wellness, physical health, and overall life outlook among 1,148 security staff, non-security staff, and incarcerated individuals across five Minnesota Department of Corrections facilities. Results indicate that both staff groups report significantly greater safety and sleep quality outcomes than incarcerated people, while security staff also reported better emotional wellness than the incarcerated population. No differences emerged across groups regarding perceived psychological wellness, physical health, or life outlook. These findings highlight both shared experiences and key disparities within correctional environments, underscoring opportunities to improve conditions, support workforce well-being, and advance institutional policies that benefit all people in prison settings.

Evaluate Washington’s prison-issued tablets, which aim to expand services and enhance institutional safety. Staggered adoption difference-in-differences with monthly administrative data from 12 prisons, January 2019 - March 2023. Outcomes include total infractions, serious infractions, drug incidents, and cellphone violations. The Callaway and Sant’Anna estimator addresses treatment-effect heterogeneity, with time-varying covariates and wild cluster bootstrap standard errors. Event-study models evaluate pre-treatment trends and post-adoption changes. Tablet deployment produced consistently negative but non-significant effects, with point estimates suggesting reductions in total infractions (− 19.5

Correctional staff face workplace stressors that can have significant and enduring impacts on their mental, physical, and professional well-being. Using staff survey data from five Minnesota prisons ( n = 585), we explore differences in professional and personal wellness among correctional officers and non-security employees. Data were self-reported and represent a 29.2% response rate. We examined how key individual characteristics, work environment, and organizational factors predict several wellness outcomes, including health indicators, burnout, life outlook, job satisfaction, and perceptions of safety. Although results were mixed across outcomes, we found that female, non-white, older, and more educated employees had higher levels of some wellness indicators. Greater staffing levels and lower rates of misconduct also made employees feel safer. Notably, having positive perceptions of the organization’s policies and practices was the strongest predictor across models. Results highlight key stressors and how different staff groups experience the demands of working in correctional settings.

This study examined body-worn camera activations across calls for service and officer-initiated policing activities using data from the Milwaukee Police Department in 2017. Both calls for service and officer-initiated activities that involved greater potential risk, such as calls for violent crimes, traffic stops, and subject stops had the highest activation rates. Interactions with community members resulting in arrest, detainment, citation, or advisement had higher activation rates. Given the variation across officers and event types, both departmental policy and officer discretion may be important influences on activation.

Many United States law enforcement agencies have integrated their crime intelligence and technological capabilities into various 'centers,' including fusion centers, crime gun intelligence centers (CGICs), real-time crime centers (RTCCs), and crime information centers (CICs). Yet, despite their rapid diffusion, there is little understanding about the implementation, operations, and efficacy of these centers. This scoping review aims to systematize research on these four center types and identify knowledge gaps. We identified and reviewed 34 studies across 41 academic publications and gray literature. While most studies were methodologically limited, some evidence suggests that CGICs, RTCCs, and CICs can improve criminal investigations of violent crimes, with less information on their ability to prevent crime. There have also been no rigorous evaluations of fusion centers, despite comprising the largest share of studies in our review. We discuss the implications for practice and provide a roadmap for future scholarship.

The breach of professional boundaries by correctional staff involves various transgressive behaviors and improper relationships with incarcerated individuals. Extant literature has focused on identifying and measuring such behaviors using non-probability samples of correctional officers and formerly incarcerated individuals from single jurisdictions. This research aims to build on this body of work by exploring how key measures related to a specific type boundary violations - staff involvement in introducing contraband - affects the level of contraband in 301 prisons across six states. We investigate three key assumptions about staff motivations for smuggling contraband into their facilities. Some motivations, such as (1) inappropriate relationships with residents and (2) financial gains, tend to be premediated while others, like (3) the lack of accountability and oversight at work, can create opportunistic circumstances that affect staff motivations. The results from negative binomial regression show modest support for each assumption tested in explaining the levels of contraband drugs and cellphones while accounting for relevant prison characteristics. We conclude by delving into the implications of our findings for research, policy, and practice.

Contraband negatively affects the safety and security of correctional institutions. Extant research has relied on descriptive analyses or limited measures of contraband. Drawing upon established theories of institutional misbehavior—the deprivation model, importation model, and management perspective–the study examines facility-level and correctional population characteristic correlates of contraband in 301 prisons across six U.S. states. Findings confirm the relevance of individually examining risk factors by type of contraband, including drugs, cellphones, weapons, and total contraband. Lower security prisons, prisons providing substance use treatment, and those employing more women staff had fewer contraband drugs, weapons, and cellphones. Providing outside work opportunities and work-release programs also reduced contraband weapons.

