MENU TITLE: NIJ Journal No. 232 .
Series: NIJ Journal
Published: June 1997
51 pages
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National Institute of Justice
Jeremy Travis
Director

NIJ Journal Editorial Board
Sally Hillsman

Deputy Director for Office of Research and
Evaluation
John L. Schwarz

Deputy Director for Office of Development and
Dissemination
David Boyd

Director, Office of Science and Technology 
Stephanie Bourque
Cheryl A. Crawford
Mary G. Graham
Wendy Howe
Christy Visher

Issue Editor
Daniel Tompkins

The National Institute of Justice Journal is
published by the National Institute of Justice, the
research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, to
announce the Institute's policy-relevant research
results and initiatives. The Attorney General has
determined that publication of this periodical is
necessary in the transaction of the public business
required by law of the Department of Justice. 

Opinions or points of view expressed in this
document are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the official position of the
U.S. Department of Justice.

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of Justice Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delin-quency Prevention, and Office for Victims
of Crime. 

------------------------------

Director's Message

This issue of the National Institute of Justice
Journal represents a renewed commitment by NIJ to
publish this flagship communications vehicle on a
quarterly basis, while continuing the Journal's
tradition of excellence in presenting findings from
the best of criminal justice research. To help
achieve these goals, we've established an in-house
Editorial Board whose members you'll find listed on
the masthead in this edition. The Board helps the
editorial staff assure that the information in the
Journal accurately reflects the scope of NIJ's
research and development activities, is timely,
and, when based on sponsored research, is
academically rigorous.

Highlighted in this issue is an article written by
NIJ Visiting Fellow William McDonald about the
complex issues surrounding illegal immigration and
related crime. The impact of illegal immigration is
often felt most severely at the local level, yet
overall the repercussions can be national in scope.
As officials formulate strategies to deal with
illegal immigration and related crime--both by and
against immigrants--law enforcement agencies at the
Federal, State, and local level each play a role,
based on differing authority and responsibility.
This article discusses efforts to define roles and
forge partnerships to deal with the problem while
recognizing the differing attitudes toward
immigration policy and the differing goals
associated with immigration control and crime
control.

Also in this issue is an article describing NIJ's
National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology
Centers, a national and regional resource for State
and local law enforcement and corrections agencies.
NIJ's Office of Science and Technology supports the
development of new technologies and the testing of
existing technologies for criminal justice
applications. The Technology Centers described in
this issue provide hands-on technical assistance
and information related to criminal justice
technology to the State and local criminal justice
agencies in their area. We urge our partners at the
local level to take advantage of this resource. 

Last year marked the publication of the 20th
edition of Crime and Justice: A Review of Research.
This issue of the NIJ Journal includes a synopsis
of this milestone edition, a look at future
volumes, and a historical overview of the
prestigious series, sponsored primarily by NIJ and
published by the University of Chicago Press. NIJ's
continued support for Crime and Justice reflects
its commitment to remain at the forefront of
important criminal justice research.

Other information presented in this issue
highlights new developments at NIJ, such as the
establishment of a new Crime Mapping Center--which
will be covered in more detail in future issues.
New challenges in criminal justice require new
commitments to meet those challenges. Part of NIJ's
commitment is to share useful information through
the NIJ Journal. We welcome your comments and
suggestions.

Jeremy Travis
Director
National Institute of Justice 

------------------------------

Crime & Illegal Immigration: Emerging Local,
State, and Federal Partnerships

by
William F. McDonald

As they have since Colonial days, immigration and
related crime control policies continue to fuel our
national debate. Law enforcement, central and local
governments, border communities, and employers
struggle to steer a course true to crime control as
they navigate the turbulent waters of cultural and
political sensitivities.

This article describes a new partnership approach
to sharing responsibility and authority for the
costs and outcomes of illegal immigration and
related crime. These partnerships-- among local,
State, and Federal authorities--recognize the
separate and sometimes confounding distinctions
between crime control and immigration control. The
shared responsibility recognizes that law
enforcement's mission is primarily crime control,
not immigration control.

Crosscutting the partnerships are political forces
at all levels of government--and police agencies
are sometimes caught in the middle. Policymakers
who favor immigration would narrowly restrict the
police role in immigration control (e.g., by
discouraging the police from referring suspected
illegals to Federal authorities); those opposed to
immigration would greatly expand it (e.g., by
requiring the police to report all suspected
illegal immigrants). The police, however, have
their own views to contribute to the debate. Some
of the Nation's largest police organizations, for
example, urged Congress to drop a proposal in a
House immigration bill that would have allowed
States to deny public education to illegal
immigrants, arguing that if enacted it would lead
to more crime.[1]

The challenges presented by immigration cannot be
reduced by providing foreign aid to countries from
which most immigrants originate. People will
continue to cross borders in search of better
lives. To deter such crossings, nations should
exercise border controls and interior enforcement.
A nation's rules regarding who and how many people
should be allowed to immigrate should be supported
with some form of police enforcement. For
democratic countries committed to the rule of law,
rules should be enforced until or unless replaced
by a duly enacted policy of completely open
borders.

Immigration and today's world

The worldwide supply of, demand for, and
ambivalence about immigrants has risen dramatically
in the past two decades. An estimated 100 million
people (2 percent of the world's population) live
outside their homelands. The movement of people
throughout the world has become much freer and
easier. Even in the most remote corner of the
earth, people are only a 2- or 3-day journey away
from an airport and a newly adopted country.

Industrial nations have begun taking a harder line
against illegal immigrants, but they are
increasingly caught in a squeeze. Their populations
are aging, forcing up welfare expenses, and illegal
immigrants favorably influence the dependency ratio
of productive workers to retirees. These immigrants
work cheaply, are mostly not entitled to benefits,
are often paid off the books, and contribute in
important ways to the informal economies that allow
some countries to maintain their standards of
living.[2]

In addition, nations are being legally constrained
by a human rights revolution akin to the "criminal
law revolution" exercised by the Warren Court in
the 1960s. Human rights are universal; they are not
limited to citizens. By asserting them, illegal
immigrants can limit a government's options to
refuse asylum and restrict immigration.[3]

Illegal immigration and crime in the United States

Estimating the population of illegal immigrants
residing in the United States is a daunting task;
the best estimates now peg the number at 5 million
(nearly 2 percent of the total U.S. population),
with an estimated net annual increase of about
275,000. Contrary to public perception, the vast
majority of illegal immigrants in the United States
do not enter the country illegally across the
border with Mexico. Rather, a substantial
proportion (41 percent) enter legally at airports
and other entry points and overstay their visas. Of
the net increase of 275,000 a year, about 125,000
are visa "overstayers."[4] (See "Where Do Most
Illegal Immigrants Come From?")

It is reasonable to assume that most illegal
immigrants are not involved in serious crime. The
extent to which they represent a crime threat is
difficult to estimate and varies within
communities. In 1994, a major survey estimated that
21,395 illegal aliens were in State prisons in 7
States. (See "Where Do Illegal Immigrants Reside?")
California held 70.6 percent of these illegal
aliens. New York was next with 10 percent.[5] A
study of illegal immigrant involvement in serious
crime in San Diego and El Paso in 1985-86 found
that, of arrestees for serious crimes in San Diego,
81 percent were citizens, 12 percent were illegal
immigrants, 2 percent were legal immigrants, and 4
percent were foreign born but with unconfirmed
citizenship. In El Paso, 74 percent were citizens,
15 percent were illegal aliens, 7 percent were
legal aliens, and 4 percent were unconfirmed.[6] A
1993 study in San Diego County estimated the
illegal immigrant population at 220,000, or 7.9
percent of the county's total population, and
claimed that approximately 22 percent of felony
arrestees were illegal aliens.[7] Without
adjustments for the age and gender of the illegal
immigrant population, however, these numbers
probably overestimate the relative criminality of
the illegal population because a disproportionate
number of the illegal immigrants were likely to
have been single males in their crime-prone years.

Discussion of crime and immigration is not limited
to illegal immigrants' involvement in crime. It
extends to all crimes associated with illegal
immigration, including smuggling illegal
immigrants, manufacturing and selling fraudulent
documents, bribing public officials, and preying on
illegal immigrants.

A wide range of predators victimize illegal
immigrants. Guides and organized gangsters have
robbed, raped, and killed them; abandoned them in
the desert; tossed them overboard at sea or out of
speeding cars under hot pursuit; or forced them to
work in sweatshops or prostitution rings to pay off
the cost of the trip. Bandits prey upon them during
their journeys. Xenophobes and hatemongers
terrorize them. Some employers cheat them of their
earnings. The fact that illegal immigration is a
crime makes the immigrants particularly vulnerable
because they are unlikely to seek the protection of
the law.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
opening of world markets, the worldwide smuggling
of immigrants has mushroomed. It is a growth
industry for organized crime.[8] By 1993, New York
gangs were charging residents of China between
$15,000 and $50,000 each to be smuggled into the
United States. The market for smuggling Chinese
immigrants was estimated at $3.5 billion. Usually,
immigrants paid $1,500 in advance, with the balance
paid after arriving--often by working for years as
indentured servants under horrendous conditions. By
1995, Central America had become a free-trade zone
in which government officials sold the visas and
passports necessary to leave China via plane for
$25,000 to $50,000 apiece. An estimated 10,000
illegal aliens per month were being moved through
the region to the United States. The business was
regarded as less risky and almost as lucrative as
drug trafficking.[9]

Reliable measures of the prevalence of these
ancillary crimes do not exist. Little documentation
is available and what exists is largely anecdotal
or expert guesstimates.[10]

Reshaping past partnerships

Even after the Immigration Act of 1891 established
complete and definite Federal control over
immigration, local and State law enforcement
agencies often cooperated with Federal immigration
officials. Local police were involved in
immigration control indirectly (through their crime
control activities) and directly (by referring
suspected illegals to Federal authorities),
assisting with searches of city blocks where
illegals were living, and participating in mass
expulsions of illegals, such as "Operation
Wetback," which in 1954 returned 50,000 illegal
Mexicans across the border. For their part, Federal
immigration officials often stressed the crime
control aspects of their mission.

The 1960s wrought many changes in the ethos of
police work as well as in public sentiments about
civil rights, the treatment of minority groups, and
the willingness to protest Federal policies. Rising
crime rates and, in some communities, a rapid
influx of illegal immigrants stimulated a
refashioning of the police mission. By the late
1970s, the foundations for old partnerships began
to be redefined in light of these new conditions.
The willingness and freedom of local law
enforcement to cooperate fully with Federal
immigration authorities was reconsidered and
challenged.

The front line of police work, the daily and
routine encounters between police and suspicious
persons, began to cause problems whenever
noncitizens were involved. Traditionally, the
police referred to Federal authorities any
suspicious persons believed to be illegal aliens.
In some border communities the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) paid police
departments a monthly per capita fee for detaining
suspects for them.

