National Institute of Justice Journal Issue Number 229.


Series: NIJ
Published: August 1995
59 pages
130,585 bytes


Contents:

Feature:
 Violence by Young People: Why the Deadly Nexus?

Research in Action:
 Controlling Crime Before It Happens: Risk-Focused
Prevention
 Partnerships Against Violence: Reducing Youth
Violence Through Information Sharing
 The Anatomy of Fraud: Report of a Nationwide
Survey
 Technology Transfer from Defense: Concealed Weapon
Detection
 The CALEA Standards: What is the Fit with
Community Policing?
----------------------------------------------
This issue of the National Institute of Justice
Journal highlights an issue of grave concern--youth
violence. In the face of heartening news about
crime trends overall, violent offending by young
people is on the rise. An indepth analysis by noted
criminologist Alfred Blumstein links the rise of
gun-related homicide by juveniles to the growth of
drug markets and the diffusion of guns into the
community. On a hopeful note, we include two
discussions of responses to youth violence keyed to
prevention. One applies the public health model to
propose identifying factors that place children at
risk for violence and cultivating protective
factors that buffer them. We know that nationwide
some communities are creating and others are
looking for similar, promising approaches. NIJ has
developed an information resource that makes it
easy to find out what these are and where they are.
We present the details of this resource, PAVNET, in
this issue. 

Given the immediacy of the problem of gun violence,
preventive intervention needs to be accompanied by
stronger enforcement. With this in mind we discuss
how NIJ is partnering with the military to adapt
technologies for detecting concealed weapons. We
also include an analysis of the national
accreditation standards for policing that asks
whether they accommodate community policing. This
question is important for many reasons, one of them
the opportunities that community policing offers
for crime prevention. 

Much less visible than violent crime but more
extensive in number of victims is fraud, which
takes many forms, among them auto repair scams and
fraudulent use of credit cards. These crimes do not
have the devastating effects of violence but, as
the analysis presented here makes clear, they are
much more common than generally assumed and can
mean heavy financial losses. Conducted by NIJ staff
researchers, the study challenges conventional
wisdom about who is most prone to be victimized and
what types of fraud are most commonly attempted. 

Jeremy Travis
Director
National Institute of Justice                     
---------------------------------------------
Violence by Young People: Why the Deadly Nexus?

by Alfred Blumstein

Despite evidence that aggregate rates of crime have
been leveling off or even declining in the past two
decades,1 there continues to be widespread concern
about the issue on the part of policymakers and the
public. Indeed, among all issues, crime may be the
one perceived by Americans as most pressing.2 When
aggregate crime data are broken down by certain
demographic and other variables, however, the
otherwise flat trend shows major distinctions,
indicating that the concern is understandable.
Although gender and race account for much of the
differences in crime rates, age is the variable
whose effect has been changing significantly in
recent years. And while many of the national trends
have remained strikingly flat, there has been some
dramatic change in violent crime committed by young
people. 

The rise in juvenile crime

Data gathered from a variety of sources indicate
that after a period of relative stability in the
rates of juvenile crime, there was a major turning
point in about 1985. Then, within the next seven
years, the rate of homicides committed by young
people, the number of homicides they committed with
guns, and the arrest rate of nonwhite juveniles for
drug offenses all doubled. The sudden upward surge
in all three of these indicators, beginning with
the increased drug trafficking of the mid-1980's,
is the topic of this article. 

Particularly relevant to future crime, and to
consideration of prevention and intervention
strategies, is the size of the current teenage
population. The age cohort responsible for much of
the recent youth violence is the smallest it has
been in recent years. By contrast, the cohort of
children ages 5 to 15, who will be moving into the
crime-prone ages in the near future, is larger.
This suggests that if current age-specific rates do
not decline, planning needs to begin now to address
the increase in crime likely to occur as this group
grows older. 

The age factor

That young people commit crime at a high rate is no
revelation. Age is so fundamental to crime rates
that its relationship to offending is usually
designated as the "age-crime curve." This curve,
which for individuals typically peaks in the late
teen years, highlights the tendency for crime to be
committed during an offender's younger years and to
decline as age advances. 

For example, figures on rates of robbery and
burglary, broken down by age, indicate that for
both these crimes, the peak age of offending has
been about 17, after which there is a rapid decline
as the offender gets older. For burglary, the rate
falls to half the peak by age 21, whereas the
falloff for robbery is somewhat slower, reaching
half the peak rate by age 25. The age-specific
patterns are about the same for the most recent
year data are available (1992) as they were in
1985. 

Young people and murder. The age-specific patterns
for murder present quite a different pattern; the
trends for this crime have changed appreciably in
the past decade. First, the peak is much flatter.
For a fairly long period--1965 to 1985--the age at
which the murder rate was highest remained fairly
stable, with a flat peak covering ages 18 to 24. In
other words, during this 20-year period, people in
this age group were the most likely to commit
murder, and it was in the age group of the mid-30's
that the rate dropped to half the peak. Then, in
1985, an abrupt change began to take place, with
the murder rate moving to a sharp peak at age 18
instead of the more traditional flat peak covering
the entire 18-to-24 age group. 

The change over time in the age-specific murder
rate is striking, especially for the peak ages 18
to 24. Following an initial increase from 1965 to
1970, the rate remained stable (and about the same
for all ages in this group) for about 15 years--
from 1970 through 1985. Among people at the older
end of this age spectrum--the 24-year-olds--there
has been no strong trend since 1970. But beginning
shortly around 1985, murder by people under 24
increased, with the rate of increase inversely
related to age. For people age 18, the increase was
dramatic--it more than doubled. 

For people at all ages under age 18, the increase
was equally dramatic--it too more than doubled. For
16-year-olds, for example, whose murder rate before
1985 was consistently about half that of the
18-to-24 peak rate, the increase between 1985 and
1992 was 138 percent. By contrast, for ages older
than 24, there has been no growth, and even a
decline for ages 30 and above. 

"Excess" murders committed by young people. The
increase in murder by very young people after 1985
has not at all been matched by increases among the
older groups (ages 24 and over). Among them murder
rates have even declined. Thus, much of the general
increase in the aggregate homicide rate (accounting
for all ages) in the late 1980's is attributable to
the spurt in the murder rate by young people that
began in 1985. 

