AndreaBozzo/ceres-open-data-index huggingface dataset:
Optimizing Video Surveillance in Correctional Settings, Minnesota, 2015-2019

The Urban Institute and the Minnesota Department of Corrections (MnDOC) attempted to improve the surveillance system in two state correctional facilities: Stillwater (STW) and Moose Lake (ML). The goal of this study was to conduct a rigorous process and impact evaluation of the steps that STW and ML took to optimize their surveillance systems, which included repositioning existing cameras, installing new cameras, and making other infrastructural upgrades. In addition, ML integrated an audio analytic technology in their system that would alert on-unit security staff through a visual and audio alert when it detected sounds associated with anger, fear, or verbal aggression.
Quantitative administrative data was collected from ML and comparison facilities and comparative interrupted time-series (CITS) analyses were employed to examine changes in two outcomes (total misconduct incidents and guilty dispositions) following the intervention. To support the CITS, another unit in ML was identified that did not upgrade its surveillance system but was similar to the intervention housing unit in terms of population, architecture, and misconduct levels (internal comparison unit), and used the synthetic control method to create another comparison unit derived from the three other medium-security prisons operated by MnDOC (external comparison unit).

Tags: correctional-facilities, correctional-facilities-adults, corrections, evaluation, facilities, inmate-attitudes, inmates, prison-inmates, prison-security, prison-violence, security, security-systems, technology, video-surveillance, violence
Organization: Department of Justice
Developing a Taxonomy To Understand and Measure Outcomes of Success in Community-Based Elder Mistreatment Interventions, New York City, New York, 2018-2019

Research tools available to help advance knowledge of effective community-based elder mistreatment (EM) interventions are limited. The field lacks an understanding of what success means in EM response program (EMRP) interventions, which work directly with victims to reduce the risk of re-victimization. Without establishing indicators of EMRP success, it is not possible to develop valid intervention outcome measures to compare different EMRP models toward the development of evidence-based practice. Informed by the EMRP practice principle of older adult self-determination, this study developed a victim-centric taxonomy of case outcomes that indicate EMRP success.
This study drew on two sources of data, including interviews with EM victims and a scoping review to inform taxonomy development. Prioritizing the perspective of victims, this study conducted interviews with 27 victims involved in EMRP services who vary in EM subtype, gender, and race/ethnicity.
The taxonomy of successful EMRP outcomes will serve as important research infrastructure to support the development of EMRP intervention outcome measurement in future research.

Tags: abuse, adult-care-services, domestic-assault, elder-abuse, eldercare, family-relations, family-violence, intervention, mental-health, outcome-evaluation, sexual-abuse, treatment, treatment-outcome, victimization, victims
Organization: Department of Justice
Examining the Effectiveness of Indigent Defense Team Services: A Multisite Evaluation of Holistic Defense in Practice, Kentucky, Minnesota, Rhode Island, 2015-2018

The goals of this project were to: describe the implementation of holistic defense principles in three indigent defense programs; measure each program's impact on pretrial court practices, manner of disposition, sentencing, and other case outcomes; and explore an appropriate methodology to assess the cost-efficiency of these programs in comparison with traditional criminal defense practice. Researchers collected data on both holistic and traditional defense delivery via interviews, surveys, focus groups, observation during site visits, and administrative data from public defender and court information systems. This evaluation was conducted in three research sites: Rhode Island Public Defender (Providence office); Minnesota Public Defender (Minneapolis office); and the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy (Bowling Green office). The evaluation focused on adult criminal cases. A process evaluation examined how holistic defense has been implemented in each site. The impact evaluation used a quasi-experimental design that includes matched comparison groups and alternative statistical models to examine the relative impact of holistic defense on a range of outcomes, controlling for defendant characteristics. The project investigated the parameters necessary to conduct a cost-efficiency analysis within the context of holistic defense and, to the extent possible, began to estimate the costs/benefits of holistic defense services. In addition to data sets for archiving and a summary report to NIJ, anticipated work products include professional conference presentations, manuscripts for submission to professional journals, and research briefs.

