By Kevin J. Strom, Sean E. Wire.

A seminal piece in our understanding of how high-profle cases of police violence can affect communities, Desmond, Papachristos, and Kirk (2016), found that resident calls to the police via 911 significantly declined after the beating of Frank Jude. These effects were especially prevalent in primarily Black neighborhoods. In this study, we used an interrupted time series design to replicate the original results in a different city using a fatal incident of police violence. We also extended the methods of original study by further disaggregating the follow-up effects to include officer-initiated events, which capture more discretionary activity for patrol officers. Our results confirm the original findings, with resident calls to 911 declining in majority-Black neighborhoods after a deadly incident of police violence, signifying a decay in community trust and legitimacy. Importantly, we also fnd  an immediate and striking decline in officer-initiated activity after the same incident in majority-Black neighborhoods. Conversely, White neighborhoods experienced a slight increase. This study reinforces and adds further context to a growing body of research that explains
how incidents of police violence can affect the actions of community residents and the police, including how we conceptualize and measure the concept of “de-policing.

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International, 2024. 19p.

By Shawn D. Bushway and Nidhi Kalra2

Employers would prefer not to hire people who will engage in criminal behavior for which the employer incurs costs. In the United States, employers are allowed to use publicly available conviction information to try to predict which candidates are at higher or lower risk of criminal activity. This open-records approach stands in stark contrast to closed-records systems in Europe, where only the government has access to this information and only the government can make determinations about potential employee risk. In this review, we find that (a) US employers’ use of conviction information is not clearly aligned with the risk of future criminal behavior or employer costs, and (b) using such information leads to hiring errors that pose costs to society. Perversely, we find that many of these problems come from government statutes around negligent-hiring lawsuits rather than from inherent preferences on the part of employers. We suggest research that would improve the use of conviction history to predict future criminal risk, and we discuss a hybrid policy for the United States in which the government, not employers, makes the final determination about employee risk. We argue that this approach may result in both better risk predictions and better alignment between employer and societal goals, creating advantages for employers, candidates, and society.

ANNUAL REVIEW OF CRIMINOLOGY Volume 4, 2021

By Shawn D. Bushway

Misperceptions can keep employers from hiring people who have criminal records. A growing body of RAND Corporation research counters some prevailing myths about risks of reoffending and provides hiring managers, policymakers, and citizens facts that support better-informed hiring decisions.

Criminal history background checks can provide hiring managers with important information about a job candidate. That said, employers risk making uninformed decisions that exclude good workers if they do not know which factors in the background check actually help predict an individual’s risk of reoffending. The RAND Corporation’s Resetting the Record body of research presents evidence-based findings that could help employers make better, fact-driven decisions about hiring people with criminal records. Exploring the research cited in this brief and sharing it with hiring managers may help create a triple win: companies get the employees they need, people with records get jobs, and society benefits.

Facts on Hiring People Who Have Criminal Records

People with Convictions Form a Large Part of the Pool of Those Seeking Work

Employers, particularly in times of low unemployment, can have difficulty finding workers to fill jobs. People with criminal records form a surprisingly large part of the population seeking work—almost half the men in the labor pool. Employers who are leery of candidates with conviction histories might be reassured by research that has shown that employers routinely hire people with records who go on to be good employees. In fact, more than 25 percent of workers in the active workforce have at least one prior conviction. The evidence is overwhelming: People with conviction records can be (and are) successful employees.

Findings

• Forty-six percent of 35-year-old men looking for work in 2018 had a conviction for a nontraffic crime as an adult. That proportion varies only slightly by race and ethnicity.

• Among 33-year-old women, the percentage of those looking for work in 2018 who had a conviction for a nontraffic offense was between 2 percent and 16 percent for Black women and between 22 percent and 52 percent for White women.

• Many of the people already working in 2018 had at least one adult conviction for a nontraffic offense (about 25 percent for men).

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2024. 6p.

By Shawn D. Bushway, Dulani Woods, Denis Agniel, David Abramson

mall: businesses whose owners have criminal records are often ineligible for federal assistance programs. One recent high-profile example of a program with such restrictions is the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which was part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. The PPP provided money for payroll, rent, mortgage, and utilities to businesses with fewer than 500 employees.