One can calculate the "excess" murders attributable
to the rise in murder by young people over and
above the average rate that prevailed for each of
the young ages in the period 1970-85--in other
words, the number of murders that would not have
been committed had the youth murder rate remained
at its earlier, flat average. For the eight ages,
15 through 22, in the 7 years of 1986 through 1992,
the number of "excess" murders is estimated to be
18,600. The number is a significant component of
the overall number for that period; it accounts for
12.1 percent of the annual average of about 22,000
murders in those years. 

Race

There are important race differences in involvement
in murder, both in the rate itself and the change
since 1985. Among African-American males ages 14 to
17, murder rates have been about four to five times
higher than among white males of the same age
group, although for both groups the rates had
remained fairly stable from the mid-1970's until
the mid-1980's. Then, beginning about 1985, the
rates rose for both groups, though the growth rate
was much faster among blacks. For white males in
this age group, their annual rate for murder was
8.1 per 100,000 in the period 1976 to 1987, after
which it almost doubled in the next four years
(from 7.6 in 1987 to 13.6 in 1991). In those four
years, the arrest rate for murder by black males in
this age group rose even faster, more than doubling
(from 50.4 to 111.8 per 100,000). 

Factors generating fear 

Strangers. Persistent fear of crime is not caused
by reviewing the aggregate rate of homicide and
noting the absence of a trend. Rather, distinctive
incidents or changing patterns of crime stimulate
the anxiety levels. In particular, because young
people are generally perceived to be more reckless
than their elders, the growth in youth homicide
conveys a sense that their killing is random. This
is confirmed by the greater extent to which
homicide by the young is committed against
strangers. When victims seem to be selected at
random, vulnerability is heightened: anyone can be
a target. For example, the FBI's Supplementary
Homicide Report for 1991 noted that 28 percent of
the homicides committed by people under 25 were
against strangers, whereas only 18 percent of those
committed by offenders age 25 and above were
against strangers. 

Guns. Also intensifying the fear of crime is the
increasing involvement of guns in homicides
committed by young people. This factor generates
fear because of the recognition that young people
are less likely to exercise the restraint necessary
to handle dangerous weapons, particularly
rapid-fire assault weapons. Data on the use of
weapons in homicide reflect the same patterns
described above: after a period of stability came
an abrupt increase in the mid-1980's. Thus, from
1976 to 1985, a very steady average (59 percent) of
homicides committed by juveniles involved a gun.
Beginning in 1985, there was steady growth in the
use of guns by juveniles in committing murder,
leading to a doubling in the number of juvenile
murders committed with guns, with no shift in the
number of non-gun homicides. 

Juvenile violence and the drug-crime connection

The public also has a vague sense of a link between
the growth in juvenile violence and drugs. In part,
this derives from recognition that, especially in
the past decade, a major factor affecting many
aspects of criminal behavior has been the illicit
drug industry and its consequences. Beyond the
offenses of drug sale or drug possession, the
drug-crime link has been described as taking
several forms:

o Pharmacologically/psychologically driven crime,
induced by the properties of the drug. (The most
widely recognized connection is between alcohol and
the violence it induces.)

o Economic/compulsive crimes, committed by drug
users to support their habit.

o Systemic crime, which includes the crimes
committed as part of the regular means of doing
business in the illicit drug industry. (An example
is the violence used to resolve disputes between
competing traffickers.)3

There is a fourth, still broader connection of
drugs to crime: the community disorganization
effect of the illicit drug industry and its
operations in the larger community. This effect
includes the manner by which the norms and
behaviors of the industry, which can become a
significant activity in some communities, influence
the behavior of people who themselves have no
direct connection to drug trafficking. The effect
could, for example, include the influence on others
of the widespread possession of guns by drug
sellers. When guns are so prevalent, people in the
community might arm themselves, perhaps for
self-defense, perhaps to settle disputes that have
nothing to do with drugs, or perhaps just to gain
respect. In other words, once guns are used within
the illicit drug market, they become more prevalent
in the larger community, and used for purposes
unrelated to buying and selling drugs. Hence, they
add to community disorganization well beyond what
happens as a direct result of the drug industry. 

Juveniles and illicit drug marketing. Drug arrest
rates, especially for nonwhites, began to move
upward in the early 1980's, and then accelerated
appreciably after 1985 as the distribution of crack
cocaine became widespread, particularly in
inner-city areas. Among nonwhite juveniles, drug
arrest rates were lower than those of whites in the
1970's, and were also fairly constant, until they
began a very rapid acceleration until about 1985,
doubling by 1989. This pattern contrasted with that
of the 1960's and 1970's, when the rate at which
young whites were arrested for drug-related
offenses followed the pattern of whites, but stayed
somewhat low. The arrest rate of whites then peaked
in 1974 and then began a steady decline. 

The acceleration in drug arrests of young nonwhites
(primarily blacks) reflected a major recruitment of
sellers to market crack, which required many more
street transactions. The racial differences in
arrest rates indicate the extent to which drug
enforcement has focused on blacks more than on
whites. The black-white difference is magnified
also because black drug sellers tend much more
often to operate in the street, where they are
vulnerable to arrest, whereas white sellers are
much more likely to operate indoors. The
amenability of inner-city nonwhite juveniles to
recruitment into the illicit drug industry was
undoubtedly enhanced by their pessimism--or perhaps
even hopelessness--as they weighed the diminishing
opportunities available to them in the legitimate
economy. 

A proposed hypothesis 

This striking array of changes in juvenile crime
since 1985--a doubling of the homicide rate, a
doubling of the number of homicides committed with
guns, and a doubling of the arrest rate of
nonwhites for drug offenses, all after a period of
relative stability in these rates--cries out for an
explanation that will link them all together. The
explanation that seems most reasonable can be
traced to the rapid growth of the crack markets in
the mid-1980's. To service that growth, juveniles
were recruited, they were armed with the guns that
are standard tools of the drug trade, and these
guns then were diffused into the larger community
of juveniles. 