Tags: criminal-histories, defense-criminal-procedure, felony-offenses, prosecuting-attorneys, public-defenders, social-work
Organization: Department of Justice
21st Century Corporate Financial Fraud, United States, 2005-2010

The Corporate Financial Fraud project is a study of company and top-executive characteristics of firms that ultimately violated Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) financial accounting and securities fraud provisions compared to a sample of public companies that did not.  The fraud firm sample was identified through systematic review of SEC accounting enforcement releases from 2005-2010, which included administrative and civil actions, and referrals for criminal prosecution that were identified through mentions in enforcement release, indictments, and news searches.
The non-fraud firms were randomly selected from among nearly 10,000 US public companies censused and active during at least one year between 2005-2010 in
Standard and Poor's Compustat data.  The Company and Top-Executive (CEO) databases combine information from numerous publicly available sources, many in raw form that were hand-coded (e.g., for fraud firms: Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAER) enforcement releases, investigation summaries, SEC-filed complaints, litigation proceedings and case outcomes).
Financial and structural information on companies for the year leading up to the financial fraud (or around year 2000 for non-fraud firms) was collected from Compustat financial statement data on Form 10-Ks, and supplemented by hand-collected data from original company 10-Ks, proxy statements, or other financial reports accessed via Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR), SEC's data-gathering search tool.
For CEOs, data on personal background characteristics were collected from Execucomp and BoardEx databases, supplemented by hand-collection from proxy-statement biographies.

Tags: business-elites, corporate-behavior, corporate-crime, federal-offenses, finance, fraud, organizational-behavior, securities-fraud, white-collar-crime
Organization: Department of Justice
Assessing the Impact of Post-Release Community Supervision on Post-Release Recidivism and Employment, United States, 2004-2011

This study sought to examine the effect of of two separate forms of post-prison supervision on offender recidivism and employment outcomes: split supervision and conditional release supervision. In order to assess the effect of post-prison supervision on reentry outcomes for Florida inmates, this study addressed the following research questions:

What is the impact of post-release supervision on employment and recidivism?
Do various types of post-release supervision result in different outcomes of employment and recidivism?
How does the length of post-release supervision impact employment and recidivism?

Florida was chosen as the state of focus because of its shift from indeterminate to determinate sentencing and elimination of parole in the 1980s. Researchers used arrest data, corrections data, and employment data from the Federal Department of Corrections, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Florida Department of Revenue.

Tags: corrections, employment, parole, prisoner-reentry, recidivism
Organization: Department of Justice
Estimating the Prevalence of Wrongful Convictions, Virginia, 1973-1987

This study extends research on wrongful convictions in the United States and the factors associated with justice system errors that lead to the incarceration of innocent people. Among cases where physical evidence produced a DNA profile of known origin, 12.6 percent of the cases had DNA evidence that would support a claim of wrongful conviction.  Extrapolating to all cases in our dataset, the investigators estimate a slightly smaller rate of 11.6 percent. This result was based on forensics, case processing, and disposition data collected on murder and sexual assault convictions in the 1970s and 1980s across 56 circuit courts in the state of Virginia. To address limitations in the amount and type of information provided in forensic files that were reviewed in the Urban Institute's prior examination of these data, the current research includes data collected through a review of all publicly available documents on court processes and dispositions across the 714 convictions, which the investigators use to reassess prior estimates of wrongful conviction.

Tags: conviction-records, court-cases, court-system, courts, criminal-justice-system, evidence, forensic-sciences, wrongful-convictions
Organization: Department of Justice
Outcomes of DNA "Cold Hits": Social Science Research in Forensic Science, United States, 2000-2013

Through case studies in two sites, this project provides an in-depth view of the relationship between cases, DNA database hits and persons that contribute to those hits generated from two specific laboratories during two specific periods of time. It explores how well the primary Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database metric, the hit, may correspond to case-level criminal justice system outcomes and examines how an uploaded profile is an investment in both short-term and long-term investigative leads.
A two-pronged approach was designed to address these issues. First, laboratory processing and CODIS datasets was analyzed according to traditional metrics used to track CODIS utility, such as upload and hit rate per case, per profile and for different offenses and evidence types. Next, a survival analysis was conducted to describe how uploading specimens to CODIS creates hits both in the short-term (at or near the time of upload) and in the long-term.

Tags: crime, dna, forensics, offenses
Organization: Department of Justice
Improving School Safety in the District of Columbia: Evaluating the Safe School Certification Program, 2016-2020

From 2016 through 2020, Child Trends, in partnership with the D.C. Office of Human Rights and the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education, and with funding from the National Institute of Justice's Comprehensive School Safety Initiative, implemented and evaluated the Safe School Certification (SSC) Program, a three-year technical assistance model to support schools in strengthening organizational capacity across eight elements key to improving school climate: leadership, data, buy-in, policy and policy enforcement, student engagement, family and community engagement, training, and programs and practices. To help support schools' efforts, and to evaluate SSC's effectiveness, survey data were collected annually from students, parents, instructional staff, and non-instructional staff at participating schools using the U.S. Department of Education's School Climate Survey (EDSCLS), which was adapted to include measures of sexual orientation and gender identity, grit, and personal experiences of bullying and fights. Additionally, observations using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System - Secondary (CLASS-S) were conducted in a random sample of five classrooms in each participating school each year. Finally, as part of the implementation evaluation, interviews were conducted with the technical assistance providers, points of contact or leadership at participating schools, the SSC developer, and the manager of the Certification Advisory Board (CAB), which provided feedback to schools over the course of implementation through reviews of compiled workbooks.