Little research has examined the “powder keg” theory (that escapes are inherently violent), which has been used in U.S. courts to apply sentencing enhancements to people convicted of escaping. We examine open-source data on 610 escapees from jails and prisons to understand the prevalence and scope of escape-related violence, and the relationship between theoretically relevant covariates and these outcomes. Though our data is not representative of all U.S. escapes, we found that 19.2% of the incidents in our sample resulted in violence, with more violence occurring at the breakout (10.9%) than in the community (8.4%) or during recapture (5.7%). Escapees were more likely to use violence when they were in secure custody or outside the facility, if they fled during morning or evening hours, or if they were incarcerated in a jail rather than a lower security prison. These findings yield numerous implications for theory, policy, and practice.

Purpose - This study explores how various officer and event-level factors influence Milwaukee Police Department officers' decision to activate their body-worn cameras (BWCs) across both community member-initiated services and officer-initiated activities. Design/methodology/approach- Across the 1,052 officers and 1,066,112 officer-events in the sample, we use descriptive and logistical regressions to assess differences in BWC activations across calls for service and officer-initiated activities. Findings - We found similar activation rates between calls for service (41.5%) and officer-initiated activities (44.1%). However, our logistic regression analysis results suggest the explanatory power of the event and officer-level variables was substantially better in models examining officer-initiated activities. Among calls for service, officers were more likely to activate BWCs during calls involving crimes against persons compared to other crimes or non-criminal incidents. Activation was more frequent during traffic stops than other self-initiated activities. Activation increased when the event resulted in an advisement, citation, detention or arrest. Originality/value - The success of police BWC programs hinges on whether officers activate their cameras when interacting with community members. Findings suggest that officers are more likely to activate their BWCs during activities that involve direct interactions with community members, especially in situations with a higher potential for volatility or serious criminal implications.

The impact of housing and individual residential mobility on recidivism is nuanced. Individuals may move from prosocial environments to criminogenic environments, or from neighborhoods that are more, or less, socioeconomically disadvantaged. We explore these phenomena using data on individuals on parole in the District of Columbia with community-level Census data. We hypothesize that residential mobility will affect recidivism through changes in both housing types and neighborhood characteristics. Findings suggest that people immediately placed into treatment-oriented or transitional housing had lower rates of rearrest than those in other housing situations. Results of the community-level measures of social disorganization were mixed.

Body-worn cameras (BWC) have become ubiquitous in law enforcement but are nascent in correctional settings. There is little research on the attitudes of the corrections personnel expected to wear these devices, even though their buy-in is critical for successful implementation. We address this gap by examining the perceptions of deputies from the Loudoun County, Virginia Adult Detention Center (LCADC) who participated in a 12-month BWC pilot program. We survey LCADC deputies at three periods (pre-, mid-, and post-implementation) and analyze mean changes in their perceptions of BWCs and staff-resident relationships. We find that LCADC deputies were neutral or did not agree that BWCs would improve efficiency and accuracy, have a civilizing effect on incarcerated residents, or lead to work-related disruptions. These attitudes remain largely consistent across the three survey periods. We also find that deputies had more negative perceptions of their relationships with residents at both the mid- and post-implementation periods, compared to the pre-implementation period. The results suggest that, when developing a BWC program, corrections officials should involve front-line personnel early in the planning process. Officials should also ensure policies are tailored to the unique needs of their correctional agency, rather than merely adapting policies created for law enforcement.

Little is known about the scope of use-of-force incidents in carceral settings, nor the impact of efforts to control it. Correctional agencies have recently begun adopting body-worn cameras (BWCs) to mitigate such incidents and improve institutional management. We conducted a one-year randomized controlled trial of BWCs among the 12 housing units in the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center in Virginia. We collected data on the 97 response-to-resistance (RTR) events that occurred during our study period, including deputies' control methods (physical controls, restraints, weapons) and residents' resistance levels (passive, active, aggressive) during these events. Using negative binomial regression, we found a 40% decrease in RTR events in unit-months with BWCs. We also found 37% and 52% reductions in the use of physical controls by deputies and the occurrence of resident active resistance, respectively. We situate these findings in the correctional context and discuss their implications for policy and future research.