Recruitment. The process starts with the illicit
drug industry, which recruits juveniles partly
because they work more cheaply than adults, partly
because the sanctions they face are less severe
than those imposed by the adult criminal justice
system, and partly because they tend to be daring
and willing to take risks that more mature adults
would eschew. The plight of many urban black
juveniles, many of whom see no other comparably
satisfactory route to economic sustenance, makes
them particularly vulnerable to the lure of the
profits of the drug industry. The growth in the
drug arrest rate of nonwhite juveniles is evidence
of this recruitment. 

Guns as a means of self-protection. These juvenile
recruits, like all participants in the illicit drug
industry, are very likely to carry guns for
self-protection, largely because in that industry
guns are a major instrument for dispute resolution
as well as self-defense. People involved in the
drug industry are likely to be carrying a
considerable amount of valuable product--money or 
drugs--and are not likely to be able to call on the
police if they are robbed.

The diffusion of guns. Since a considerable number
of juveniles can be involved in the drug industry
in communities where the drug market is active, and
since juveniles are tightly "networked," at school
or on the street, other juveniles are also likely
to arm themselves. Again, the reason is a mixture
of self-protection and status-seeking. Thus begins
an escalation: as more guns appear in the
community, the incentive for any single individual
to arm himself increases, and so a 

local "arms race" develops. 

The violent outcome. The recklessness and bravado
that often characterize teenage behavior, combined
with their lack of skill in settling disputes other
than through physical force, transform what once
would have been fist fights with outcomes no more
serious than a bloody nose into shootings with much
more lethal consequences because guns are present.
This sequence can be exacerbated by the
socialization problems associated with extreme
poverty, the high proportion of single-parent
households, educational failures, and the pervasive
sense of hopelessness about one's economic
situation.
 
It does appear, however, that by the time these
young people move beyond their early twenties, they
develop a measure of prudence. It may be that the
diffusion process is far slower because adults are
less tightly networked and less prone to emulate
each other's behavior. Even within the drug
industry, they appear to act more cautiously when
they are armed, and to otherwise display greater
restraint. However, there is some concern that the
restraint that normally comes with age may not
materialize in this particular age group. It is
possible that a cohort effect may be occurring,
with the possibility that the 18-year-olds
currently responsible for the higher homicide rates
may continue their recklessness as they get older.
This possibility needs to be monitored and
explored. 

Evidence of the diffusion. The possibility that
guns are diffused from drug markets to the larger
community through juvenile recruits is further
confirmed by the pattern of white and nonwhite
arrests for murder. Since 1980, the murder arrest
rates for adults, both white and nonwhite, have
followed the same downward trend, and have shown no
growth since 1985. By contrast, among juveniles the
murder arrest rates for whites and nonwhites have
grown markedly between 1985 and 1992. The increase
among nonwhite juveniles was 123 percent (from 7.1
to 15.8 per 100,000). Among white juveniles the
murder arrest rate also increased markedly,
although by a lesser amount--80 percent (from 1.5
to 2.7 per 100,000). 

What is notable in these figures is that the murder
rate rose among white as well as nonwhite juveniles
since 1985, at a time when the drug arrest rate for
nonwhites alone began to climb. Thus, the apparent
absence of significant involvement of white
juveniles in the drug markets during this time has
not insulated them from the growth of their
involvement in homicide, possibly through the
suggested process of the diffusion of guns from
drug sellers into the larger community. 

When the arrest trends of young nonwhites for
homicide and drug offenses are compared, it is
evident that both rates climbed together from 1985
through 1989, suggesting the relationship between
the two. The drug arrest rate declined somewhat
after 1989. There was a flattening out, but no
corresponding decline in the murder arrest rate. In
other words, the continued high rate of murder
arrests seems to demonstrate that once guns are
diffused into the community, they are much more
difficult to purge. 

Reversing the trends 

If the explanation outlined above is at all valid,
it implies the need for solutions, some immediate
and others longer range. One immediate approach
would involve aggressive steps to confiscate guns
from juveniles carrying them on the street. Laws
permitting confiscation of guns from juveniles are
almost universal, but they require more active and
skillful enforcement. The need is particularly
urgent in communities where homicide rates have
risen dramatically, probably coincident with the
appearance of drug markets. James Q. Wilson has
made some concrete proposals for pursuing such
efforts, including better devices for detecting
guns from a distance.4 

Also, in contrast to the intense pursuit of drug
markets by law enforcement over the past 15 years,
very little attention has been paid to the illegal
gun markets through which guns are distributed to
juveniles. This issue clearly needs much greater
attention. More complex in its implications for
policy are the links among the magnitude of the
criminal drug market, the use of guns in drug
markets, and the juvenile homicide rate--the
subject of this discussion. The presence of guns in
drug markets results from the fact that these
markets are criminalized. This does not, of course,
warrant an immediate call for legalization of
drugs. Any policy in the broad spectrum between
full prohibition and full legalization involves
carefully weighing the costs of criminalization (of
which homicide is but one) against the probable
consequences of greater use of dangerous drugs. The
complexity of this issue prohibits its discussion
here. However, if the diffusion hypothesis is
correct, the impact on juvenile homicide
re-presents one component of the cost of the
current policy. 

To the extent that efforts to diminish the size of
the illegal drug market could be pursued (through
greater investment in treatment, more effective
prevention, or other health care initiatives
responsive to addicts' needs), then although
illegal markets would continue, the demand for
drugs and the volume of drugs sold in the markets
would diminish. A cost-benefit comparison of
current policies and possible alternatives is
needed but has yet to be made. Perhaps concern
about the recent rise in the juvenile homicide rate
might lend urgency to the issue.5    

Notes

1. Criminal Victimization in the United States:
1973-92 Trends--A National Crime Victimization
Survey Report, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, July 1994:1.
In the period 1973-92, the highest rate of violent
victimization was 35.3 per 1,000 persons, reported
in 1981. That number fell until 1986, then started
to climb, reaching 32.1 in 1992 (pp. 1, 9).
National Crime Victim Survey data do reveal a 5.6
percent increase between 1992 and 1993 in
victimization for violent crime, principally
because of a rise in attempted (as opposed to
completed) assaults. "Crime Rate Essentially
Unchanged Last Year," press release, U. S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, October 30, 1994. Homicide rates show a
flat trend similar to that for violent
victimization (homicide figures are not included in
the victimization survey). The homicide rate per
100,000 people was 9.5 in 1993, but the historical
high occurred in 1980, when the rate was 10.2.
Crime in the United States, 1993: Uniform Crime
Reports, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, December
4, 1994:13, 283.