Tags: classroom-environment, education, educational-environment, evaluation, high-school-students, high-schools, middle-schools, opinions, school-personnel, school-security, schools, secondary-education, security, student-attitudes, teacher-attitudes
Organization: Department of Justice
Evaluation of In-Prison Programming for Incarcerated Women: Addressing Trauma and Prior Victimization, United States, 2017-2020

The Urban Institute, in collaboration with the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA), the National Center on Victims of Crime (NCVC), and the Center for Effective Public Policy (CEPP), and with funding from the National Institute of Justice, conducted a two-tiered, 33-month, exploratory mixed methods study of the policies, programs, and practices used nationwide to address the needs of incarcerated women with prior trauma and victimization experiences and prevent in-custody victimization, aiming to generate actionable information for policymakers, practitioners, and program developers.
This is the first single, comprehensive study documenting the extent to which facilities implement trauma-informed and gender-responsive approaches to address women's victimization experiences, whether they offer victim services, the range of services offered, and the prevalence of trauma-informed practices in state-level women's correctional facilities. It establishes foundational knowledge for the field regarding the scope, structure, and composition of these approaches, including their trauma-informed components and use in women's correctional facilities.

Tags: correctional-facilities-adults, correctional-system, inmate-programs, inmates, prison-administration, prison-conditions, prison-inmates, state-correctional-facilities, victimization, women
Organization: Department of Justice
"Gotta Make Your Own Heaven": Guns, Safety, and the Edge of Adulthood in New York City, 2018-2019

This project investigated the experiences of New York City youth ages 16-24 who were at high risk for gun violence (e.g., carried a gun, been shot or shot at). Youth participants were recruited from three neighborhoods with historically high rates of gun violence when compared to the city as a whole--Brownsville (Brooklyn), Morrisania (Bronx), and East Harlem (Manhattan). This study explores the complex confluence of individual, situational, and environmental factors that influence youth gun acquisition and use. This study is part of a broader effort to build an evidence-based foundation for individual and community interventions, and policies that will more effectively support these young people and prevent youth gun violence. Through interviews with 330 youth, this study seeks to answer these questions:
What are the reasons young people carry guns?
How do young people talk about having and using guns?
What are young people's social networks like, and what roles do guns play in thesenetworks?
Interviews covered the following topics: neighborhood perceptions; perceptions of and experiences with the police, gangs, guns, and violence; substance use; criminal history; and demographics: race, gender, age, legal status, relationship status, living situation, location, number of children, drug use, and education.

Tags: crime-prevention, firearms, gun-legislation, gun-ownership, gun-registration, gun-use, youths, youths-at-risk
Organization: Department of Justice
The Impacts of Restrictive Housing on Inmate Behavior, Mental Health, and Recidivism, and Prison Systems and Personnel, Florida, 2007-2020

In partnership with the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC), this study a) collected prison administrative data to create person-level cohort-analysis files of inmates admitted to and released from Florida prisons between July 1, 2007 and December 31, 2015, b) collected stock population data of inmates incarcerated on June 30, 2011, c) examined recidivism outcomes, d) examined the effects of long-term solitary confinement on inmate behavior and mental health, and e) conducted a survey of prison personnel from November 4, 2019 to January 10, 2020, in order to conduct an analysis to address the need in public policy decision-making for evidence on the impacts of restricted housing on inmates, prisons and personnel, and public safety overall.

Tags: correctional-facilities, correctional-officers, correctional-system, living-conditions, mental-health, prison-conditions, prison-inmates, recidivism, recidivism-rates, solitary-confinement
Organization: Department of Justice
Effective Methods to Assess Exposure to Violence and Victimization Among American Indian and Alaska Native Youth: The Tribal Youth Victimization Study (TYVS), United States, 2019