As time passed, however, local officials in
communities with high proportions of foreign-born
residents were increasingly concerned that their
continued close association with INS might harm
their painstakingly nurtured relationships with
Mexican Americans, ethnic voting blocs, and
advocacy groups. Police officials worried that
illegal aliens would not report crimes or cooperate
as witnesses for fear that contact with any
Government agency would lead to deportation. Such a
perception could handicap law enforcement's ability
to deal with serious crimes. As a result, some
local police agencies began to distance themselves
from certain INS activities. In other communities,
advocates for immigrants, refugees, and ethnic
groups wielded enough influence to impose
restrictions on the type of involvement their local
police should have with Federal immigration-control
efforts.

The most visible reshaping of the old partnership
occurred in the mid-1980s in Santa Ana, California,
when Police Chief Ray Davis began working to
establish a community-oriented policing program. He
publicly announced that his department would no
longer participate in residential raids and street
roundups; he maintained that such tactics were
ineffective and counter to his department's
attempts to strengthen community relations.[11] He
did, however, continue to cooperate with INS
regarding cases of alien smuggling and other
victimization crimes.

In other jurisdictions, restrictions on local
police were imposed via lawsuits or from internal
policy. In some jurisdictions, for example, the
police stopped completing citizenship information
on arrest reports after receiving criticism that
they stopped suspects on the basis of Mexican
appearance.

At the same time, the growing number of illegal
aliens in prisons began causing alarm in already
crowded correctional facilities. In February 1983,
New York State's Department of Correctional
Services contacted Federal authorities requesting
assistance to alleviate the burden of incarcerating
illegal aliens.

Finding that neither INS nor the Bureau of Prisons
had space available and learning that there may be
4,000 or more aliens in State prisons nationally,
Congress eventually passed legislation, which
became part of the 1986 immigration reform bill, to
reimburse States for costs incurred for imprisoning
illegal aliens.[12]

By the 1990s, aroused public concern about illegal
immigration resulted in the opening of a new round
of discussions about the compatibility of
immigration control with the fundamental mission of
the police. (See "Chronicle of Immigration Policies
and Legislation.")

New partnerships

Passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act) created
unprecedented levels of Federal resources that were
committed to control illegal immigration and the
crimes committed by and against illegal immigrants.
After many lean years, INS received a major
infusion of funds earmarked for (1) reducing
illegal immigration by hardening the border, (2)
deterring the employment of illegals, and (3)
improving support of crime-fighting abilities of
State and local law enforcement agencies.

The 1994 Crime Act authorized $1.2 billion for
specialized enforcement provisions, including
border control, criminal alien deportation, asylum
reform, and a criminal alien tracking center.

In addition, it authorized funds to reimburse the
States and localities for the cost of incarcerating
illegal aliens.[13] In December 1996, the Federal
Government released $495 million. Half of the money
went to California, with $12.8 million set aside
for Los Angeles County jails. The rest went to 48
other States.[14]

In the wake of the Crime Act, INS has launched two
major initiatives addressing criminal aliens: the
Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), designed to
improve the process of identifying illegal aliens
who commit crimes, and the Institutional Hearing
Program (IHP), designed to streamline deportation
procedures. Both programs aim to enhance
coordination with State and local agencies.

Streamlining identification procedures. The LESC
program improves the efficiency of the expulsion
process through the front end of the system--when
law enforcement officers first come in contact with
criminal aliens in the course of routine police
work. LESC gives local law enforcement the capacity
to quickly determine the immigration status of
suspects so that criminal aliens can be readily
identified and removed. One feature of this is the
development of a system to flag the criminal
records of individuals who have been deported.
Other aspects are more complex and cannot be
reduced to a simple entry on a computer record.
Rather, the determination of immigration status and
possible deportability requires the judgment of
officials knowledgeable in the arcane particulars
of immigration law and experienced at interpreting
immigration files. The program has been pilot
tested in Arizona and Iowa and is being further
tested in south Florida.

Streamlining deportation procedures. IHP is a key
component in Federal efforts to streamline the
deportation process and close the gap that allows
immigrants in State and local custody to be
released before their immigration status can be
determined and deportation initiated. Once
released, illegal immigrants disappear, move, and
often get new identification papers with different
names. Finding them again to enforce final orders
of deportation is extremely inefficient. Of the
83,793 deportation orders issued to illegal
immigrants who were not in prison in 1995, 37,246,
or 44.5 percent, were issued for immigrants who
could not be found.[15]

Through IHP, the deportation hearing process is
conducted before the immigrant leaves the custody
of the State or local facility, thereby ensuring
his availability for removal. In addition, with the
recent influx of Federal money, INS can now afford
to set high bail so fewer illegal workers can
disappear. Suspected illegal workers are held in
jail at a cost of $60 per day--a cost that is
reimbursed by the Federal Government.

One obstacle to more efficient deportation of
immigrant prisoners has been the housing of
prisoners in various locations. Immigration agency
resources were spread thin across many sites. INS
is now consolidating into one location business
that had been conducted in several locations. For
example, in Texas, with its 65 widely dispersed
prison and treatment facilities, INS is
constructing a permanent central processing
facility in Huntsville through which the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice has agreed to
process all foreign-born offenders to determine
their alien status. All immigration hearings will
be held there. In addition, INS has given its
deportation policy an almost exclusive emphasis on
crime. It has made criminality its highest priority
grounds for deportation.

The impact of these changes is evident. From
January 1993 through July 1996, INS removed 113,000
criminal aliens (roughly twice the number in the
previous 4 years). In 1996, it removed 63,000
illegal aliens and expects to remove 93,000 more in
1997.[16]

Assessing procedures. A joint Federal and State
task force also conducted assessments of Federal,
State, and local practices related to identifying
and processing criminal aliens in five States:
California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois.
The assessments found wide variations in the nature
of cooperation between Federal, State, and local
agencies. The assessment group made 32
recommendations for improving partnerships,
including expanding the LESC program and enhancing
criminal record flagging systems. The group hopes
that by the year 2000, a nationwide information
system will exist to enable local law enforcement
officials to quickly identify and deport criminal
aliens, particularly deported aliens who have
reentered the country illegally.

Specific recommendations include:[17]

o Adopting uniform data elements to capture
citizenship and immigration status information on
local, State, and Federal Bureau of Investigation
records.

o Adopting uniform procedures regarding when and
under what circumstances immigration status checks
should be conducted on suspected foreign-born
arrestees, defendants, and offenders.

o Entering into National Crime Information Center
(NCIC) files all warrants on criminal aliens with
final orders of deportation who abscond prior to
removal.

o Having INS establish positive identification
capabilities through biometric measures rather than
name-based records.

o Exploring the possible use of the Interstate
Identification Index as a national deported
criminal alien flagging system.

The assessment in New York found that a flagging
system for updating criminal records with
notifications that an individual had been deported
was already in place but not working well. A check
of 180 cases from a 1992 INS Criminal Alien Summary
Sheet (in which deportation orders had been issued
for inmates with 1995 or earlier release dates)
revealed that only one criminal history record had
been updated to indicate that the subject of the
record had been deported.

The assessment in California was used to develop a
new system. INS and the California Department of
Justice (CDOJ) now share fingerprint and
deportation status information. On completion of
their State-imposed prison terms, alien felons are
fingerprinted and released to INS custody for
deportation. When the alien is deported, INS
forwards a fingerprint card to CDOJ for positive
identification. CDOJ then applies a new flag to
California's Criminal History System (CHS). In the
event of a subsequent contact with local law
enforcement, the alien's deportation status will be
in the CHS message along with an INS telephone
number to call for removal.

Other cooperative efforts. The Federal Government,
through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, is
funding seminars for local law enforcement on
dealing with alien crime. The seminars are being
conducted by the International Association of
Chiefs of Police with the cooperation of INS.

Alan Bersin, U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of California and Attorney General Janet
Reno's Special Representative to the Southwest
Border, is enlisting local law enforcement in a new
partnership against crime related to illegal
immigration. Well aware of the sentiments of State
and local officials about the Federal Government's
responsibility for the criminal justice costs
related to illegal immigrants, he has proposed a
logic by which local law enforcement agencies would
accept responsibility for prosecuting crimes that
fall within their local bailiwick. Together with
San Diego District Attorney Paul Pfingst, he has
developed an agreement that covers most serious
crime. The intent of the allocation is to prosecute
offenses in that jurisdiction where the potential
sanction is best calculated to result in an
appropriate punishment and deterrent effect on a
case-by-case basis.

The agreement continues to be refined but generally
works this way: If a criminal episode at the border
could result in violation of either Federal or
local statutes, the responsibility for prosecution
falls upon local authorities when the nexus of the
crime is local or the nature of the offense is a
traditional subject of local interest and county
concern. Responsibility is allocated to the Federal
Government when the nexus of the crime is not
specific to San Diego or where Federal jurisdiction
traditionally has been asserted--for example, in
the civil rights area. Aliens who smuggle drugs
across the border, therefore, are prosecuted for
drug offenses by local authorities if they reside
in San Diego County, if they drive a car registered
in the county, or if the narcotics are intended for
distribution in the county. Otherwise, the suspect
is prosecuted federally or, in certain cases where
evidence of intent is lacking, sanctioned
administratively by INS and removed from the
county. Criminal aliens who enter the United States
after having been deported, on the other hand, are
charged under Federal law with immigration
violations to access the severe penalties available
in those circumstances. The result of this
Federal/county coordination between prosecutors is
enhanced performance of the criminal justice system
across the board on a regional level.

Law and justice for illegal immigrants

In the heat of the discussion over Federal
reimbursement to the States and the proper role of
local law enforcement in immigration control, it is
easy to overlook another side of the issue, namely,
protecting illegal immigrants from the exploitation
and victimization to which they are so vulnerable.
Here, local law enforcement and Federal authorities
also have cooperated.

Federal officials and the San Diego Police
Department have, over the years, established a
special police task force to protect immigrants
from the bandits who prey upon them. The first unit
operated for only 5 months in 1976 and made 131
arrests. The unit was disbanded due to
international sensitivity over some incidents in
which it was involved,[18] even though the
incidents of local youth gangs preying upon the
immigrants ended. Today the San Diego Police
Department operates a similar unit that patrols the
canyons every night assuring surprised illegal
immigrants that they are there to protect them.

But illegal immigration is no longer solely a
border issue; the State's Attorney's Office in
Montgomery Country, Maryland, has begun operating a
"theft of services" unit, which deals primarily
with getting justice for illegal immigrants cheated
by employers who often threaten to report them to
INS if they complain.