2. A New York Times/CBS nationwide poll reported
early in 1994 indicated crime or violence as the
leading issue (cited by 19 percent of respondents),
followed by health care--the subject of
considerable public discussion at the time--with 15
percent. See Richard L. Berke, "Crime Joins
Economic Issues as Leading Worry, Poll Says," New
York Times, January 23, 1994.

3. This taxonomy of the drug-crime connection was
developed by Paul Goldstein in "The Drug/Violence
Nexus: A Tripartite Conceptual Framework," Journal
of Drug Issues 15 (1985):493-506. 

4. James Q. Wilson, "Just Take the Guns Away," New
York Times, March 20, 1994. NIJ is now sponsoring
research to aid in detecting concealed weapons. 

5. In my presidential address to the American
Society of Criminology in November 1992, I
suggested proposing establishment of a Presidential
Commission to examine the costs and benefits of our
current zero-tolerance policy and to contrast that
with various possible alternatives. Such an
assessment would require major research support
from the National Academy of Sciences. (See Alfred
Blumstein, "Making Rationality Relevant,"
Criminology 30:1-16.)

Alfred Blumstein, Ph.D., is J. Erik Jonsson
University Professor of Urban Systems and
Operations Research at Carnegie Mellon University's
H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and
Management. 

The research reported in this article is being
extended with the aid of an NIJ grant on juvenile
violence and its relationship to drug markets.
Recently, Dr. Blumstein led a seminar about this
research at NIJ; a 60-minute videotape of his
presentation and responses to audience questions is
available for $19.00 ($24.00 outside the United
States) from the National Criminal Justice
Reference Service, PO Box 6000, Rockville, MD
20849-6000; telephone 800-851-3420 or e-mail
askncjrs@aspensys.com. Ask for NCJ 152235.

Controlling Crime Before It Happens: Risk-Focused
Prevention

by J. David Hawkins 

Traditionally, the juvenile justice system has
employed sanctions, treatment, and rehabilitation
to change problem behaviors after they have
occurred. Advocates of a prevention-based approach
to crime control invite the scorn of critics who
believe prevention amounts to little more than
"feel-good" activities. Yet the practitioner--the
probation officer confronted daily with young
people in trouble--is often aware of the need for
effective prevention. As a probation officer in the
early 1970's working with delinquent teenagers, I
found myself asking, "Couldn't we have prevented
these youngsters from getting to this point?
Couldn't we have interceded before they were
criminally referred to the courts?" 

Once they have experienced the reinforcing
properties of drugs and are convinced of crime's
profitability, young people are difficult to turn
around. Once invested in the culture of crime, they
reject the virtues attributed to school and family,
for reasons that are all too clear. For them,
school is not a place of attachment and learning,
but of alienation and failure; family is not a
source of love and support, but of unremitting
conflict. 

Dealing with these youths as a probation officer, I
saw my job as something akin to operating an
expensive ambulance service at the bottom of a
cliff. The probation staff were the emergency team
patching up those who fell over the edge. Many of
us who have worked in juvenile corrections have
come to realize that to keep young people from
falling in the first place, a barrier is needed at
the top of the cliff. In short, we believe that
prevention is more effective and less costly than
treatment after the fact. David Mitchell, chief
judge of the juvenile court for Baltimore County,
once observed, "It is of no value for the court to
work miracles in rehabilitation if there are no
opportunities for the child in the community. Until
we deal with the environment in which they live,
whatever we do in the courts is irrelevant."

Effective prevention based on the public health
model 

In prevention, where action precedes the commission
of crime, it is wise to heed the admonition that
guides physicians: "Above all, do no harm." Hard
work and good intentions, by themselves, are not
enough to ensure that a program to prevent violence
or substance abuse will succeed, let alone that it
will not make things worse. 

Early prevention efforts in the "War on Drugs"
serve to illustrate this point. Well-meaning people
were concerned about substance abuse and decided to
do something about it by introducing prevention
programs in the schools. They collected
information, pictures, and even samples of illicit
drugs, took these materials to the schools, and
showed them to students; they talked about the
behavioral and health effects of drugs and warned
of the risks associated with their use. Contrary to
intention and expectation, these drug information
programs failed to reduce or eliminate drug use
and, in some instances, actually led to its
increase.1 The real lesson learned in the schools
was that information, which is neutral, can be
employed to the wrong end, producing more harm than
good. These early prevention workers had not
envisioned drug information in the context of a
comprehensive prevention strategy. 

Increasingly, the preventive approach used in
public health is being recognized as appropriate
for use as part of a criminal justice strategy.2 It
is instructive to review an example of how the
model has been applied to disease control. Seeking
to prevent cardiovascular disease, researchers in
the field of public health first identified risk
factors; that is, the factors whose presence
increased a person's chances of contracting the
disease: tobacco use, high-fat diet, sedentary
lifestyle, high levels of stress, and family
history of heart disease. Equally important, they
determined that certain protective factors (e.g.,
aerobic exercise or relaxation techniques) helped
prevent the development of heart problems. 

These public health researchers were concerned with
halting the onset of heart disease in order to
avoid risky, invasive, and costly interventions,
such as angioplasty or bypass surgery, after the
disease had taken hold. Their goal was to reduce or
counter the identified risk factors for heart
disease in the population at large; their strategy
was to launch a massive public advocacy campaign,
conducted in multiple venues (e.g., the media,
government, corporations, schools), aimed at
elimination of "at risk" behaviors (and the
attitudes supporting them). If risk could not be
avoided altogether, the campaign could at least
promote those behaviors and attitudes that reduce
risk of heart disease. Proof that this two-pronged
strategy has been effective is in the numbers: a
45-percent decrease in the incidence of
cardiovascular disease, due in large measure to
risk-focused prevention.3 Application of the same
prevention principles to reduce the risks
associated with problem behaviors in teenagers,
including violence, can work as well.