Initially, companies owned by individuals with felony criminal records were ineligible to receive funds. The restrictions were later eased to expand the number of eligible small businesses. However, the PPP restrictions, in both their strict and relaxed forms, were adopted in the absence of solid information about their effects.

How Many Small Business Owners Have Criminal Histories?

To address this knowledge gap, a RAND team

• estimated the national prevalence of small business owners with criminal records

• estimated how many small business owners, businesses, and employees were potentially affected by the initially strict PPP restrictions and how these numbers changed when the Biden administration eased restrictions

• examined prevalence in two states (Minnesota and North Carolina) to gain a more granular view of effects on particular industry sectors

• compared the state estimates with the estimates developed through the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS).

The analysis presents the first-ever national estimate of U.S. small business owners who have criminal records. The researchers used information from a data-aggregation company that collects and organizes data on business ownership and criminal history records, linking individual criminal records with information about company ownership. To obtain a more granular estimate, researchers used data from a different source to estimate prevalence numbers in two states (Minnesota and North Carolina) and used these data to examine how estimates vary by industry sector.

The national estimates (Table 1) show that 3.8 percent of small business owners have a criminal record. This percentage corresponds to approximately 1.1 million small business owners. More than 1.7 million employees are affiliated with these businesses. Within the group of business owners who have criminal histories, approximately 433,000 have a history of felonies.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2021. 4p.

by Shawn D. Bushway, Brian G. Vegetabile, Nidhi Kalra, Lee Remi, Greg Baumann

Criminal background checks are commonly used in the United States to screen people for various opportunities, including employment. The evaluations operate on a broadly accepted assumption that past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior.

Contrary to popular belief, however, most who enter the criminal justice system ultimately desist from crime. The risk of recidivism declines the longer a person is in the community and does not commit a crime. Eventually, a past criminal record is no longer predictive of future convictions.

However, most background checks do not adequately account for the time someone spends in the community without a new conviction. Not having updated information may skew the risk assessment to make people look riskier than they are, resulting in denied opportunities.

The authors describe how background checks can be improved to include information about time spent in the community, thereby more accurately reflecting risk of recidivism. They suggest that any viable risk-assessment instrument used in background checks should reset the assessment of recidivism risk to the time of the background check and not the time of conviction, as current methods derived from the criminal justice context do. The authors call this the reset principle. If models based on the reset principle are developed into tools that employers and others can use to assess recidivism risk, they may offer a more accurate way to distinguish candidates' risk of recidivism. Thus, they may offer many with criminal histories a way to demonstrate that they should be offered another chance.

Key Findings

• The reset principle states that any viable risk-assessment instrument used in background checks should reset the assessment of recidivism risk to the time of the background check and not the time of conviction, as current methods derived from the criminal justice context do.

• The authors developed a viable recidivism risk-prediction model that adheres to the reset principle based on a large set of criminal justice data from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

• Five considerations should guide development of models that adhere to the reset principle: proper definition of the relevant population, use of conviction data, data sets of a sufficient time span, calibration of estimates, and validation of estimates.

• Observations of the large data set showed that the majority of individuals with a conviction do not have a subsequent conviction.

• The North Carolina data showed a person's likelihood of reoffending declines rapidly as more time passes without a conviction.

• The North Carolina data showed that, after a sufficient period without a new conviction, even people initially deemed to be at highest risk for reoffending (such as those with a more extensive criminal background) transition to risk levels that appear similar to those initially at the lowest risk.

Recommendations

• Policymakers should recognize that, over an extended sampling period, most people who get convicted are not reconvicted. This provides a fact base for policymaking that differs from findings by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that articulate that, in a given cohort of people released from prison (e.g., in a given year), most people experience another conviction.

• Updates to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures can validate a new class of models, such as those that satisfy the reset principle, providing employers a more certain defense to challenges to their employment decisions.

• Policymakers and other decisionmakers should make determinations about risk thresholds that are applied in a particular setting (e.g., an employer deciding how much recidivism risk is appropriate for a given job description) because those thresholds implicate issues of equity and fairness.

• Data quality can limit the development of successful recidivism risk models, and policymakers should consider creating data infrastructure that supports models that adhere to the reset principle.