Illegal immigration is likely to continue to be a
challenge for democracies for some time. As they
search for guidance, policymakers would do well to
take a lesson from the San Diego County Sheriff's
Department, an agency familiar with illegal
immigration and the conflicting values,
responsibilities, and public interests involved.
Its policy manual reads as follows:                

The primary responsibility for the enforcement of
immigration laws rests with Federal authorities.
Nonetheless, the Sheriff's Department has a
responsibility to guarantee the safety and
well-being of all people living within this county.
The scope of this responsibility includes the
enforcement of applicable Federal and State
statutes concerned with illegal immigration into
the United States and the County of San Diego to
ensure the safety and well-being of illegal
immigrants, as well as the security of the
residents of this county.[19]

William F. McDonald, a Visiting Fellow at the
National Institute of Justice, is Deputy Director
of the Institute of Criminal Law and Procedure and
Professor at Georgetown University. This article
was supported by grant 95-IJ-CX-0110 from the
National Institute of Justice. The views and
opinions expressed are those of the author and do
not necessarily reflect those of the U.S.
Department of Justice or Georgetown University.

Notes

1. Schmitt, Eric, "Police Scorn Plan to Deny
Schooling to Illegal Aliens: Groups Say Bill Will
Lead to Rise in Crime," New York Times, April 9,
1996.

2. Cornelius, Wayne A., Philip L. Martin, and James
F. Hollifield, eds., Controlling Immigration: A
Global Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1991.

3. Jacobson, David, Rights Across Borders:
Immigration and the Decline of Citizenship.
Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1996.

4. Branigin, William, "Illegal Immigrant Population
Grows to 5 Million," Washington Post, February 8,
1997:A3.

5. Clark, Rebecca L., S. Jeffrey Passel, Wendy N.
Zimmermann, and Michael E. Fix, Fiscal Impacts of
Undocumented Aliens: Selected Estimates for Seven
States. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 1994.

6. Pennell, Susan, Christine Curtis, and Jeff
Tayman, The Impact of Illegal Immigration on the
Criminal Justice System. San Diego, CA: San Diego
Association of Governments, 1989.

7. Richard A. Parker and Louis M. Rea, California
Senate, Special Committee on Border Issues, Illegal
Immigration in San Diego County: An Analysis of
Costs and Revenues. Sacramento, CA, 1993.

8. Schmid, Alex P., ed., Migration and Crime.
Milan, Italy: International Scientific and
Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations
Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme,
1996.

9. The smuggling of illegal immigrants across the
U.S. border began in 1882. Shortly after Federal
law excluded the immigration of Chinese, the
smuggling of Chinese immigrants began, as did the
manufacturing of fraudulent documents to accompany
them. In 1973, the smuggling of illegal immigrants
across the U.S.-Mexican border was a thriving
business estimated at $125 million a year. By 1977,
the Mexican border was described as a "free-fire
zone" with human beings being bought and sold in a
kind of slave trade. One Los Angeles smuggling
operation was making $120,000 a trip packing up to
45 aliens in a panel truck. Source: McDonald,
William F., "Illegal Immigration: Crime,
Ramifications and Control (The American
Experience)." In William F. McDonald, ed., Crime
and Law Enforcement in the Global Village,
Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishers, 1997:65-86.

10. In the mid-1970s, along a short stretch of land
that separates residential areas in south San Diego
from the border with Mexico, the known rate of
victimization of immigrants making their way into
the country illegally was high, even though it was
estimated to be only 10 to 25 percent of the true
rate. During 1975, 130 cases of robbery (with
multiple victims), 13 rapes, and 4 murders were
reported to the San Diego Police Department. In
1976, 156 robberies, 3 rapes, and 3 homicides were
reported, all directly involving illegal aliens as
either victims or suspects. Source: Kolendar,
William B., "Remarks Regarding Illegal Aliens." In
The Police Yearbook 1978. Gaithersburg, MD:
International Association of Chiefs of Police,
1978:47-50.

11. Interestingly, two large local newspapers sold
in the politically conservative community agreed
with him, stating that they, too, thought
residential raids were disruptive and that the
better strategy would be to concentrate immigration
control efforts at the border. Skolnick, Jerome H.,
and David H. Bayley, The New Blue Line: Police
Innovation in Six American Cities. New York, NY:
The Free Press, 1986.

12. D'Amato, Alfonse M., "Aliens in Prison--The
Federal Response to a New Criminal Justice
Emergency," Detroit College of Law Review 4
(1983):1163-1169.

13. McDonald, "Illegal Immigration: Crime,
Ramifications and Control (The American
Experience)," 70.

14. Lacey, Marc, "U.S. Releases Disputed Jail Costs
to States," Los Angeles Times, December 6, 1996.

15. Hall, Charles W., "INS Has a Hard Time
Deporting Illegal Immigrants It Can't Find,"
Washington Post, March 3, 1996:B1, B3.

16. Branigin, "Illegal Immigrant Population Grows
to 5 Million," A3.

17. Interstate Criminal Alien Working Group, Report
on Addressing the Criminal Alien Problem,
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau
of Justice Assistance, August 1996.

18. Wambaugh, Joseph, Lines and Shadows. New York,
NY: William Morrow, 1984.

19. San Diego County Sheriff's Department,
"Immigration Laws: Enforcement: Policy 6.47.2." In
Policies and Procedures. San Diego, CA: October 1,
1992.

------------------------------

Chronicle of Immigration and Legislation

The American struggle to define which level of
government should bear the costs and effects of
immigration and crime began as early as the 17th
century when the British established the policy of
shipping prisoners to the American Colonies. The
Colonies resisted the policy in various ways, such
as the following:

o Maryland prohibited the landing of convicts.

o Massachusetts excluded the lame, infirm, and
dependent.

o Pennsylvania placed a tax on every criminal who
landed and held the ship owner liable.

o Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, and New York
enacted penalties for  the landing of convicts.[1]

The Colonies, however, eventually lost the battle:
between 1700 and 1800, 50,000 convicts were
transported to American shores.[2]

In 1875, the U.S. Congress passed the first
legislation restricting immigration by prohibiting
the entry of criminals and prostitutes. That
legislation, however, did not make illegal entry a
crime and did not provide any enforcement mechanism
for excluding or deporting immigrants.

In 1882, Congress passed additional legislation
excluding immigrants who were convicted of
political offenses, who could be classified as
"lunatics" and "idiots," and who were likely to
become public charges. This legislation also
excluded Chinese people, for the first time making
national origin a basis for exclusion. Congress
granted the Federal Government power to enforce the
law, but the enforcement mechanism involved using
State officials appointed by the Governors and
using funds from a 50-cent tax collected from each
immigrant by local officials.

State and local governments continued to play a
significant role in the enforcement of immigration
restrictions associated with criminal matters even
after 1891 when the Bureau of Immigration,
forerunner of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, was established. The transition to
complete Federal control of immigration and
criminalization of illegal immigration was gradual,
haphazard, and subject to the intense racial
politics typical of the turn of the century.

Until 1918 and passage of the wartime provisions of
the Passport Act, excluded im-migrants who entered
illegally could be deported but not criminally
prosecuted. It was not until 1929 that unlawful
entry was unequivocally established as a Federal
crime.

Illegal entry today continues to be a misdemeanor
and reentry after deportation a felony. In 1988,
the penalty for reentry was dramatically increased
to up to 20 years for a new category of deportable
alien--"aggravated felon"--created to help speed
deportations. A growing list of qualitative and
quantitative restrictions on immigration also has
been added over the years, and the grounds for
deportation of legally admitted immigrants have
been expanded. The recent adjustments in the
criminal penalties are part of the refocusing of
Federal policy.

Notes

1. McDonald, William F., "Illegal Immigration:
Crime, Ramifications and Control (The American
Experience)." In William F. McDonald, ed., Crime
and Enforcement in the Global Village, Cincinnati,
OH: Anderson Publishers, 1997:72.

2. Christianson, Keith S., "The American Experience
of Imprisonment, 1607-1776." Ph.D. diss., State
University of New York at Albany, 1981.

------------------------------

Applying Technological Advances To Criminal Justice

On November 1, 1996, Charles Rathbun was found
guilty of brutally killing a 27-year-old woman. In
addition to damaging physical evidence, the jury
said that on the basis of the technical evidence,
they believed Rathbun lied during testimony.

The technical evidence that weighed so heavily with
the jury involved photographs the defendant, a
professional photographer, claimed he had taken of
the victim the day she was killed. Rathbun, who had
alleged that the death was accidental, maintained
that the victim had consented to being
photographed.

To verify his claim, investigators sought the
assistance of engineers at the western regional
office of the National Institute of Justice's
National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology
Center in El Segundo, California. The Center's
imagery experts enhanced the retrieved photos--of a
woman whose face is hidden. Comparative analysis by
forensic experts of these photos with autopsy
photos clearly indicated that the bodies in the two
sets of photos were not the same person.
Additionally, the forensic experts said that the
car in Rathbun's photos was not the same one in
which he claimed the photos had been taken. The
Center's engineers were also able to recover data
from the defendant's computer, including an address
book he had deleted before he turned himself in to
the police.

This evidence helped convince the jury that Rathbun
had lied on the witness stand. He was found guilty
and sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is
committed to supporting the development of new
technologies and the dissemination of information
to State and local law enforcement and corrections
agencies. NIJ's Office of Science and Technology
(OST) coordinates technology programs and conducts
outreach (see "NIJ's Science and Technology
Mission"). To fulfill its mission, NIJ has
implemented a national and regional system of
support centers for State and local law enforcement
and corrections agencies that provide the kind of
technical assistance described in the example
above. The National Law Enforcement and Corrections
Technology Centers (NLECTCs), which are managed by
OST staff, consist of one national center, four
regional centers, and one center to support border
States. (See "NLECTC Contact Information" for the
addresses, phone and fax numbers, e-mail addresses,
and Directors of the six Centers.) In addition, the
network includes an Office of Law Enforcement
Technology Commercialization at NASA's National
Technology Transfer Center in Wheeling, West
Virginia. (A forthcoming NIJ Journal article will
report on this office's work.)

The concept of regional centers developed as a
means for NIJ to learn more about the needs of law
enforcement and corrections professionals and to
use the specialized technological expertise
available around the country. The regional centers
not only maximize geographic representation but
also allow NIJ to leverage available technology
resources by linking each center to special areas
of expertise. The centers, as shown on the
accompanying map, and their specialties are:

o National Center, Rockville, Maryland.

Specialties: Equipment testing, data base
maintenance, outreach, Web site maintenance, and
publications distribution.

o Northeastern Regional Center, Rome, New York.

Specialties: Weapons detection and audio
processing.

o Southeast Regional Center, Charleston, South
Carolina.

Specialties: Surplus property and corrections.

o Rocky Mountain Regional Center, Denver, Colorado.

Specialties: Communications and computer mapping.

o Western Regional Center, El Segundo, California.

Specialties: Forensic image and audio analysis.

o Border Research and Technology Center, San Diego,
California.