Identifying risk factors for violence

Using the public health model to reduce violence in
America's communities calls for first identifying
the factors that put young people at risk for
violence in order to reduce or eliminate these
factors and strengthen the protective factors that
buffer the effects of exposure to risk. Over the
past few years, longitudinal research (that is,
studies that follow youngsters from the early years
of their lives into adulthood) has identified
factors associated with neighborhoods and
communities, the family, the schools, and peer
groups, as well as factors residing in the
individual that increase the probability of
violence during adolescence and young adulthood.
These factors also have been shown to increase the
probability of other health and behavior problems,
including substance abuse, delinquency, teen
pregnancy, and dropping out of school. Although
future research may reveal, for example, that
alienation and rebelliousness place an individual
at risk of violent behavior, consistent evidence
does not yet exist to support this hypothesis. 

In neighborhoods. Five risk factors arising from
the community environment are known to increase the
probability that a young person will engage in
violence:

o Availability of guns. The United States has one
of the highest rates of criminal violence in the
world, and firearms are implicated in a great
number of these crimes. In recent years, reports of
gun-toting youths in inner-city schools and of
violent incidents involving handguns in school
environs have created mounting concern. Given the
lethality of firearms, the increased likelihood of
conflict escalating into homicide when guns are
present, and the strong association between
availability of firearms and homicide rates, a
teenager having ready access to firearms through
family, friends, or a source on the street is at
increased risk of violence. 

o Community laws/norms favorable to crime.
Community norms are communicated through laws,
written policies, informal social practices, and
adult expectations of young people. Sometimes
social practices send conflicting messages: for
example, schools and parents may promote "just say
no" themes while alcohol and substance abuse are
acceptable practices in the community. Community
attitudes also influence law enforcement. An
example is the enforcement of laws that regulate
firearms sales. These laws have reduced violent
crime, but the effect is small and diminishes as
time passes. A number of studies suggest that the
reasons are community norms that include lack of
proactive monitoring or enforcement, as well as the
availability of firearms from jurisdictions having
no legal prohibitions on sales or illegal access.
Other laws related to reductions in violent crime,
especially crime involving firearms, include laws
governing penalties for licensing violations and
for using a firearm in the commission of a crime.

o Media portrayals of violence. The highly charged
public debate over whether portrayals of violence
in the media adversely affect children continues.
Yet research over the past 3 decades demonstrates a
clear correlation between depictions of violence
and the development of aggressive and violent
behavior. Exposure to media violence also teaches
violent problem-solving strategies and appears to
alter children's attitudes and sensitivity to
violence.

o Low neighborhood attachment/community
disorganization. Indifference to cleanliness and
orderliness, high rates of vandalism, little
surveillance of public places by neighborhood
residents, absence of parental involvement in
schools, and low rates of voter participation are
indicative of low neighborhood attachment. The less
homogeneous a community in terms of race, class,
religion, or mix of industrial to residential
areas, the less connected its residents may feel to
the overall community and the more difficult it is
to establish clear community goals and identity.
Higher rates of drug problems, juvenile
delinquency, and violence occur in such places.

o Extreme economic deprivation. Children who live
in deteriorating neighborhoods characterized by
extreme poverty are more likely to develop problems
with delinquency, teen pregnancy, dropping out of
school, and violence. If such children also have
behavior and adjustment problems early in life,
they are also more likely to have problems with
drugs as they mature. The rate of poverty is
disproportionately higher for African American,
Native American, or Hispanic children than for
white children; thus, children are differentially
exposed to risk depending on their racial or
cultural backgrounds.

In families. Obviously, the home environment,
family dynamics, and parental stability play a
major role in shaping children. Three risk factors
for violence are associated with the family
constellation: poor family management practices,
including the absence of clear expectations and
standards for children's behavior, excessively
severe or inconsistent punishment, and parental
failure to monitor their children's activities,
whereabouts, or friends; family conflict, either
between parents or between parents and children,
which enhances the risk for all of the problem
behaviors; and favorable parental attitudes and
involvement in violent behavior, which increases
the risk that children witnessing such displays
will themselves become violent.

At school. Two indicators of risk for violence are
associated with a child's experiences at school.
Antisocial behavior of early onset (that is,
aggressiveness in grades K-3, sometimes combined
with isolation or withdrawal or sometimes combined
with hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder)
is more frequently found in boys than girls and
places the child at increased risk for problems,
including violence, during adolescence. The risk
factor also includes persistent antisocial behavior
first exhibited in adolescence, such as skipping
school, getting into fights, and misbehaving in
class. Young people of both genders who engage in
these behaviors during early adolescence are at
increased risk for drug abuse, juvenile
delinquency, violence, dropping out of school, and
teen pregnancy. Academic failure, if it occurs in
the late elementary grades and beyond, is a second
school-related risk factor that is likely to result
in violence and other problem behaviors.
Specifically, it is the experience of failure that
appears to escalate the risk, rather than ability
per se.

In peer groups and within the individual. If
youngsters associate with peers who engage in
problem behaviors (for example, drug abuse,
delinquency, violence, sexual activity, or dropping
out of school), they are much more likely to do the
same. Further, the earlier in their lives that
young people become involved in these kinds of
experiences--or take their first drink of alcohol
or smoke their first marijuana cigarette--the
greater is the likelihood of prolonged, serious,
and chronic involvement in health and behavior
problems. Even when a young person comes from a
well-managed family and is not burdened with other
risk factors, associating with friends who engage
in problem behaviors greatly increases the child's
risk. In addition, certain constitutional factors--
those that may have a biological or physiological
basis--appear to increase a young person's risk.
Examples of constitutional factors include lack of
impulse control, sensation seeking, and low harm
avoidance. 

Protective factors

It is well known that some youngsters, even though
they are exposed to multiple risk factors, do not
succumb to violent, antisocial behavior. Research
indicates that protective factors reduce the impact
of negative risk factors by providing positive ways
for an individual to respond to these risks. Three
categories of protective factors have been
identified:4

o Individual characteristics: A resilient
temperament and positive social orientation.

o Bonding: Positive relationships with family
members, teachers, or other adults.

o Healthy beliefs and clear standards: Beliefs in
children's competence to succeed in school and
avoid drugs and crime coupled with establishing
clear expectations and rules governing their
behavior.