• Policymakers should understand that exploring and stressing models that adhere to the reset principle for bias will be crucial. Model predictions may reflect the unfair systemic biases in the current criminal justice system.

• Tools that use models that adhere to the reset principle should be developed judiciously and after carefully considering many systemic factors regarding fairness. An adequate assessment of bias should include a comparison to the current state. Even an imperfect tool could provide more opportunities to candidates against whom the current system is biased than the current methods.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2022. 104p.

By Kitty Lymperopoulou

 In recent years, there has been considerable policy and academic interest in the existence of ethnic inequalities in the Criminal Justice System. A large body of sentencing research has been dedicated to exploring whether ethnic minority defendants are treated more harshly than similarly situated white defendants. This paper extends this research utilizing Ministry of Justice linked criminal justice datasets and multilevel models to assess the effect of ethnicity and other defendant case and contextual factors on sentencing outcomes in the Crown Court. The analysis shows that legal characteristics such as plea, pre-trial detention, offence type and severity are important factors determining sentencing outcomes although they do not fully explain disparities in these outcomes between ethnic groups. Ethnic disparities in imprisonment persist and, in some cases, become more pronounced after controlling for defendant case and court factors. In contrast, ethnic disparities in sentence length are largely explained by legal factors, and after adjusting for other predictors of sentencing outcomes, observed differences between most (but not all) ethnic minority groups and the white British disappear

 British Journal of Criminology. 2024, 22pg

By Samuel W. Buell

Fifteen years after the largest financial scandal and economic crisis in a century, discussion of the problem of corporate crime too often borders on cliché. Endless calls from Congress, the media, the public, many scholars, and even the Justice Department itself, to recommit, over and over, to locking up more managers and executives to deter corporate wrongdoing portray the problem as relatively straightforward and blame legislative and executive failure of will. Through examination of the litigation record from over 100 prosecutions spanning the period from the 2008 financial crisis to the present, this Article presents evidence that relying on individual prosecutions to deter the most significant corporate crimes, especially those involving fraud in the financial sector, is less promising than believed. Structural features of crimes in the largest corporate organizations have made securing individual convictions and imprisonment, especially at senior levels, a chancy project for prosecutors. The Article further argues that its evidence relating both to failure rates and causes of those failures should point policymakers and enforcers beyond hackneyed calls for perp walks and prison and towards deeper thinking about a full suite of preventive tools, especially regulatory design.

Wake Forest Law Review, Vol. 59. 2024, 78pg

By Timothy Cubitt and Anthony Morgan

Risk assessment is a growing feature of law enforcement and an important strategy for identifying high-risk individuals, places and problems. Prediction models must be developed in a transparent way, using robust methods and the best available data. But attention must also be given to implementation. In practice, the data available to law enforcement from police information systems can be limited in their completeness, quality and accessibility. Prediction models need to be tested in as close to real-world settings as possible, including using less than optimal data, before they can be implemented and used. In this paper we replicate a prediction model that was developed in New South Wales to predict high-harm offending among outlaw motorcycle gangs nationally and in other states. We find that, even with a limited pool of data from a national police information system, high-harm offending can be predicted with a relatively high degree of accuracy. However, it was not possible to reproduce the same prediction accuracy achieved in the original model. Model accuracy varied between jurisdictions, as did the power of different predictive factors, highlighting the importance of considering context. There are trade-offs in real-world applications of prediction models and consideration needs to be given to what data can be readily accessed by law enforcement agencies to identify targets for prioritisation.

Research Report No. 30

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024. 47p.

By Carina O’Reilly

Neighbourhood or community policing is receiving renewed attention internationally as a means of responding to a perceived legitimacy crisis in police forces globally. However, with budgets still tight in the post-Covid environment, understanding which activities are most effective and efficient in supporting confidence and legitimacy is vital. This article looks at the workings of London’s community-driven ward panel system, chaired by volunteers but administered by the Metropolitan Police. It reports on a study that asked how ward panels contributed to neighbourhood policing; one of very few to explore ward panels as a community policing structure. A series of observations and interviews were carried out as part of a case study of a single London borough. The study found that ward panels contributed in a number of ways, facilitating partnership working, building connections with hard-to-reach communities, and enhancing police accessibility. Significantly, several panels had begun to develop autonomy in identifying and resolving local problems. This article discusses the potential for semi-autonomous community bodies such as ward panels to contribute to the work of community or neighbourhood policing, thereby relieving demand on forces, and weighs up the risks entailed.

Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, Volume 18, 2024, page 010

By Nicole Gelinas

  New York City, enabled by state legislation, has long policed its roads with the help of cameras to catch vehicles running red lights and, more recently, breaking the speed limit. Such automated enforcement has helped the city reduce serious crashes by double-digit percentages, leading to a decline in fatal vehicle crashes from a modern high of 701 in 1990 to a modern low of 206 in 2018.1 However, the city has not adequately used the data gleaned from red-light and speed camera tickets to help predict and thus prevent serious crashes. Reckless driving has increased since early 2020: by 2022, traffic deaths had risen to 261,2 27% above the low, thus reversing a decade of progress, before rising slightly in 2023, to 262. This increase in traffic deaths was part of a nationwide trend of reduced policing and spikes in antisocial behavior and violent deaths. The city sharply curtailed police traffic stops beginning in 2020, for example. That year, the city conducted only 510,000 stops—barely half the 985,000 stops recorded in 2019. Through November 2023, traffic stops had returned to just 70% of 2019 levels. As it continues to return police traffic stops to adequate levels, the city, aided by the state, should also use the information that its camera system provides to remove potentially deadly vehicles from the road.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2024. 26p.

By Alexandra Voce, Anthony Morgan and Timothy Cubit  

In July 2023 the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) commenced operation. Prior to this, we surveyed a large sample of online Australians (n=11,304) about their perceptions of corruption and legitimacy among public officials.

A sizeable minority of respondents believed that over half of all politicians and government institutions were involved in corruption. Younger, unemployed and First Nations respondents perceived higher levels of corruption, as did respondents with lower levels of education and those living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas. Perceptions of corruption were associated with diminished levels of perceived legitimacy of public officials, but this relationship was moderated by other factors.

Perceived corruption and the legitimacy of public officials go hand in hand. Implementing measures to address one may help improve the other.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 687. 

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2024. 21p.

By Perry Moriearty, Kat Albrecht and Caitlin Glass

Even within the sordid annals of American crime and punishment, the doctrines of felony murder and accomplice liability murder stand out. Because they allow states to impose their harshest punishments on defendants who never intended, anticipated, or even caused death, legal scholars have long questioned their legitimacy. What surprisingly few scholars have addressed, however, is who bears the brunt. This Article is one of the first to explore the racialized impact of the two most controversial and ubiquitous forms of what we call “imputed liability murder.” An analysis of ten years of murder prosecutions in the state of Minnesota reveals that imputed liability murder is anything but a fringe subtype of homicide: an astounding 70% of those charged with murder during this period were charged with felony murder, accomplice liability murder, or both. The study also shows that nearly 60% of these defendants were Black, a level of racial disproportionality that is not just intrinsically extreme; it is comparatively greater than levels of disproportionality for other types of murder. The question is, why? The answer lies in part in the structural and social psychological dynamics of imputed liability murder prosecutions themselves, we claim. By reducing prosecutors’ burden to prove the most salient legal indicia of a defendant’s culpability — mens rea, actus reus, or both — and allowing prosecutors to cast a wide and undifferentiated net around almost any homicide, the felony murder and accomplice liability murder doctrines invite prosecutors to base normative charging decisions on subjective, extra-legal proxies, like “dangerousness” and “group criminality.” Multiple studies have shown that decision-makers are more likely to attribute these proxies to Black defendants and, in turn, treat them more punitively. Compounding these dynamics is the racial stereotypicality of the crimes themselves. A separate body of research indicates that felony murder and accomplice liability murder have become so cognitively synonymous with Black defendants that simply shoring up the doctrines’ structural laxity may not be enough to mitigate their disproportionate enforcement. As states across the country grapple with reforming their felony murder and accomplice liability murder laws, this Article contributes to the ongoing debate about the legitimacy of both doctrines. It also raises critical questions about the racialized enforcement of not just these doctrines but of any doctrine that invites the State to impute criminal liability.

Fordham Urb. L.J. 675 (2024).