Specialties: Border surveillance, security, and
identification; and night vision technology.

NLECTC--National Center

The National Center was the first office
established in the NLECTC system. It is the hub for
coordinating, collecting, and disseminating
information about new equipment, guidelines and
standards, and technical assistance. It is also
responsible for developing and maintaining the
Technology Center World Wide Web site, the Justice
Technology Information Network (JUSTNET). (See
"Information Gateway to NLECTC.") Law enforcement
and corrections professionals call the National
Center or connect to JUSTNET to obtain general
information or order publications such as reports
on product testing.

The National Center also manages the voluntary
equipment standards and testing program and is best
known for its work in testing and certifying the
soft body armor worn by most police officers. Among
this center's most popular products are reports on
new police car packages and tires, which agencies
use to develop informed purchasing plans.

The National Center also supports the outreach
efforts and activities of the Law Enforcement and
Corrections Technology Advisory Council, the body
that guides the work of the centers and promotes
knowledge of technological advances.

NLECTC--Northeast Region

In June 1996, the Northeast Center was established
at Rome Laboratory (a division of the Air Force
research and development laboratories) in New York.
This center focuses its activities on detecting
concealed weapons, one of the greatest challenges
facing the law enforcement and corrections
communities.

The center has identified several technologies--for
example, low-power radar, X-ray, and acoustic and
infrared imaging--that demonstrate that an
individual carrying a weapon, even in crowds, can
be located and electronically "tagged" quickly and
effectively. Technology under development might,
for example, combine the complementary
characteristics of millimeter wave-imaging
technology with infrared images. Engineers are also
considering ways to set up a stationary device in a
corridor of a public building or other crowded
setting so that security officers can scan the
passing crowd (rather than screen persons one at a
time) for concealed weapons. Other advances include
portal devices that improve on today's passthrough
metal detectors by revealing not only metal but
also nonmetal and composite weapons. Handheld
scanners are also being developed for police
officers to use in their daily activities.

Other research involves creating a time analysis
and joint automatic booking system; automated
firearms identification; high-speed networks;
multiband, multifunction radios; transportable
communications systems; speech processing; and
automatic language translation systems.

NLECTC--Southeast Region

The Southeast Center's mission is twofold: (1) to
locate and transfer surplus military equipment and
Federal property to State and local law enforcement
and corrections agencies; and (2) to respond to the
needs of prison, jail, probation, and parole
officers. The surplus property activities are
facilitated by the center's close proximity and
relationship with the Naval In-Service Engineering
(NISE East) program at Charleston Naval Base.
Corrections activities are advanced by the
Corrections Committee of the Law Enforcement and
Corrections Technology Advisory Council. This
committee identifies requirements and priorities
for technology products and services that can
benefit corrections professionals.

Other areas of concentration by the Southeast
Center include global-positioning satellite
systems, physical and informational security
systems, command and control systems, cryptologic
and intelligence systems, and communications
systems.

NLECTC--Rocky Mountain Region

The primary focus of the Rocky Mountain Center,
located at the University of Denver, is
communications, especially communications involving
multiple agencies or jurisdictions. The ability of
public safety agencies to carry out their missions
effectively and efficiently is highly dependent on
communications interoperability--that is, their
ability to communicate on demand across
jurisdictions, with different equipment types, and
in a wide variety of critical situations.
Currently, personnel from different agencies
frequently find establishing and maintaining
communications to be complex and cumbersome. For
example, the sheriff, police, firefighters, and
medical emergency personnel who respond to the same
critical incident may need to carry several
different radios--one to communicate with each
agency. The Rocky Mountain Center is implementing a
series of projects with the common goal of
streamlining communications interoperability.
Vendors, developers, national organizations such as
the Association of Police Communications Officers,
and several agencies within the region are
participating in efforts to identify and field test
new technology solutions.

The Rocky Mountain Center also houses a branch of
the newly established NIJ Crime Mapping Research
Center (see page 24). Specialists in the Denver
branch collaborate with NIJ social scientists and
scholars in Washington, D.C., to devise
applications of crime analysis research. Research
findings are used to create practical applications
that improve field operations. For example, they
are developing crime-mapping software in
collaboration with the University of Denver's
Department of Geography and crime-mapping training
packages that meet the needs of small, medium, and
large police departments.

Other focus areas of the Rocky Mountain Center
include ballistics and weapons technology and
information systems.

NLECTC--Western Region

The Western Center was established at the Aerospace
Corporation in El Segundo, California, and supports
law enforcement and corrections technology through
its expertise in forensic image analysis. This
technique enabled engineers to enhance videotapes
that led to the apprehension of a suspect in the
killing of a Manhattan Beach police officer. In
another case, specialists in audiotape processes
were able to extract information from a noisy
audiotape of a conversation between two suspects.

The Western Center also maintains technical
capabilities in locating and tracking people and
vehicles through the Aerospace Corporation's Global
Positioning System program. Other technical
capabilities include computer architecture and data
processing, communications systems, equipment
specifications and standards, and forensic
analyses. Just recently, the center began leading
an effort to identify and advance technologies to
safely stop high-speed fleeing vehicles.

Border Research and Technology Center

The Border Research and Technology Center, located
in San Diego, California, supports law enforcement
through its partnership with all major agencies
involved in the control of the Southwest border,
including the U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of California, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), the U.S. Border
Patrol, the U.S. Customs Service, and the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. For example, the
center participated in a multiagency team led by
INS that developed and now operates a special,
precleared lane of traffic for people who cross the
border daily at the Port of San Ysidro. To avoid
the standard wait at the border, daily crossers can
obtain clearance to enter the commuter lane, have
their license plate read electronically, and have
the magnetic strip on an identification card
swiped. Border control officers then recognize them
and their vehicles as preapproved. The team that
developed the system was recently awarded the Vice
President's Hammer Award by the National
Performance Review in recognition of the system's
innovation and effectiveness.

The Border Research and Technology Center is
currently participating in joint ventures to
identify and develop technologies to stop fleeing
vehicles without harming passengers, for example,
by using electromagnetic energy fields to disengage
the engine. In addition, the center has identified
innovative methods that can detect the heartbeats
of people concealed in a vehicle. A disk can be
placed on the top of the car that "reads" minute
movement, such as the beating of a heart. A
corrections facility is currently experimenting
with this technology to determine if large packages
leaving the prison conceal prisoners.

------------------------------

Information Gateway To NLECTC

The Justice Technology Information Network--
JUSTNET--is the Internet link to law enforcement
and corrections technology. It is designed to be a
"one-stop shop" for law enforcement and corrections
technology information. It links users to all the
Technology Centers, the National Institute of
Justice, other law enforcement and corrections Web
sites, manufacturer Web sites, and data about
technology.
JUSTNET also offers visitors two additional
services:

o Interactive services. Visitors can converse with
one another by posting and responding to comments
and questions. JUSTNET provides passwords for users
who want access to their discussions restricted.
(To allow NLECTC to track usage and to provide
better assistance to State and local law
enforcement and corrections agencies, users must
register when they enter the Interactive Services
area for the first time.)

o Data and publications. Visitors can access and
download a data base of commercially available law
enforcement and corrections products and
technologies. They can also be linked to
information provided by agencies that have used the
products and put their comments about them on the
Internet.

The JUSTNET address is: http://www.nlectc.org. Or
call 800-248-2742 for assistance.

------------------------------

NIJ's Science and Technology Mission
The mission of NIJ's Office of Science and
Technology is to:

o Identify law enforcement and criminal justice
requirements for new technologies, especially at
the State and local level.

o Find, research, and develop new technologies and
new applications to existing technologies to
improve policing, corrections, and criminal justice
in the United States.

o Introduce promising new technologies to law
enforcement and corrections agencies.

o Provide technical and information assistance to
law enforcement and corrections agencies at all
levels in the area of technology.

------------------------------

NLCTC Contact Information

National Center

NLECTC-National Center
2277 Research Boulevard
Rockville, MD 20850
Phone: 800-248-2742
Fax: 301-519-5149
E-mail: mcaplan@aspensys.com
Senior Project Manager: Marc H. Caplan

Northeast Region

NLECTC-Northeast Region
26 Electronic Parkway
Rome, NY 13441-4514
Phone: 888-338-0584
Fax: 315-330-4315
E-mail: ritzj@rl.af.mil
Director: John Ritz

Southeast Region

NLECTC-Southeast Region
7325 Peppermill Parkway
North Charleston, SC 29418
Phone: 800-292-4385
Fax: 803-207-7776
E-mail: sextont@awod.com
Director: Thomas Sexton

Rocky Mountain Region

NLECTC-Rocky Mountain Region
2050 East Illiff Avenue
Denver, CO 80208
Phone: 800-416-8086, or 
303-871-2522 in theDenver, Colorado, area
Fax: 303-871-2500
E-mail: jkeller@du.edu
Director: James A. Keller

Western Region

NLECTC-Western Region
P.O. Box 92957
Mail Station M1/300
Los Angeles, CA 90009-2957
Phone: 310-336-2171
Fax: 310-336-2227
E-mail: nlectc@law-west.org
Director: Robert Pentz

Border Research and Technology Center

1250 Sixth Avenue, Suite 130
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: 619-685-1491
Fax: 619-685-1484
e-mail: brtcchrisa@aol.com
Director: Chris Aldridge

------------------------------

Theme Volumes in the Crime and Justice Series

Communities and Crime (Volume 8), edited by Albert
J. Reiss, Jr., and Michael Tonry. This volume
examines the ways in which communities affect crime
and are affected by it, with essays on such
subjects as environmental design and crime; the
effects of crime on a community's schools,
teachers, and pupils; and the influence of
community context on recidivism of released
offenders.

Prediction and Classification (Volume 9), edited by
Don M. Gottfredson and Michael Tonry. The essays in
this volume examine the development and
applications of research-based prediction and
classification methods in criminal justice
decisionmaking.

Family Violence (Volume 11), edited by Lloyd Ohlin
and Michael Tonry. This volume provides a
comprehensive review of research in all areas of
family violence, including domestic assault and
homicide and child abuse.

Drugs and Crime (Volume 13), edited by Michael
Tonry and James Q. Wilson. This volume provides a
comprehensive overview of the current state of
research on interactions between crime and drug
abuse. 

Modern Policing (Volume 15), edited by Michael
Tonry and Norval Morris. This volume provides a
critical assessment of contemporary police
agencies.

Beyond the Law (Volume 18) edited by Michael Tonry
and Albert J. Reiss, Jr. This volume focuses on
illegal activity by, within, among, and against
organizations.

Building a Safer Society (Volume 19--supported by
the British Home Office), edited by Michael Tonry
and David P. Farrington. This volume examines
strategic approaches to community, situational, and
developmental crime prevention and offers
guidelines for implementing and evaluating them.

Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration (Volume 21--
supported by the Research and Statistics Department
of the Home Office of England and Wales, the Dutch
Ministry of Justice, the Max Planck Institute for
International and Comparative Penal Law in
Freiburg, Germany, the Swedish National Crime
Prevention Council, the National Science Foundation
of Switzerland, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim
Foundation), edited by Michael Tonry. The essays in
this volume provide the most current comparative
and cross-national perspectives of racial and
ethnic differences in criminal offending,
victimization by crime, and disparities and
discrimination in Western justice systems.

Youth Violence (Volume 23), edited by Michael Tonry
and Mark Moore. This volume is slated for
publication in 1998 and will include essays on the
role of youths in violent crime and victimization,
causes and correlates of youth violence, guns and
youth violence, prevention of youth violence,
female youth violence, and gangs, drugs, and
violence.

Prisons (Volume 25--supported with funds from the
Corrections Program Office, OJP) edited by Michael
Tonry and Joan Petersilia. This volume is under
development for publication in late 1998. Among the
proposed essay topics are: changes in prison
populations, 1960-97; women's prisons; effects of
imprisonment on crime and public spending; effects
of imprisonment on offenders, their families, and
communities; treatment effectiveness within
prisons; work within the walls (prison industries);
and health care in prisons.

------------------------------


ANNUAL RESEARCH REVIEWS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Research on crime and justice has grown
significantly in the past three decades. Today it
involves an ever-widening number of disciplines
conducting research on crime, its causes and
control, and the institutions that administer
criminal law. Integrating and disseminating this
wide-ranging knowledge in a way that informs
national debate about crime control policies is one
of the goals of the National Institute of Justice
(NIJ).

Last year, a significant milestone in meeting this
goal was reached with the publication of Volume 20
of Crime and Justice: A Review of Research. Edited
by well-known scholars Michael Tonry and Norval
Morris (through Volume 14) and published by the
University of Chicago Press, the Crime and Justice
series has become an authoritative reference source
for those seeking comprehensive essays that
summarize important bodies of knowledge and key
trends in research and development.

The Crime and Justice series. NIJ launched the
Crime and Justice series in 1977 to provide for
criminal justice the kind of annual reviews of
research common to other fields. Eventually, the
series grew to include volumes that focused on a
single theme, such as Youth Violence and Prisons,
two new volumes currently in the development stage.
(See "Theme Volumes in the Crime and Justice
Series.")

The Crime and Justice methodology has been to ask
well-informed researchers and others to write
comprehensive, balanced summaries of current
knowledge, prior experience, and promising future
inquiries. The draft essays are critiqued by
members of the editorial board (see "Editorial
Board for Crime and Justice") and expert
independent reviewers; approximately half of the
commissioned papers are eventually published.
Although the National Institute of Justice provides
input on topics and reviews draft essays, the
editors and the editorial board make the final
decisions on the contents of each volume.

Volume 20. Like its predecessors, Volume 20
reflects the series' rigorous scholarship, as these
examples of the volume essays show:

o "Academic Performance and Delinquency," by Eugene
Maguin and Rolf Loeber. The authors conducted a
meta-analysis of studies of the relationship
between academic performance and delinquency and of
intervention studies aimed at both improving
academic performance and reducing delinquency. They
found that both boys and girls with lower academic
performance offended more frequently, committed
more serious and violent offenses, and persisted in
their offending. The effectiveness of intervention
programs differed by age group and tended to
produce improvements in both academic performance
and delinquency. The essay offers a number of
policy recommendations.

o "Intermediate Sanctions," by Michael Tonry and
Mary Lynch. The authors summarize experience to
date with the implementation and evaluation of
various intermediate sanctions, including boot
camps, intensive supervision, house arrest and
electronic monitoring, day reporting centers,
community service, and day fines. Each section
provides an overview of program characteristics and
discusses evidence concerning various measures of
effectiveness. In addition, the authors suggest
reasons that judges and prosecutors tend to use
intermediate sanctions for types of offenders other
than those for whom programs were designed.

o "The Prevalence of Drug Use in the United
States," by Thomas M. Mieczkowski. There is
substantial disagreement on the current best
estimates of drug use prevalence. This essay
examines each of the four major sources of data on
illicit drug use--the National Household Survey on
Drug Abuse, the High School Senior Survey
(Monitoring the Future), the Drug Abuse Warning
Network, and the Drug Use Forecasting System. The
author discusses each of these four indicators in
detail, highlights their strengths and weaknesses,
and offers suggestions for improvements. These
include recent attempts to integrate each data
source's findings using synthetic estimation
techniques to draw conclusions about how best to
integrate data drawn from different populations and
gathered by distinct methodologies.

o "Crime and Justice and the Criminal Justice and
Criminology Literature," by Ellen G. Cohn and David
P. Farrington. Using sophisticated citation
analysis, the authors find that the most-cited
scholars and most-cited works in the general
volumes of Crime and Justice: A Review of Research
were significantly correlated with the most-cited
scholars in major American criminology and criminal
justice journals as well as international
criminology journals. The most-cited scholars in
the analyses were Marvin E. Wolfgang, Michael J.
Hindelang, and Alfred Blumstein. The authors also
examine the most-cited crime and justice works in
the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and find
that there is also substantial overlap between the
most-cited works in Crime and Justice and the
most-cited crime and justice works in SSCI. They
conclude that citation analysis is useful in
identifying topics, works, and authors that are
influential during particular time periods and,
hence, useful in documenting the development of
knowledge on crime and justice.

o "Theoretical Integration and Criminology," by
Thomas J. Bernard and Jeffrey B. Snipes. There are
many criminology theories today but no agreement on
which (if any) have been falsified by research.
Some criminologists argue that falsification must
continue because theories contradict one another.
The authors argue that the theories are different
but not contradictory and thus can be integrated.
They believe integration is the appropriate
approach because the theories are not incompatible
with each other and can be integrated within
categories. They conclude that integration is
useful pending the development of more advanced
theoretical arguments and statistical techniques.

o "Penal Communications: Recent Work in the
Philosophy of Punishment," by R.A. Duff. This
scholarly, theoretical essay discusses the
historical context for several theories of
punishment. It addresses the underlying tension
between liberal and communitarian conceptions of
society and between our relationships to each other
and to the State. Sentencing (whether it results in
imprisonment, community service, or probation)
shows most clearly how punishment can be more than
the mere delivery of pain, it can be a genuinely
communicative, reformative, and reconciliatory
process.

In addition to the above essays, Volume 20 includes
valuable indexes--by author, subject, and essay
title--of the contents of the previous 19 volumes
that reflect the continuing research and policy
challenges facing criminal justice. Another four
volumes are in press or in the development phase.

In addition to NIJ support, recent volumes have
been funded by the British Home Office and agencies
from other European countries. For example, a new
volume, Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration, funded
by organizations from five European countries, has
just been published. The annual Crime and Justice,
supported by NIJ, will be available later this
year.

To order copies of the Crime and Justice series,
contact The University of Chicago Press, Journals
Division, P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, IL 60637 phone:
773-753-3347 fax: 773-753-0811 e-mail:
orders@journals.uchicago.edu
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/Editorial Board
for Crime and Justice

------------------------------

Editorial Board For Crime And Justice

Since its inception, the Crime and Justice series
has been guided by an editorial board of
outstanding scholars and practitioners. The current
board consists of the following individuals:

Norval Morris, Chairman
Alfred Blumstein
Jacqueline Cohen
Philip J. Cook
Darnell F. Hawkins
James B. Jacobs
Terrie E. Moffitt
John Monahan
Mark H. Moore
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr.
Joan Petersilia
Chase Riveland
Stuart O. Simms
Michael E. Smith

------------------------------

Evaluation of Drug Treatment in Local Corrections

Summary of a Research Study by Sandra Tunis, James
Austin, Mark Morris, Patricia Hardyman, and Melissa
Bolyard 

Arrests for illegal drug use have been a major
factor in increasing jail populations, which has
created interest in the effectiveness of drug
treatment programs in local jails. A recent
evaluation, sponsored by the National Institute of
Justice, indicates that the greatest immediate
benefit of jail drug treatment programs has been to
provide a "behavioral management tool" that
controls inmates' behavior, contributing
particularly to lower levels of violence.

The programs have had modest positive effects in
reducing recidivism within 1 year of jail release.
Considering their limitations, however, they have
potential for greater success. Limitations included
weak or nonexistent aftercare, mismatches between
lengths of programs and time in incarceration,
budget constraints (such as funds for aftercare),
and training issues.

Study methodology

The research design comprised two major components.
The first involved detailed descriptions and
analyses of five drug treatment programs: Jail
Education and Treatment (JET); Deciding, Educating,
Understanding, Counseling, and Evaluation (DEUCE);
and Rebuilding, Educating, Awareness, Counseling,
and Hope (REACH), all in California; and Substance
Abuse Intervention Division (SAID) and New
Beginnings, both in New York.

The second study component assessed program
completion rates for participants as well as
12-month postrelease outcomes (the probability of
being rearrested and convicted within 12 months
after release) for participants and matched
comparison groups. For most sites, comparison
groups included offenders in the same facility who
were matched by race, age, primary offense, and
sentence length. 

Key program characteristics

Length of stay. The five programs recognized length
of stay as a challenge to participation, which was
voluntary among inmates with a history of substance
abuse who could be housed in minimum- or
medium-security facilities. Three jurisdictions
required a remaining minimum period of
incarceration (usually 90 days) for entrance into
the program, although in practice few individuals
were rejected on this basis.

For three programs, movement into the next phase of
treatment was based on time spent in the previous
phase. Some offenders received only the basics of
the program because they left jail early; others
who were not ready for the next phase were moved
into it simply because they had spent time in the
first phase. This mismatch suggests that program
staff may need to redesign their programs to
develop services for those jailed for 3 days as
well as for 3 months.

Types of participants. About one-third of the
participants were Caucasian, more than one-third
were African American, and one-fourth were
Hispanic. Participants also differed in education
level, employment history, marital status,
self-reported alcohol- and drug-use patterns, and
prior drug treatment participation. The average age
across sites was between 31 and 32.

Offenders who were Caucasian, "older" (over 28
years), and had no previous (self-reported) history
of mental illness were significantly less likely to
leave the programs prematurely or to be expelled.
This finding suggests the need to develop specific
inhouse or ancillary services for particular
groups.

Treatment issues. All programs addressed recovery
from a physical, psychological, emotional, and
social perspective. They offered traditional drug
treatment services, including counseling and
self-help groups. DEUCE and REACH were primarily
curriculum based; the others relied more heavily on
counseling. All except SAID continued to conduct
drug testing.

The level or intensity of treatment services
participants actually received is not clear,
however, because of (1) differences in length of
stay in jail, (2) differences in needs related to
race/ethnicity and age, and (3) difficulty in
treating those with both substance abuse and
psychiatric problems. One response may be to
provide substance abuse information to all inmates
while focusing intensive treatment efforts on those
who are most likely to benefit from and/or to be in
need of services.