The purpose of the Tribal Youth Victimization Study (TYVS) was to develop and test survey research methods to assess American Indian (AI) and Alaska Native (AN) youth exposure to violence and youth victimization and to identify the  factors of the exposure to victimization and its impact. The American Indian Development Associates, (AIDA) LLC conducted the study in partnership with several tribal communities and organizations. The goal is to develop a research strategy and survey instrument for collecting information on the violence and victimization experiences of American Indian and Alaska Native youth in tribal communities and other settings throughout the country. The study purpose is to determine and pilot test the tools and methods for conducting a future national level study. The data will be used to guide survey development, protocols and administration in tribal and other settings. This study included five (5) required tasks that framed the approach, methods, approvals, and deliverables, divided into three stages focused on three distinct phases - instrumentation, cognitive testing, and pilot testing. Phase 1 focused on development of the survey and the methods for survey administration to be tested. No data was collected during Phase 1 and was exempted from IRB review by the University of Nevada Las Vegas Human Subjects Biomedical Review Board. Phase 2 focused on testing recruitment methods and cognitive testing of the draft survey instrument. Phase 3 focused on pilot test site recruitment, pilot testing a revised version of the survey instrument, testing of three modes of administration, and testing alternative approaches to incentives.

Tags: alaskan-natives, native-americans, victimization, violence, youths
Organization: Department of Justice
An Examination of the Link Between Gang Involvement and Victimization Among Youth in Residential Placement, United States, 2003

This study was a secondary analysis of Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP) 2003 [United States] ICPSR 34304. In recent years, considerable empirical and theoretical attention has been given to the overlap between gang membership and victimization. Gang-involved youth are significantly more likely to experience both violent and nonviolent victimization than are their non-gang peers. Much of what is known about the gang-victimization link, however, comes from studies of youth in the community. In this study, we explore the relationship between gang affiliation and victimization in a nationally representative sample of youth in residential placement.

Tags: correctional-facilities, criminal-histories, gang-members, gang-violence, juvenile-detention, juvenile-justice, juvenile-offenders, juvenile-victims, residential-programs, youthful-offenders, youths-at-risk
Organization: Department of Justice
Understanding the Causes of School Violence Using Open Source Data, United States, 1990-2016

This study provides an evidence-based understanding on etiological issues related to school shootings and rampage shootings. It created a national, open-source database that includes all publicly known shootings that resulted in at least one injury that occurred on K-12 school grounds between 1990 and 2016.  The investigators sought to better understand the nature of the problem and clarify the types of shooting incidents occurring in schools,  provide information on the characteristics of school shooters, and compare fatal shooting incidents to events where only injuries resulted to identify intervention points that could be exploited to reduce the harm caused by shootings. To accomplish these objectives, the investigators used quantitative multivariate and qualitative case studies research methods to document where and when school violence occurs, and highlight key incident and perpetrator level characteristics to help law enforcement and school administrators differentiate between the kinds of school shootings that exist, to further policy responses that are appropriate for individuals and communities.

Tags: firearms, gun-use, juvenile-crime, mass-murders, school-violence
Organization: Department of Justice
The Influence of Subjective and Objective Rural School Security on Law Enforcement Engagement, Nebraska, 2017-2018

This study is to understand how perceptions and the organization of school safety and security are associated with the level and type of law enforcement engagement in rural schools. A triangulation mixed methods design was used to collect and examine individual, school, and community level quantitative and qualitative data. The social-ecological theory of violence prevention guides the research by predicting that an interplay of factors at multiple levels influences the type and level of law enforcement engagement in rural schools. 
Specifically, it was predicted that the more organized and coordinated a school is in the area of safety and security, the more likely it is to be formally engaged with law enforcement. Formal engagement is defined as use of some version of the school resource officer (SRO) model or defined roles and responsibilities for law enforcement in schools that are articulated in documents such as a memorandum of agreement or understanding.

Tags: law-enforcement, rural-areas, rural-schools, safety, school-security, violence
Organization: Department of Justice
Longitudinal Cohort Study of Interpersonal Violence Among College-Aged Men and Women, United States, 2019-2020

The extent and consequences of various forms of interpersonal violence (IV) among college-aged persons has been well-documented. This study sought to examine how IV might differ between young adults who go to college compared to those that do not go to college. 
 To better understand the risks for, experiences with, and consequences of IV among young adults, in fiscal year 2016, the National Institute for Justice (NIJ) made an award to Westat to fund the planning phase of a longitudinal study to research the victimization and violence experienced by college-aged individuals.  The planning phase was designed to produce a comprehensive plan to conduct a generalizable, longitudinal study examining long-term trajectories of risk for, experiences with, and recovery after experiencing violence and victimization among college-aged individuals. This pilot study was the result of this planning phase. 
The major variables in this study contained information regarding sexual assault and rape, dating violence, stalking, violence committed by peers, and violence committed by strangers, as well as demographic variables such as participant age, gender, and race.

Tags: college-students, dating-social, interpersonal-conflict, victimization, violence
Organization: Department of Justice