By David Weisburd, Kevin Petersen, Cody W. Telep, Sydney A. Fay

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis examining whether increasing preventive patrol in large areas reduces crime. Our review included experimental and quasi-experimental studies that focused on areas such as beats, precincts, or entire jurisdictions and that measured a crime outcome either through official data or surveys. We identified 17 studies to include in our review. We used two methods for assessing study impacts: an approach which identified a primary/general outcome measure and a second approach which used robust variance estimation (RVE) and included all effect sizes across each study. Both approaches showed small crime prevention benefits (RVE: 9% decline; primary/general: 6% decline), but only the RVE model was significant at conventional levels (p < 0.05). There was no significant evidence of displacement. Moderator analyses suggest that as dosage increases so do the crime prevention impacts. In RVE models, preventive patrol was associated with significant reductions in property and violent crime, but nonsignificant increases in drug and disorder offenses.

Policy implications

Increasing preventive patrol activities has the potential to reduce crime in large administrative areas. At the same time, existing studies offer little guidance as to how such preventive patrol should be carried out. Deterrence theory, as well as evidence from studies of hot spots policing, suggests that the greatest benefits will be gained from informing patrol efforts about where and when crime occurs. Although more research is needed regarding patrol allocations in large areas, present knowledge suggests that the more such patrols can be targeted at specific places at specific times, the greater will be the crime control benefits. In this context, we argue that police agencies may want to apply a hybrid approach to police patrol, which would include a combination of hot spots policing units and general patrol units informed by data on where crime is concentrated.Criminology & Public Policy, early view, April 2024.

By Sonia L. Robinson, Christopher D. McCort, Colette Smirniotis, Garen J. Wintemute & Hannah S. Laqueur 

Background

Firearm violence is a major cause of death and injury in the United States. Tracking the movement of firearms from legal purchase to use in crimes can help inform prevention of firearm injuries and deaths. The last state-wide studies analyzing crime gun recoveries used data from over 20 years ago; thus, an update is needed.

Methods

We used data for 5,247,348 handgun and 2,868,713 long gun transactions and law enforcement recoveries from California crime gun recovery (2010–2021) and California’s Dealer Records of Sales records. Covariates included characteristics of dealership sales, firearms and their transactions, and purchaser’s demographic characteristics, purchasing history, criminal history (from firearm purchaser criminal history records), and neighborhood socioeconomic status. Analyses for handguns and long guns was conducted separately. In multivariable analysis, we included correlates into a Cox proportional hazard model accounting for left truncation and clustering between the same firearm, purchaser, dealerships, and geographic location. Covariates that remained significant (P < 0.05) were retained. For handguns, we evaluated associations of violent and weapons crimes separately. In supplementary analyses, we examined interactions by purchasers’ race and ethnicity.

Results

In total, 38,441 handguns (0.80%) and 6,806 long guns (0.24%) were recovered in crimes. A firearm dealer’s sales volume, percent of transactions that were denials, pawns, pawn redemptions, and firearms that became crime guns were each positively associated with firearm recovery in crime. Handguns that were inexpensive, larger caliber, and that had been reported lost or stolen were positively associated with recovery in crimes. Purchaser characteristics associated with crime gun recovery included: being younger, female, Black, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander, or other race/ethnicity (vs white), having previous arrests, living in close proximity to the firearm dealership, and living in a more socially vulnerable census tract. Associations with race and ethnicity were modified by previous infraction-only arrests.

Conclusions

This study confirms that many previously studied correlates of firearm recovery are still relevant today. We were able to expand on previous research by examining novel associations including purchasers’ criminal history and previous firearm transaction history. These results provide evidence that can be used to disrupt firearm use in crimes.

Inj. Epidemiol. 11, 8 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-024-00491-8

By Travis Carter, Scott Wolfe, Jed Knode, Grace Henry

Research Summary

We conducted a group randomized-controlled trial of an internal dashboard system deployed by the Michigan State Police to determine its effectiveness in reducing traffic stop racial disparities. Informed by a difference-in-differences design, analyses of traffic stop data from 2019–2022 indicated that the dashboard had no impact on traffic stop racial disparities. Additional analyses of traffic stops, crashes, and crime revealed that the dashboard had no “de-policing” effect on traffic patrols, nor were there any significant changes in traffic safety or crime in treatment patrol areas relative to control patrol areas. Qualitative analyses of interview data from more than 40 troopers in the agency revealed unique barriers to program implementation and opportunities for future improvement.