Aftercare. Although treatment providers recognized
the importance of integrated postcustody services,
formal aftercare links were limited. Other studies
have found that aftercare programs preserve or
extend treatment effects.

Custody-treatment program relations. At all sites
except SAID, agencies such as a school district or
substance abuse agency ran the programs. Although
all sites offered at least some cross training of
custody and treatment staff, more training of
custody staff could help gain their support for the
programs. Ideally, custody staff should be included
in program planning and training.

Programs' effects

Infraction rates. At all sites, program
participants were housed in separate living units;
in all but one, participants were separated from
other prisoners for most daily activities. The
infraction rates for these programs were compared
with rates for comparable units within each
facility. The treatment programs were found to have
fewer incident reports in general--there were lower
rates of serious behavioral problems (e.g.,
physical violence) and, to a lesser extent, other
behavioral problems (e.g., insubordination and
possession of [nondrug] contraband).

Recidivism rates. Seventeen percent of the
treatment group and 23 percent of the comparison
group were reconvicted at least once during the
1-year followup period, most for property or drug
crimes. The differences between the two groups were
greatest for older offenders, those with at least
two prior convictions, and Caucasians and
Hispanics. Among treatment participants, the
probability of reconviction was lower for abusers
of one drug than of multiple drugs, those who did
not prematurely leave the programs, and those who
stayed longer than 1 month.

Future evaluations

Because more complete postrelease outcome data are
essential, future studies should include a followup
period of at least 2 years. Evaluations should
quantify not only the cost of treatment but also
costs avoided by positive treatment outcomes.
Studies should also assess the impact of programs
on jail management and operations, data on prisoner
behavior, and costs associated with disciplinary
incidents.The final report, Evaluation of Drug
Treatment in Local Corrections, prepared under NIJ
grant 91-DD-CX-K052, was written by Sandra Tunis,
Ph.D., James Austin, Ph.D., Mark Morris, Ph.D.,
Patricia Hardyman, Ph.D., and Melissa Bolyard,
M.A., of the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency. Limited copies of the full report are
available; contact the National Criminal Justice
Reference Service at 800-851-3420, or e-mail
askncjrs@ncjrs.org. Ask for NCJ 159313. The report
is also online at http://www.ncjrs.org.

FS000173--Please refer to this number to order
copies of this Preview. It is also available online
at http://www.ncjrs.org or through fax-on-demand at
800-851-3420 or 301-519-5518 (in the Washington,
D.C., area).


------------------------------

Court Security and the Transportation of Prisoners

Summary of a Research Study by the National
Sheriffs' Association

The sharp rise of violence in court settings--from
minor disturbances to murder--has prompted a
reexamination of safeguards for the judicial
process and personnel and of the transportation of
prisoners to and from court. The National Institute
of Justice (NIJ) sponsored an assessment by the
National Sheriffs' Association (NSA) of the current
state of the art in court security and the
transportation of prisoners.

The study's three surveys found that the safety of
personnel transporting and monitoring prisoners in
the courtroom is the most pressing concern.
Possible responses include improving training
through more intense classroom instruction and
field training for high-risk situations, providing
personnel with appropriate equipment, enhancing
facilities' structural features, and establishing
policies and procedures for courtroom security and
for safe prisoner transport--on the ground and in
the air. The assessment offers specific suggestions
for agencies to consider when evaluating their
individual programs.

Study method

Information was gathered from interviews and
questionnaires administered to court security,
probation, parole, and sheriffs' personnel
nationwide; a review of existing research
literature and reports of some of the violent
incidents that occurred in courts over the past two
decades; and input from the Project Advisory Board,
Staff Review Committee, practitioners, experts in
the field, and other criminal justice
organizations.

Personnel education and training

The majority of court security and prisoner
transport personnel are 40- to 50-year-old males
who attended college for at least 1 or 2 years and
are very satisfied with their jobs. A majority have
completed a training program in court security,
prisoner transportation, or serving of civil or
criminal process.

However, many felt they were not fully prepared to
meet new and emerging challenges. Fewer than half
the responding agencies provide training in vehicle
operation, which is a key area for liability
actions. Also, fewer than half the agencies
instruct officers in the proper application of
commonly used restraining devices (e.g., handcuffs,
straps, leg irons). A vehicle operation training
curriculum could include commercial driver's
license requirements; driver's pursuit and
defensive training; liability issues; care,
custody, control, and supervision procedures;
driver and escort officer/deputy responsibilities;
and use of specialized equipment.

In addition, although they rarely perform routine
maintenance tasks, over half the respondents said
they inspect some security equipment (e.g.,
vehicles, doors) and conduct security checks inside
and outside courthouses. Fewer than half, however,
inspect equipment such as scanning devices, alarms,
and cameras.

Respondents said they need more instruction in
legal liabilities; legal responsibilities of
supervision; firearms; court functions, duties, and
security; serving of civil or criminal process; and
transporting prisoners both on the ground (e.g., in
an automobile, bus, or van) and in the air. They
also felt they needed more education about
vicarious liability; possible areas for suits
include failure to train or direct and negligence
in supervision, entrustment, assignment, hiring,
and retention.

The study suggests that basic court security and
prisoner transport training programs should provide
a minimum of 80 hours of classroom instruction over
a 4- to 6-week period. Personnel should also be
certified in certain key areas such as the use of
electronic nonlethal equipment (e.g., stun, laser,
and taser guns and stun belts) and methods of
applying physical force to control defendants in
high-risk situations.

All trainees should pass examinations to
demonstrate they have adequate knowledge and skills
before they are assigned to security or prisoner
transport duties. The Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) requires personnel
transporting prisoners to pass a certified 2-hour
block of training.

Court facility security

Court security staff comprise sworn and unsworn
personnel (e.g., bailiffs, private-sector
employees, and Federal and State Department of
Corrections personnel).

Fewer than half the court agencies and sheriffs'
offices said they put a high priority on
controlling access into court and judicial
facilities (e.g., patrolling exterior perimeters,
scanning mail and packages, and supervising
elevator use). Probation and parole personnel think
metal detectors should be used more often outside
courtrooms.

The study suggests that the underlying principle of
court security should be maintaining a physical
security system that does not interfere with the
activities of the court.

A key aspect of security involves providing
physical mechanisms for safe passage inside and
outside court facilities. Consideration should be
given to employing structural features and
controlled access devices, in compliance with the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, such as
the following:

o Adequate lighting and proper landscaping around
parking areas, walkways, and at points of access
where visual recognition is necessary.

o Barriers to prohibit forcible entry by vehicles
or pedestrians.

o Bullet-resistant glazing on windows in all areas
of sight exposure as well as shatter-resistant film
between layers of glass and sensor devices on
ground-floor windows.

o Designated parking areas for judges and selected
court employees, prisoner transport, and
service-related vehicles.

o Mechanisms on perimeter doors that can detect
unauthorized entry.

o Controlled access to building facilities through
separate, electronically monitored entrances for
the general public, judges, court personnel, and
service personnel.

o Distinct structural circulation systems within
the courthouse to limit access for visitors,
prisoners, and outside service personnel and to
provide secure passage for judges, juries, and
court staff (e.g., restricted elevators for
different users and centralized holding areas for
prisoners).

Policies and procedures regarding use of these
mechanisms need to be continually monitored and
updated. Each hearing and trial should be assessed
to determine the correct level of security needed.
This assessment could prepare security
officers/deputies for any disruptions that may
occur and could keep costs down by increasing staff
only when appropriate. A balance should be struck
between protecting all who enter the court and
permitting normal operations.

Transportation of prisoners

The majority of probation and parole agents
surveyed believe uniformed officers (e.g. deputy
sheriffs/officers) should transport prisoners, even
though most of the respondents have been required
as part of their official duties to do the
transporting. Although transporting male adults,
female adults, male juveniles, and female juveniles
requires different guidelines, fewer than half the
respondents have ever received special or refresher
training in prisoner transportation. Survey
respondents indicated that most agencies do not
possess vehicles specially equipped to transport
prisoners. In addition, over half the agencies do
not allow agents to perform gender-appropriate
strip searches.

Rules or procedures exist in several jurisdictions
governing the transportation of prisoners, but
there are no national regulations (except those
issued by the FAA). The study suggests that the
first step should be implementation of a
"dangerousness" classification for prisoners being
transported so security officers can implement the
proper levels of care, custody, control, and
supervision. Other suggestions concern providing
handheld radios for all transport personnel and
establishing a statewide or regional radio
frequency so help can be summoned quickly in an
emergency.

All prisoners should be monitored continuously in
case medical emergencies arise. If such an
emergency does occur during transport,
officers/deputies should be prepared to take
appropriate action and know how to handle patients
with infectious diseases. An agency's medical unit
should inform transporting officers/deputies if a
prisoner has a communicable disease and provide
guidelines that follow those mandated by the U.S.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration and
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Conclusion

A risk assessment should be an integral part of a
comprehensive survey of courtroom security and the
transportation of prisoners to determine security
vulnerabilities and equipment and training needs.
Even the most sophisticated equipment is only a
supportive tool used by trained personnel as part
of a well-prepared plan to administer justice in a
danger-free environment.

Annual conference on research and evaluation

NIJ's annual conference on research and evaluation
is scheduled for July 20-23, 1997. This year's
conference, "Meeting the Challenges of Crime and
Justice," will be held at the J.W. Marriott Hotel
in Washington, D.C. Speakers, panels, and workshops
are under development. The topics for two plenary
sessions are "Crime, Physical Environment, and
Specific Locations" and "The Impact of a Community
Focus on the Justice System."

To register or obtain more information, contact
NIJ's Professional Conference Series staff at the
Institute for Law and Justice, phone 703-684-5300,
fax 703-739-5533, or e-mail nijpcs@ilj.org.

Linking policy and research

One of NIJ's goals is to inform policymaking by
disseminating research findings. Two recent
programs have contributed to that goal by
encouraging dialogue between policymakers and
researchers. The "Perspectives in Crime and
Justice" lecture series in Washington, D.C., linked
widely respected scholars with Federal and local
policymakers on Capitol Hill. The second event
involved members of the Oregon legislature, who met
with a team of researchers assembled by NIJ to
discuss criminal justice policy issues and recent
research findings.

Perspectives in crime and justice. With funding
support from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation,
NIJ hosted a breakfast lecture series in which
policymakers had the opportunity to talk candidly
with leading researchers in the crime and justice
field. The lectures by these nationally prominent
scholars were followed by question-and-answer
sessions.