------------------------------
Applying Knowledge of Risk Factors to Their Control


The knowledge base that researchers have built thus
far allows them a fair measure of confidence in
making some generalizations about risk factors:

o Risks exist in multiple domains. Since risk
factors exist in all areas of life, if a single
risk factor is addressed in a single area, problem
behaviors may not be significantly reduced.
Communities should focus on reducing risks across
several areas. 

o The more risk factors present, the greater the
risk. Although exposure to one risk does not
condemn a child to problems later in life, research
shows that exposure to a greater number of risk
factors increases a young person's risk
exponentially. Even if a community cannot eliminate
all risk factors present, reducing or eliminating
even a few of them may significantly decrease risk
for young people living in that community.

o Common risk factors predict diverse behavior
problems. Problem behaviors are predicted by the
presence of common risk factors. This means that
when any individual risk factor is reduced, it is
likely to affect a number of different problems in
the community.

o Effects of risk factors show much consistency
across races, cultures, and classes. While levels
of risk may vary in different racial, cultural, or
socioeconomic groups, the operational mode of these
risk factors does not appear to vary across groups.
One implication for community prevention efforts is
that the programs selected to target specific risk
factors should be adaptable to fit any of the
various groups in the community.

o Protective factors may buffer exposure to risk.
Protective factors are conditions that buffer young
people from the negative consequences of exposure
to risk by either reducing the impact of the risk
or changing the way a person responds to the risk.
Knowledge of risk factors can help communities know
where to place their focus in order to reduce
health and behavior problems. However, communities
must also know how to reduce risk. 
------------------------------

Individual characteristics. Youths who seem able to
cope more successfully than others with risk
factors appear resilient: they are able to bounce
back in the face of change or adversity; they
experience less frustration in the face of
obstacles and do not give up easily. They are also
good-natured, enjoy social interaction, and elicit
positive attention from others. Gender is another
factor. Given equal exposure to risks, girls are
less likely than boys to develop violent behavioral
problems in adolescence. Finally, intelligence
protects against certain problem behaviors, such as
delinquency and dropping out of school, although it
does not protect against substance abuse. Such
individual characteristics enhance the likelihood
that children will identify opportunities to make a
personal contribution, develop the skills necessary
to follow through successfully, and receive
recognition for their efforts. However, these
individual protective factors--resilient
temperament, positive social orientation, gender,
and intelligence--are innate and are extremely
difficult to change. 

Bonding. Several studies have revealed that
children raised in environments in which they are
exposed to multiple risk factors have nevertheless
become productive, contributing members of the
community. In interviews with these young people,
they invariably note that someone took an interest
in them. Some adult in the community--whether a
parent, an aunt, a grandmother, a teacher, a youth
worker, a minister, a businessperson--established a
bond of affection and cared enough to reach out.
Research has shown that the protective factor of
bonding with positive, prosocial family members,
teachers, or other significant adults or peers can
be strengthened by preventive intervention.

Healthy beliefs and clear standards. When the
adults with whom young people bond have healthy
beliefs and well-defined standards of behavior,
these serve as protection against the onset of
health and behavior problems in those youngsters.
Examples of healthy beliefs include believing it is
best for children to be free of drugs and crime and
to do well in school. Examples of well-defined
standards include clear, consistent family
prohibitions against drug and alcohol use, demands
for good performance in school, and disapproval of
problem behaviors. When a young person bonds to
those who hold healthy beliefs and set clear
standards, the two protective factors are
reinforcing; they work in tandem by providing a
model on which to base behavior and the motivation
to practice approved behavior so that the bond is
not jeopardized. Both bonding and healthy
beliefs/clear standards mediate the relationship
between a young person and the social environment,
including community, family, schools, and peer
groups; these protective factors can be encouraged
and strengthened.

The preconditions of bonding. Bonding may take
place with a caregiver, a family member or other
significant adult, or it may represent an
attachment to a social group. For bonding to occur,
however, three conditions must be met. The first is
the opportunity for active involvement. People
become bonded to a family, a school class, or a
community because they are given the chance to
participate in the life of the group. In a
classroom where the teacher calls on only the
students in the front who raise their hands, the
others are denied an opportunity for active
involvement; as a result they may lose their
commitment to education. The situation is similar
in a family where the 13- or 14-year-old uses the
home as a hotel--essentially a place to sleep--but
has no responsibilities in the family. Youngsters
need to be given the chance to contribute, in ways
commensurate with their level of development, to
life in the family, in the classroom, and in the
wider community. 

The opportunity to become involved is not enough,
however. A second condition of effective bonding is
having the skills needed to succeed once
involvement gets underway. Young people need to be
taught the skills without which they will be unable
to pursue opportunities effectively. Examples of
skills that have been shown to protect children
include good cognitive skills, such as
problem-solving and reading abilities, and good
social skills, including communication,
assertiveness, and the ability to ask for support.

The third condition of bonding is a consistent
system of recognition or reinforcement for skillful
performance. Young people often receive little or
no recognition for doing the right thing. The focus
is on what they have done wrong; much less
frequently are their accomplishments acknowledged.
The efforts they put forth, the challenges they
face, and the contributions they make should be
celebrated in personally and culturally accepted
ways. 

Thus, along with opportunities and access to
skills, recognition or appreciation provides an
incentive for continued contribution and is a
necessary condition for enabling young people to
form close attachments to their communities,
schools, and families. Data show how protective
factors are developed and how they influence one
another. 

Community guidelines for preventive intervention 

In designing preventive interventions for the
1990's and beyond, community leaders should keep in
mind some key principles. The first is that
prevention strategies should focus on known risk
factors. Once communities identify the risk factors
they need to address, the prevention program
developed in response should be targeted to
reducing those factors and to enhancing protective
factors. Another guideline is that intervention
should be planned to coincide with the point in a
child's development that is optimal for achieving
the desired outcome. Thus, prevention interventions
need to be geared to the appropriate developmental
stages of the child. If behavior problems at age 4,
5, and 6 are known to be associated with substance
abuse and delinquency later in life, this means all
youngsters should be taught in the early elementary
grades the skills they need to manage and control
their impulses in order to get along with others. 