Policy Implications

In an era of policing where the capacity and demand for data-driven decision-making is on the rise, evidence-based policy and practice can provide police agencies with informed solutions for addressing traffic stop racial disparities. Yet, the increased demand for evidence-based reform is fueled by a relatively low supply of evidence-based research. This study adds to this evidence base by providing unique insights into the effectiveness of a program built specifically to reduce racial disparities in traffic stops, while also highlighting implementation challenges.

Criminology & Public Policy, 

05 April 2024 early view

By  Lauren Martin, Kayse Lee Maass, Kelle Barrick, Thomas Sharkey, Amy Farrell, Cynthia Matthias, Barış Tezcan, Martha Williams, Tonique Ayler, Teresa Forliti, Joy Friedman, Mikki Mariotti, Christine Nelson, Camille Brown, Melissa Florey

This study found that recruitment networks are structured by relationships and identified how, why, and when at least seven recruitment mechanisms (coercion and force, fraud, belonging, seduction, basic needs, glamorization, and normalization) are used and function. These results illuminate recruitment pathways and can be used to guide public investment and policy toward interventions with promise for preventing recruitment and promoting resilience against recruitment. This project used an innovative, transdisciplinary, and mixed methods approach to gather evidence about recruitment of victims into sex trafficking in order to develop conceptual and analytic models. The goal was to illuminate and understand the complex pathways of recruitment and re-recruitment, interventions and their cascading outcomes on recruitment into trafficking operations, the implications for victim wellbeing, and effects on broader society. This study focused on the state of Minnesota in order to develop a methodology and an approach within the context of one state to reduce logistical barriers and see if models worked. Through a mixed methods research approach that incorporated qualitative and computational modeling and centered lived-expertise from a survivor-centered advisory group, this study uncovered insights into the structure and function of sex trafficking recruitment. In addition to these descriptive and conceptual insights, the authors developed a computational mathematical model called a Markov Chain that models how a person’s susceptibility to being recruited and re-recruited into trafficking is affected by their ability to access services and supports. This model serves two purposes. First, it visualizes the complex recruitment and re-recruitment pathways that victims of trafficking experience from a systemic view of susceptibility. Second, the model can test the potential effectiveness of proposed interventions to prevent recruitment and re-recruitment. The Markov Chain could be used both to explore the effectiveness of current interventions and prospective interventions prior to implementation.

Final report to the National Institute of Justice, 2024. 91p.

By Bruce Taylor; Weiwei Liu

This study found that POP Only/POP for Youth proved to not be effective in the very difficult circumstances of this study; however, that does not preclude POP nor youth-focused POP from being effective under more typical conditions as seen in prior research. With funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the authors of this study designed and implemented a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine the impact of two interventions on crime and related community and youth outcomes compared to a control condition, defined as standard patrol, in three mid-Atlantic cities within the same county. Both interventions trained and encouraged LEOs to apply a POP approach to address crime problems. The first intervention focused solely on POP (POP Only)/Pop for Youth development concepts on crime and police-youth relationship and interactions and the second intervention incorporated training for law enforcement agencies on POP and community engagement strategies, youth development, and strategies for positive police-youth interactions (POP for Youth). The overall purpose of the research is to test whether place-based proactive POP strategies combined with training for patrol LEOs in youth interactions and crime prevention can be implemented to achieve crime reduction and broader community/youth and officer benefits. This study had three main goals: (1) to examine the effectiveness of POP for Youth in reducing property and violent crime; (2) to assess the effect of the intervention on youth perceptions of police legitimacy, experience of LEO youth interactions, and feelings of safety; (3) to (qualitatively) assess the impact on LEO attitudes, knowledge and experience of interacting with youth.

Chicago: National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, , 2023. 28p.