Speakers and their topics included:
o James Q. Wilson, University of California at Los
Angeles: "What, If Anything, Can the Federal
Government Do About Crime?"

o Peter Reuter, University of Maryland: "Can We
Make Prohibition Work Better? An Assessment of
American Drug Policy."

o Mark H. Moore, Harvard University: "The
Legitimation of Criminal Justice Policies and
Practices."

o Cathy Spatz Widom, State University of New York
at Albany: "Child Victims: In Search of
Opportunities for Breaking the Cycle of Violence."

o Norval Morris, University of Chicago Law School:
"Crime, the Media, and Our Political Discourse."

Videotapes of the sessions are being prepared. The
first two tapes--"What, If Anything, Can the
Federal Government Do About Crime?" by James Q.
Wilson and "Can We Make Prohibition Work Better?"
by Peter Reuter--are now available. Each tape costs
$29.50 in the United States and $33 in Canada. Call
the National Criminal Justice Reference Service
(NCJRS) at 800-851-3420 or send an e-mail to
askncjrs@ncjrs.org. Ask for NCJ 164375 (Wilson) or
NCJ 164376 (Reuter).

Oregon legislators team up with researchers. In
another effort to expand dialogue between
researchers and legislators, NIJ conducted a
sentencing policy seminar for the Oregon
legislature and other State-level officials. NIJ
organized a team of experts to present research
findings on sentencing and discuss how legislative
decisions affect public safety. NIJ worked in
collaboration with State Senator Neil Bryant,
chairman of the State Senate Judiciary Committee,
who organized a bipartisan audience of more than
100 legislators, executive branch staff, judges,
community-based advocates for victims' rights,
judges, and other criminal justice professionals.
The goals of the session were to contribute to the
legislative debate on justice reforms and
demonstrate the ways in which objective research
findings are relevant to State legislators
grappling with a packed legislative agenda.

The team of researchers who went to Oregon included
Joel Garner of the Joint Centers for Justice
Studies, Peter Greenwood of the RAND Corporation,
and Joan Petersilia of the University of California
at Irvine.

Postsession evaluations by participants have
encouraged NIJ to consider launching similar
efforts in other legislative venues.

Crime mapping takes new strides

Today, virtually anyone with a personal computer
and a modest software budget can analyze crime
patterns more effectively than through the dated
practice of manually inserting push pins on wall
maps. Indeed, Geographic Information Systems (GISs)
have advanced the criminal justice field, enabling
police to make better deployment decisions and
researchers to easily link criminal incidents to
demographic data and environmental characteristics
to test various crime theories. One of the negative
consequences of the rapid adoption of computerized
crime mapping, however, has been that in many cases
the user's conception of how to map and conduct
spatial analysis is superficial, rendering
crime-mapping efforts haphazard, unsophisticated,
and ineffective. This dilemma calls for an
authoritative resource well versed in the problems
associated with mapping criminal justice data to
guide mapping efforts.

To help answer this call, NIJ established the Crime
Mapping Research Center (CMRC) in 1996 using funds
available under the technology assistance
provisions of the 1996 Omnibus Appropriations Act
amending the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 (Crime Act). The CMRC's
goals include:

o Establishing a crime-mapping training center for
both researchers and practitioners.

o Creating partnerships among neighboring law
enforcement agencies to enable spatial analysis
across jurisdictional boundaries.

o Promoting mapping for criminal justice
applications in addition to policing.

o Developing user-friendly analytic software with
corporate and university partners.

o Collecting and archiving geocoded crime
statistics to make available to researchers.

o Establishing a fellowship program to build an
interdisciplinary knowledge base.

The Mapping Center--which is headquartered at NIJ
in Washington, D.C., and has a satellite office in
Denver--has taken several steps in the initial
stages of operation. In early 1997, staff convened
a strategic planning meeting of experts in
geographic analysis to identify how CMRC can best
meet the needs of the criminal justice community
and to aid in the planning of a sentencing
symposium scheduled for fall 1997. CMRC staff are
also conducting a survey of police departments to
gauge the extent to which they currently use
analytic mapping. Future plans include providing
technical assistance and training to law
enforcement and other criminal justice agencies,
disseminating crime-mapping efforts through the
creation of a Web site, and soliciting proposals
for evaluations of crime-mapping initiatives.

NIJ is planning a national crime-mapping conference
in Denver, Colorado, October 5-7, 1997. To find out
about this conference, to learn how your agency can
benefit from learning more about mapping
technology, or to be put on CMRC's mailing list,
write to: Crime Mapping Research Center, National
Institute of Justice, 633 Indiana Avenue N.W., Room
302, Washington, DC 20531. To sign up on
"Crimemap," NIJ's new listserv, e-mail to
listproc@aspensys.com and type "subscribe crimemap"
and your name.Solicitation for
Investigator-Initiated Research

Solicitation for Investigator-Initiated Reserach

NIJ continues to seek proposals for
investigator-initiated criminal justice research.
Investigators are invited to submit proposals to
explore any topic relevant to State and local
criminal justice policy and practice. Under this
solicitation, NIJ has generally awarded grants
ranging from $25,000 to $300,000 that last for 1 to
2 years.

Of particular interest are proposals to study new
means of improving the delivery of justice; explore
the links between criminal activity and other
social phenomena; test interventions for recurring
criminal justice problems; and develop, test, and
evaluate new and transferable techniques and
technologies for the criminal justice system. 

The deadlines for receipt of proposals under the
two funding cycles are June 17 and December 16,
1997. 

Call NCJRS at 800-851-3420 to receive a printed
copy of the Solicitation for Investigator-Initiated
Research (SL 000201). It is also available on the
NCJRS World Wide Web site at
http://www.ncjrs.org/fedgrant.htm#nij, and by mail.

The following articles, based on research funded by
NIJ, were recently received by NCJRS.

"Investigating Hate Crimes: Case Characteristics
and Law Enforcement Responses," Justice Quarterly,
Volume 13, Number 5, September 1996, by S.E.
Martin, grant number 90-IJ-CX- 0002, ACCN 163364.
This article examines characteristics of hate
crimes in New York City and Baltimore County,
Maryland, and the police response to them. Findings
reveal that hate crimes in both jurisdictions
differ from similar offenses not involving bias and
from the public image of such offenses.

"Predicting Pretrial Misconduct With Drug Tests of
Arrestees: Evidence from Eight Settings," Journal
of Quantitative Criminology, Volume 12, Number 3,
September 1996, by W. Rhodes, R. Hyatt, and P.
Scheiman, grant number OJP-89-C-009, ACCN 163379.
This article questions whether testing arrestees
for drugs always improves predictions of pretrial
misconduct. Although the authors acknowledge that
the findings do not settle the debate about the
predictive value of pretrial drug testing, they
advise that considering how drug test results might
be improved could be a productive strategy.

"Predicting Criminal Recidivism: A Comparison of
Neural Network Models With Statistical Methods,"
Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume 24, Number 3,
1996, by J. Caulkins, J. Cohen, W. Gorr, and J.
Wei, grant number 86-IJ-CX-0039, ACCN 162895. This
article, which applies neural network and
conventional statistical models to predicting
criminal recidivism, does not find any gains in
accuracy by using these models.

"Rural Crime and Justice: Implications for Theory
and Research," Crime and Delinquency, Volume 42,
Number 3, July 1996, by R.A. Weisheit and L.E.
Wells, grant number 92-IJ-CX-K012, ACCN 162082.
This article assesses current theories and research
methods regarding their ability to account for
crime and justice in rural areas.

"Drug Policy and Community Context: The Case of
Small Cities and Towns," Crime and Delinquency,
Volume 42, Number 2, April 1996, by M.J. McDermott
and J. Garofalo, grant number 91-DD-CX-K049, ACCN
162022. This article examines drug problems and
anti-drug initiatives in small cities and towns
across the United States. Results show that
economic issues and school matters are the main
concerns in these communities; residents' anxieties
about drugs focus mainly on alcohol and marijuana.

"Adjusting to Criminal Victimization: The
Correlates of Postcrime Distress," Violence and
Victims, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 1996, by R.C.
Davis, B. Taylor, and A.J. Lurigio, grant number
83-IJ-CX-0044, ACCN 163370. This study examines the
correlates of immediate and short-term
psychological distress among victims of burglary,
robbery, and nonsexual assault. The findings
suggest the therapeutic usefulness of encouraging
victims to reinterpret the event in ways that will
restore their previctimization view of the world.

"Preventing Retail Theft: An Application of
Environmental Criminology," Security Journal,
Volume 7, Number 1, April 1996, by M. Felson, grant
number 91-IJ-CX-K021, ACCN 162436. This article
discusses how routine activity theory and
environmental criminology apply to retail sales
prevention in countering shoplifting, employee
floor theft, and storage room theft. Findings show
that control of retail theft requires that
retailers take into account space,
microenvironments within stores, and how the store
relates to its larger physical environment.

"Prosecutorial Discretion to Defer Criminalization:
The Effects of Defendants' Ascribed and Achieved
Status Characteristics," Journal of Quantitative
Criminology, Volume 12, Number 1, March 1996, by
C.A. Albonetti and J.R. Hepburn, grant number 89-
DD-CX-0055, ACCN 163191. This research looks at
prosecutorial discretion in diverting felony drug
defendants from criminal prosecution into a
treatment program using causal attribution theory
and etiology of bias theory.

"Comparative Study of Male and Female Prison
Misconduct Careers," Prison Journal, Volume 76,
Number 1, March 1996, by A. Craddock, grant number
86-IJ-CX-0015, ACCN 162102. This article examines
patterns of male and female inmate misconduct (rule
violations) to determine whether an inmate's
misconduct continues throughout imprisonment (i.e.,
an inmate's misconduct career). The stages of such
a career are delineated. Approximately half the
males were found to have had rule violations, while
only about one-third of the women violated prison
rules.

"Determinate Sentencing and Abolishing Parole: The
Long-Term Impacts on Prisons and Crime,"
Criminology, Volume 34, Number 1, February 1996, by
T.B. Marvell and C.E. Moody, grant number 88-IJ-CX-
0045, ACCN 163189. This paper studies the impact of
determinate sentencing laws (DSLs) on prison
commitments, prison populations, and Uniform Crime
Reports crime rates. There is little or no evidence
that DSLs affect crime rates. The authors conclude
that DSLs are not likely to worsen prison
overcrowding unless they are accompanied by "get
tough" policies, and lawmakers can use DSLs to
limit prison population growth.

Linking business and crime prevention

In the past, criminal justice research related to
crime and business has generally focused on
corporate crime. Few studies exist on the many
other ways in which business and industry relate to
crime, especially the wide range of crime
prevention practices businesses pursue, the vital
role of small businesses in maintaining the
stability of marginal neighborhoods, ways that new
business products and services can create or reduce
crime opportunities, and the nature of crimes
suffered by businesses, their customers, and their
employees.