A fundamental challenge facing individuals returning from prison is securing income. Although there have been numerous studies on the relationship between post-release employment and reintegration, less is known about the extent to which returning individuals rely on other sources of financial support, such as the support from family members, public assistance, or earnings from illicit activities. There is also a knowledge gap around how these sources of financial support relate to one another. We use survey data from 385 men who were released from prison to two Chicago neighborhoods, collected as part of an evaluation of the Safer Return Demonstration. We found that 41% of men reported having a legal job since their release, 9% reported receiving income from illegal activities, 30% reported receiving monetary public assistance, 66% received non-monetary public assistance, and 60% were currently receiving financial support from their families. Results from logistic regression models indicate that individuals who were employed were less likely to be financially supported by their families or receive public benefits, but this had no impact on whether they received earning from illegal activities. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy, practice, and future research.

Preventing escapes from custody is an essential function of prisons and jails. Yet, when these incidents occur, little is known about how often or quickly escapees are recaptured. Drawing on the routine activities framework, this study examines a dataset of 610 prison and jail escapees collected through a comprehensive open-source search protocol. The study uses logistic and Cox regression techniques to determine which factors are associated with being recaptured and the time-to-recapture. Findings indicate that more than 91 percent of escapees were recaptured within 1 year and very few remained on the lam for more than a few days. People who escape from nonsecure facilities (often called walkaways) were less likely to be recaptured and remained out of custody for longer durations than those who escaped from secure facilities or while outside under secure (e.g., transport) or nonsecure (e.g., work release) settings. Jail escapees were also less likely to be recaptured, and were apprehended more slowly, than those who fled from a prison.

This publication represents the final research report of the CNA Corporation’s evaluation of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in the Loudoun County, Virginia, Adult Detention Center. The goal of this study was to conduct a rigorous process and impact evaluation of BWCs in a correctional setting to inform researchers and practitioners about the implementation and potential impacts of BWCs on critical correctional outcomes. To achieve this goal, the study team implemented a 12-month clustered randomized controlled trial and collected data using a mixed-method design. Primary data sources included (1) surveys of deputies; (2) interviews of jail leaders, deputies, and external jail stakeholders; (3) a focus group with deputies who serve on the Special Weapons and Tactics team; (4) observations of jail operations and BWC trainings; (5) review and analysis of jail administrative data, including response to resistance (RTR) events and resident injuries; and (6) review and analysis of data collected from stationary cameras and BWC footage. Findings suggest that BWCs hold potential for improving the safety and security of correctional facilities by reducing RTR events and preventing injuries to incarcerated residents. However, findings from deputy surveys raised questions about the potential impact of BWCs on deputy-resident relations. The study also addresses one of the primary points of contention about implementing BWCs in correctional environments: that they are superfluous to the existing network of stationary cameras. This study found limitations with both types of cameras, as well as areas where they can complement one another to help overcome those limitations. The study team made several important recommendations for policy and disseminated the research through both academic and practitioner conferences and publications. This study thus offers significant contributions to the field, paving the way for future scholarship and practice.

Prison contraband poses a substantial threat to the safety of correctional staff and incarcerated people. Yet there has been little research on critical contraband issues. Using descriptive analyses of the 2018 National Survey of Correctional Contraband, a data collection effort involving 301 prisons across six state departments of corrections, the current paper addresses these knowledge gaps through a multi-state, scholarly examination of contraband. We found that prisons recovered an average of 34 weapons, 31 cell phones, and 28 controlled substances over the 12-month study period. Respondents also noted that both staff and visitors were conduits for illicit items in prisons, though they reported more staff violations than visitor violations for contraband-related incidents. Finally, we found that agencies employed a mix of strategies and policies to prevent, detect, and remove contraband from their prisons. We discuss the implications of our work for policy and future research.

Purpose: Investigate the effect of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on jail resident injuries during response-to-resistance (RTR) events. Methods: One-year randomized controlled trial among 12 housing units in the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center in Virginia. Negative binomial regression investigated the effects of BWCs on jail resident injuries during RTRs, and logistic regression predicted whether RTRs result in an injury. Results: A 58% reduction in predicted injuries in unit-months where jail deputies were assigned BWCs, corresponding to an average of 0.17 resident injuries in unit-months without cameras and 0.07 injuries in unit-months with cameras. BWCs also reduced the likelihood of injury occurring by a factor of 0.12 (injuries occurred in 28.4% of RTRs without BWCs, versus 8.8% of RTRs with BWCs). Conclusions: Little is known about use-of-force incidents in prisons and jails, nor the rate at which these incidents result in injuries to incarcerated residents. Yet, in response to calls for greater transparency and accountability among criminal justice agencies, correctional administrators have increasingly turned to BWCs to address these issues and enhance the safety and security of their staff and resident populations. This study addresses critical knowledge gaps and offers one of the first tests of a correctional BWC program.

Comparing the uses and bene ts of stationary cameras versus body-worn cameras in a local jail setting