By  Daniel J. O’Connell; Emalie Rell; Christy A. Visher; Ellen Donnelly

To address the problem of institutional conduct, especially violent misconduct, in prisons, this project tested whether an evidence-based, cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) program would reduce misconduct, including incidents of violent misconduct, and post-release arrests compared to non or less intensive CBT programming. The Delaware Department of Correction (DOC) implemented CBT-based programs in their institutions, which included the Cognitive Behavioral Interventions – Core Curriculum (CBI-CC) Thinking Things Through program developed at the University of Cincinnati. Three programs addressed in this report include Thinking Things Through (TTT), Road to Recovery (R2R), and Reflections. TTT consisted of the instruments and materials of the CBI-CC, whereas R2R and Reflections utilized general CBT skills and techniques. The Center for Drug and Health Studies (CDHS) in collaboration with DOC evaluated the impact of CBC-CC TTT using administrative records and surveys with program participants. Two major goals were identified: evaluating the efficacy of the current CBI-CC Thinking Things Through (TTT) treatment program being administered in all Delaware institutions; and validating the fidelity tool through collaboration with University of Cincinnati. A novel approach utilizing propensity weighting procedures to account for differences between groups was employed successfully in order to conduct the most robust set of analyses possible. The project was able to look across multiple programs and examine the impact on persons who were placed in them through the classification and referral process as it is conducted day-to-day in the DOC providing a much wider view of overall CBT programming than would have been possible under the original design. Findings indicate participation in programming had a significant impact on arrest and appears to have an impact on reincarceration. 

Newark, DE:  University of Delaware,, Center for Drug and Health Studies, 2024. 72p.

By Marcus Rogers

This study aimed to harness the potential of AI techniques and advancements to help the reintegration of justice-involved individuals (JII) into the community. The study centered on developing an AI-based system, referred to as the Support and Monitoring System for Community Supervision (SMS4CS), designed for the benefit of both JII and their case managers, focusing on aiding JII during their reentry into the community. The technology was seamlessly integrated into a functional community corrections environment, with no disruptions or reported interruptions to the day-to-day operations of the Tippecanoe County Community Corrections (TCCC). The technology enrollment process for participants (N = 35) and device setup achieved a remarkable 100% success rate. 

Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 2024. 42p.

By Department of Investigation, Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (OIG-NYPD) 

  New York City Charter, Chapter 34, Sections 803 and 808, require the Department of Investigation’s (“DOI”) Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD (“OIG-NYPD” or “the Office”) to develop recommendations relating to the discipline, training, and monitoring of police officers and related operations, policies, programs, and practices of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD” or “the Department”) by considering, among other things, “patterns or trends identified by analyzing actions, claims, complaints, and investigations” filed against NYPD. This Report, the fourth issued in connection with that law, examines NYPD’s use of overtime hours and how those overtime hours may impact the likelihood that litigation, claims, or complaints will be brought against the Department. OIG-NYPD examined the relationship between NYPD’s overtime hours and certain outcomes that are both measurable and direct sources of liability risk to the City.  These outcomes included lawsuits, substantiated Civilian Complaint Review Board (“CCRB”) complaints, substantiated NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau (“IAB”) complaints, workplace injuries, on-duty vehicle collisions, and uses of force resulting in Threat, Resistance, or Injury Interaction (“T.R.I.”) Reports.  These outcomes have been referred to as “negative policing outcomes" (“NPOs”), and this Report uses that term.  Each NPO poses risks of liability to the City because lawsuits, as well  as certain events that may lead to lawsuits and complaints, such as vehicle accidents, misconduct, or alleged uses of force, may result in liability to the City. Not only is each NPO a source of potential liability for the City, each NPO potentially costs the City time, money, and resources to address, whether or not the City ultimately is deemed liable for that outcome. Financial payments made by the City to litigants in settlements or as a result of court judgments are one measurement of the costs of these NPOs. In Fiscal Year 2022, there were 4,580 civil tort claims filed against NYPD. Of those claims, 62% alleged personal injury as a result of police action (which should result in the completion of a T.R.I. Report). Alleged personal injury or property damage due to NYPD motor vehicle accidents accounted for 9% and 13% of claims, respectively. Alleged misconduct, such as officers’ actions which may result in a CCRB or IAB complaint, is more difficult to quantify precisely. Lawsuits alleging civil rights violations by NYPD made up 9% of claims.8 Lawsuits alleging tort claims against NYPD resolved in Fiscal Year 2022 cost the City $237.2 million. Figures in 2021 were similar, though the overall number of tort claims were higher, and the resolution of lawsuits against NYPD cost the city $206.7 million in 2021.   

New York: 2023. 66p.