Allied to the principle of intervention at the
appropriate stage is early intervention, necessary
to prevent behavior problems from stabilizing and
becoming entrenched. Ideally, prevention begins
before the child is born to ensure that low-income
mothers and other adult caregivers have the skills
they need to nurture children. These skills will
equip them to understand that a crying baby is not
a bad baby who needs to be spanked or disciplined.
Prenatal care, home visits to low-income single
mothers, and caregiver training in nurturing skills
can significantly reduce child abuse. Studies show
that more than a fourfold reduction in child abuse
is achievable by home visitation before birth and
during the first few months of infancy.5

Prevention programs need to reach those who are at
high risk by virtue of exposure to multiple risk
factors. These multiple risks require multiple
strategies that also are sensitive to the cultural
diversity that characterizes many communities. 

Commitment to risk-focused prevention programs
arises only when there is buy-in by the community;
that is, when the programs are felt to be "owned
and operated" by the community. This sense of
proprietorship evolves when all the various
stakeholders in the community--the key leaders
through the grassroots members--come together
representing their diverse interests and develop a
strategy for how to implement risk-focused
prevention. The "Communities That Care" approach is
one such strategy. 

------------------------------
The Communities That Care Approach.6 

This model is aimed at achieving significant
reductions in adolescent problem behaviors by
reducing risk factors in ways that promote bonding.
The process recognizes that bonding without healthy
beliefs and clear standards is insufficient for a
successful prevention effort.

The approach consists of a four-step process:

o Key leaders of the community, the people who
control many of the resources, are engaged to
develop a vision of common goals for the community,
to commit to a risk-focused prevention strategy,
and to decide who should sit on the community
prevention task force or board.

o The board is created, its membership reflecting
the diverse groups and areas in the community, and
the opportunity for team-building is provided
through a series of training events. 

o The community conducts an assessment of the risk
factors for adolescent problem behaviors, collects
data on existing efforts to address these risks,
and identifies prevention strategies.

o After training, the community creates a
risk-focused action plan and establishes
appropriate program evaluation methods. 

The challenge is nothing less than reinventing the
community as a protective environment. The means is
by promoting the development of communities that
care enough to ensure that all children are bonded
securely to family, to school, and to community. 
------------------------------

Implications for criminal justice 

The inclusion of prevention as a central element of
criminal justice policy and practice is emblematic
of a new emphasis reflecting the realization that
enforcement alone is not enough to reduce youth
violence. This realization reflects the recognition
that, in spite of geometrically increasing
investments in enforcement, the courts, and
corrections, violent crime, especially among young
people, has continued to rise over the past decade
(discussed by Alfred Blumstein elsewhere in this
issue). 

For criminal justice, the orientation to prevention
means establishing partnerships with other
organizations, groups, and agencies in the
community to identify and reduce risks for crime
and violence and to strengthen protective factors
that inhibit violence in the community. Community
policing represents a clear example of this shift
in criminal justice from an exclusive focus on the
"back end"--after the crime has been committed.
Integral to the intervention process is the
involvement of the community and of social service
and other agencies at the "front end"--working in
tandem with law enforcement to identify problems
and design strategies to solve them. In refining
its role, criminal justice is taking on a much
greater challenge than in the past, but doing so
holds the promise of reducing crime in the long
term. 

Notes

1. Stuart, R.B., "Teaching Facts About Drugs:
Pushing or Preventing?" Journal of Educational
Psychology 37 (1974): 98-201; and Weaver, S. C. and
F. S. Tennant, "Effectiveness of Drug Education
Programs for Secondary School Students," American
Journal of Psychiatry 130 (1973): 812-814.

2. See, for example, William DeJong's Preventing
Interpersonal Violence Among Youth: An Introduction
to School, Community, and Mass Media Strategies,
Issues and Practices, Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, August 1994: 12-15. 

3. From a speech delivered at the National Academy
of Sciences in January 1994, by Kenneth I. Shine,
M.D., President of the National Institute of
Medicine. 

4. See Hawkins, J. D., R. F. Catalano, and J. M.
Miller, "Risk and Protective Factors for Alcohol
and Other Drug Problems in Adolescence and Early
Childhood: Implications for Substance Abuse
Prevention," Psychological Bulletin 112 (1992): 64-
105; Werner, E. E. and R. S. Smith, Overcoming the
Odds: High Risk Children From Birth to Adulthood,
New York: Cornell University Press, 1992; and
Rutter, M., "Resilience in the Face of Adversity:
Protective Factors and Resistance to Psychiatric
Disorder," British Journal of Psychiatry 147
(1987): 598-611. 

5. Olds, David L., C. R. Henderson, Jr., R.
Chamberlin, and R. Tatelbaum, "Preventing Child
Abuse and Neglect: A Randomized Trial of Nurse Home
Visitation," Pediatrics 78 (1986): 65-78. 

6. For information about the Communities That Care
comprehensive community prevention planning
approach, contact Developmental Research and
Programs, 130 Nickerson Street, Suite 107, Seattle,
WA 98109. Phone: (800) 736-2630; Fax: (206) 286-
1462.

J. David Hawkins teaches social work at the
University of Washington in Seattle and directs the
University's Social Development Research Group. Dr.
Hawkins was co-developer of the "social development
strategy," supported by the U.S. Department of
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP), and adopted by OJJDP as the
basis for its comprehensive strategy for serious,
violent, and chronic juvenile offenders. OJJDP
continues to support the social development model
and the application of the Communities That Care
approach. OJJDP has used Dr. Hawkins' work as the
basis for its new, congressionally mandated
delinquency prevention program that addresses the
risk factors associated with delinquency and
adolescent substance abuse. For more than a decade,
Dr. Hawkins has led the Seattle Social Development
Project, a longitudinal prevention study, based at
the University of Washington, that tests his risk
reduction strategy, using his theoretical work as
the basis. This article is based on a presentation
made by Dr. Hawkins at the federally sponsored
conference, "Solving Youth Violence: Partnerships
That Work," held in Washington, D.C., August 15 to
17, 1994. Dr. Hawkins' publications for OJJDP
include "Parent Training for Delinquency
Prevention," with M. W. Fraser and M. O. Howard,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, and National Institute on Drug Abuse,
1988. He also contributed to the Guide for
Implementing the Comprehensive Strategy for
Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders,
ed. James C. Howell, U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Juvenile Justice and Deliquency
Prevention, May 1995. 
---------------------------------------------
Partnerships Against Violence: Reducing Youth
Violence Through Information Sharing

by Joan Alpert and Judy Reardon

Youth violence has grown to alarming proportions,1
but the good news is the strong response to
tackling the problem. Communities large and small
are working hard at devising innovative approaches,
many of them integrating components of prevention,
deterrence, rehabilitation, and control. At every
level--municipal, county, State, and Federal--
programs are making a difference in the lives of
those they touch. They help high-risk adolescents
manage anger and control conflict, ensure
youngsters a safe place to have fun after school,
provide sanctions other than prison for youthful
offenders, offer young people job counseling and
training, teach parenting skills to young adults,
and counsel teens in self-esteem and leadership
skills. 