A new book, Business and Crime Prevention, edited
by Marcus Felson and Ronald V. Clarke, discusses
these underexplored areas of criminal justice
research. The book arose out of discussions between
NIJ Director Jeremy Travis and then NIJ Visiting
Fellow Clarke that led to an NIJ-sponsored
conference on business and crime prevention. The
conference, held at Rutgers University in May 1996,
showcased the work of a small group of pioneers in
this field working in the United States and abroad.

Business and Crime Prevention presents an
introductory discussion of the need to further
explore the relationships between business and
crime prevention and the potential benefits of such
research. The volume includes a compendium of
papers presented at the conference, including
essays on measuring the impact of crime on
business, the impact of crime on specific
industries (for example, the effects of crime on
the insurance industry), a brief history of the
security industry, and real estate development and
crime prevention needs.

Copies of Business and Crime Prevention are
available for $25 (includes shipping and handling
for prepaid orders) from Willow Tree Press, Inc.,
800-914-3379, P.O. Box 249, Monsey, NY 10952.

New Titles

The following titles are final reports of
NIJ-sponsored research recently received by NCJRS.

"Advanced Electronic Monitoring for Tracking
Persons on Probation or Parole: Final Report," by
J.H. Murphy, G.O. Hitchins, T.A. Oblak, H.C.
Cooper, and A.A. Anderson, NCJ 162420, 1996, grant
number 94-IJ-CX-K010. This report presents an
assessment of the technological feasibility of
electronic monitoring. The study, which followed
offenders in Pittsburgh, shows that electronic
monitoring in locations other than the offender's
home is feasible given the new technologies being
advanced.

"Geographic and Temporal Sequencing of Serial Rape:
Final Report," by J. Warren, R. Reboussin, and R.R.
Hazelwood, NCJ 162419, 1995, grant number 91-IJ-
CX-R027. This report focuses on the behavior
exhibited by serial rapists and relates this
behavior to patterns in the temporal sequencing and
geographic distribution of sex offenses. The
results show that serial rapists tended to rape
strangers, that victims were usually raped in their
own homes, and that victims were most often taken
by surprise.

"Identification and Measurement of Carbon Monoxide
and Inorganic Cyanide in Post Mortem Biological
Material," by B.K. Logan, NCJ 159312, 1996, grant
number 91-IJ-CX-0022. This final report describes
two automated methods for (1) detection and
quantitation of hydrogen cyanide gas liberated from
inorganic cyanide in biological material, and (2)
detection and quantitation of carbon monoxide gas
derived from fire gases or automobile exhaust.

"Mental Health Services in American Jails: A Survey
of Innovative Practices," by S.M. Morris, H.J.
Steadman, and B.M. Veysey, NCJ 162365, 1996, grant
number 92-IJ-CX-K020. This final report presents
the results of a study designed to elicit
information about policies and practices for
managing detainees with mental illnesses in five
sizes of jails. Findings show that screening,
evaluation, and suicide prevention have been
emphasized in U.S. jail mental health services.

"Pepper Spray Disperser Final Report," by R. Kelly,
NCJ 162418, 1996, grant number 93-IJ-CX-K020. This
final report examines a research and development
project initiated in 1994 involving dispersal of
oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray. This project
resulted in an improved less-than-lethal projectile
that can be carried and operated by an individual.
The projectile can be used in hostage, barricade,
and tactical assault situations.

"Priority Prosecution of the Serious Habitual
Juvenile Offender: Roadblocks to Early Warning,
Early Intervention, and Maximum Effectiveness--The
Philadelphia Study," by N.A. Weiner, NCJ 163380,
1996, grant number 90-IJ-CX-0065. "Executive
Summary of Findings," NCJ 163792. This report
examines the nature and effectiveness of the
selection criteria used by the Philadelphia
Juvenile Court Habitual Offender Unit (HOU) to
determine which youths to designate as serious
habitual offenders and involve in specialized
prosecution. The report concludes that HOU
selection criteria might be improved with the use
of additional official records and the testing of
additional criteria through a field experiment.

"Role of Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Domestic
Violence and Its Treatment: Dade County's Domestic
Violence Court Experiment: Final Report," by J.S.
Goldkamp, NCJ 163410, 1996, grant number 93-IJ-CX-
0028. This research addresses the role of substance
abuse in domestic violence, the impact of the
domestic violence court approach, and the effect of
an innovative treatment approach that integrates
batterer and substance abuse treatment. Findings
show that the combined treatment produces some
positive, practical results in reaching domestic
violence offenders and retaining them in treatment.
The study also suggests that the hybrid program may
prevent reoffending among batterers.

"Understanding the Use of Force By and Against the
Police," by J. Garner, J. Buchanan, J. Fagan, T.
Schade, and J. Hepburn, NCJ 159602, 1996, grant
number 92-IJ-CX-K028. This final report, based on
the Phoenix Use of Force project, analyzes
incidents in which force was used by and against
Phoenix police officers, focusing on the amount of
force used and the characteristics of arrest
situations, suspects, and officers associated with
the use of force.

"Use of Closed-Circuit Television and Videotaped
Testimony in Child Sexual Abuse Trials: An
Evaluation of BJA's (Bureau of Justice
Assistance's) Funding Program: Final Report," S.G.
Elstein, D. Rebovich, B.E. Smith, K. Free, H.
Davidson, M. Ells, and C. Sempel, NCJ 162930, 1996,
grant number 94-IJ-CX-0054. This report presents
the findings of an evaluation of a BJA program that
provides assistance to States to purchase
closed-circuit television, videotape equipment, and
training in the use of that equipment for child
sexual abuse trials. States, in compliance with BJA
requirements, conducted needs assessments to
determine how to distribute the technologies. Many
States selected an informal assessment process, and
most elected to distribute funds on a countywide,
not statewide, basis.

"User Accountability and Long-Term Recidivism: A
Final Report," by J.R. Hepburn, NCJ 163406, 1996,
grant number 94-IJ-CX-0028. This final report
analyzes relationships among offender
characteristics, offense characteristics, treatment
exposure, and length of time to rearrest. Study
results reveal significant differences in the
recidivism of four offender groups. The rate and
level of reoffending were greater for those who
failed to enter the program despite eligibility
than for those who entered the program and failed
to complete it. Offenders who completed treatment
performed substantially better than those who did
not.

Other final reports received include:

"Juvenile Justice Programs in Prosecutor Offices:
An Overview of Four Sites Final Report," by A.
Taylor, NCJ 163412, 1995, grant number 94-IJ-CX-
0020.

"Management of Special Populations: Mentally
Disabled Offenders: Final Report," by H.J.
Steadman, NCJ 163143, grant number 92-IJ-CX-K020.

New & Noteworthy

Every year, the National Institute of Justice
offers fellowships to scholars, practitioners, and
researchers to spend a year working onsite with NIJ
staff in Washington, D.C., and pursue independent
research on topics that reflect NIJ priorities. The
work is conducted with the support of other
researchers and policymakers in the Nation's
capital.

NIJ's 1997 Visiting Fellows:

o William Burnham, a retired United Nations (U.N.)
official, resided in Austria before coming to
Washington, D.C., for his fellowship. During his
stay, he will evaluate and analyze data collected
by the U.N. since 1976 on global crime trends and
criminal justice systems. His overall objective is
to produce an informed assessment of whether the
data collection exercise is worth governments'
investment of effort. Specifically, he will
evaluate how data might improve the management of
national or local criminal justice systems and the
exchange of information among agencies at these
levels.

o James Collins is a Senior Program Director and
Research Sociologist at the Research Triangle
Institute in North Carolina. Basing his research on
evidence that alcohol and drugs are associated with
domestic violence, Collins will examine the extent
to which domestic violence and substance abuse
services are linked by programs, identify models
currently linking services, and design a
demonstration/evaluation to assess the
effectiveness of integrated programs. The main
components of the project include national surveys
of domestic violence and substance abuse treatment
programs and case studies of programs that are
currently linking services.

o Ralph Taylor is a professor at Temple University.
His study, "An Orienting Overview: Broken Windows
and Decline and Disorder," will examine the extent
to which perceived incivilities reflect differences
between communities and among people in the same
communities. His findings will contribute to better
understanding of the effectiveness of community
policing initiatives and the variation in such
effectiveness across problems or outcomes.

This edition of the National Institute of Justice
Journal highlights the work of current NIJ Visiting
Fellow William McDonald (see page 2).

Visiting Fellowship Solicitation. Each year, the
National Institute of Justice issues a solicitation
encouraging researchers and practitioners to apply
for the Visiting Fellowship Program. Visiting
Fellows study a topic of mutual interest to the
Fellow and the Institute while in residence at NIJ
for 6 to 15 months. The Visiting Fellowship Program
is highly competitive; only two or three Fellows
are selected each year. NIJ is particularly
interested in applications from candidates who are
working in the following areas: international
issues, policing, drugs and crime, violence, and
sentencing and corrections. Applicants must prepare
a standard research proposal that is evaluated on
the basis of technical merit and likely practical
impact. Look for an announcement soon at the NCJRS
Web site--www.ncjrs.org--and in a forthcoming issue
of the National Institute of Justice Journal.

NIJ Awards

Awards support community policing technology

Law enforcement agencies around the Nation are
actively engaged in exploring and implementing new
techniques and methods to manage limited police
resources more skillfully, reduce crime rates, and
improve relations with the communities they serve.
   The 1994 Crime Act authorized the Department of
Justice to support the development of new
technologies to assist State and local governments
in reorienting the emphasis of their activities to
proactive crime prevention. As a result, the Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and
the National Institute of Justice collaborated in
issuing a solicitation for proposals to create and
apply innovative technology to community policing
efforts.

The solicitation, issued in 1996, requested
proposals from teams or partnerships of public- and
private-sector agencies, such as those between a
police department and a company with technological
expertise or a consortium that includes members of
a police department and private companies or
academic institutions.

NIJ received 117 proposals in response to the
solicitation. Peer panels and office staff reviewed
the proposals and recommended 15 for awards with
the available funding.

The 15 projects are intended to (1) improve
police-citizen cooperation and communication, (2)
increase police and citizen ability to solve
community problems innovatively, and (3) facilitate
the restructuring of agencies to allow the fullest
use of departmental and community resources. For
example, the Nashville, Tennessee, Police
Department is developing software for a palmtop
computer to enable officers assigned to walking,
bicycle, or motorcycle patrols to access arrest
information, check data bases or mug shots using
wireless technology, and pinpoint an officer's
location (for safety purposes). Several grants are
being used to upgrade or enhance computer software
and hardware so that officers will have more time
to spend solving problems in their communities.

------------------------------

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
633 Indiana Avenue N.W.
Washington, DC 20531

Janet Reno
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice

John C. Dwyer
Acting Associate Attorney General

Laurie Robinson
Assistant Attorney General

Jeremy Travis
Director, National Institute of Justice
 
Justice Information Center World Wide Web Site
http://www.ncjrs.org