Until now, finding out what these programs are and
where they are has been a daunting prospect, if
only because there are so many. The Partnerships
Against Violence Network (PAVNET) is changing all
that. Conceived by the National Institute of
Justice and built with the technical assistance of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National
Agricultural Library, PAVNET is a service that
provides information about youth anti-violence
programs operating throughout the country and about
the availability of technical assistance and
funding for such programs. The information is
available in print, on diskette, and through
"PAVNET Online" via the Internet. 

One of the most distinctive features of PAVNET is
the partnership of Federal Government agencies it
represents. Seven cabinet-level agencies have
joined forces to integrate information to remove
barriers communities face in locating resources to
help them reduce violence. 

The old way to access information

Before PAVNET, community officials who wanted to
create a program to deal with youth substance
abuse, for example, would confront a laborious and
time-consuming task. In planning their program they
would probably want to first look into what other
communities like their own were doing. Their
strategy might be to pick and choose among program
components to select ones that fit their needs.
They might have proceeded by contacting a
neighboring jurisdiction known to have a program on
youth substance abuse or by looking into a
high-visibility project set in a major urban area.
Alternatively, they might have gotten in touch with
one or another Federal agency to find out about
programs to explore. 

The search would require a considerable amount of
time and other resources. It would mean looking in
many directions and in the worst case end up as a
hit-or-miss exercise. The principal reason has been
the absence of a centralized repository of the
information they need. Locally based programs are
diffused nationwide and a multiplicity of agencies
and organizations, public and private, sponsor
them. 

And the new

PAVNET greatly simplifies the task of local
government officials and others who want to know
and need to know about programs and other resources
to reduce youth violence. Literally hundreds of
these programs are up and running all over the
country. PAVNET not only centralizes information
about them but makes it accessible easily, rapidly,
and to a worldwide audience. 

Promising programs. Using PAVNET to locate
information about anti-drug programs for young
people, the hypothetical local government officials
turn to the section entitled "Promising Programs:
Substance Abuse" in the electronic or printed
versions. There they will find three types of
programs: that emphasize prevention, enforcement,
or treatment and rehabilitation. 

In addition to substance abuse, other program
categories are family violence, services to
victims, community violence, and youth violence
prevention. Altogether, almost 600 programs,
developed by government agencies, private
foundations, religious and fraternal organizations,
and citizens' and community organizations, are
listed. Search tools in the online version and
multiple indexes appended to the hard-copy version
make it easy to pinpoint specific topics. 

Each program listing offers a snapshot view or
"abstract" of the project, plus information about
the specific population targeted, the type of
setting, the startup date, the budget, the funding
source or sources and, perhaps most important, the
name of someone to contact and the ways to reach
him or her by phone, fax, or e-mail. (See "Sample
PAVNET Listing"). Armed with this information about
a program or programs that interest them, the
hypothetical officials, who may be based in Ohio,
can get in touch with their counterparts in
whatever jurisdiction a listed program operates. 

------------------------------
Sample PAVNET Listing

Transitional Aftercare Group (TAG) Program

Contact

John C. Smith, M.S.W.
Health Promotions
Morehouse School of Medicine
720 Westview Drive, S.W.
Atlanta, GA 30310
Tel: 404-752-1754
Fax: 404-752-0094

Program Type

Community reintegration and rehabilitation through
education and social services

Target Population

Recently released juvenile offenders in the State
of Georgia

Setting

Aftercare group program of juveniles making the
transition from incarceration to the community

Project Startup Date

September 1993

Information Source

National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug
Information (NCADI) PREVline electronic data system
(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

Evaluation Information

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) is sponsoring a 10-month process evaluation
that will focus on the extent to which the program
sites are successful in implementing proposed
activities.

Annual Budget

$100,000

Sources of Funding

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control,
CDC, Division of Violence Prevention 

Program Description

The Georgia Department of Children and Family
Services TAG program is designed to reduce
recidivism among newly released juvenile offenders.
The program provides case management; treatment
services; and career, educational, and vocational
training at three sites in Georgia. Case management
includes a needs assessment of each person, crisis
intervention, treatment planning, referrals, and
placement. Treatment services include counseling,
parenting classes, alcohol abuse education, drug
abuse education, success seminars, and literacy
education. Career, educational, and vocational
training includes basic skills and instruction
related to receiving a high school diploma, career
counseling, and job placement. Partners include the
Morehouse School of Medicine and the Georgia
Department of Children and Youth Services.
------------------------------

Technical assistance. Sometimes a community may
want to locate an organization with the expertise
to provide technical assistance or other help in
developing a program, operating it, or making it
better. PAVNET contains these types of listings as
well--more than 300. They present information on
such resources as training materials, educational
curriculums, information clearinghouses, and
hotline numbers, as well as listings for
organizations that can provide onsite assistance to
local communities. Examples are the Boston Area
Educators for Social Responsibility, which offers
conflict resolution training to teachers,
administrators, and counselors working in
elementary, middle, and secondary schools and the
Washington, D.C.-based Center for Community Change,
which provides technical assistance to
disadvantaged urban and rural communities that want
to bring about change. For each listing, the
services are described briefly and a contact
person's name, address, and phone number (plus fax
number and e-mail address, if available) are
included.

Funding sources. In an era of budget constraints
and cutbacks, funding takes on added significance.
PAVNET meets the need for information about
financial support through a section on public and
private sources. These range from organizations
that support projects in specifically named
localities to those like the USDA Extension
Service's Youth at Risk initiative, which operate
nationwide. 

Quality of the information. In developing PAVNET,
quality control was and remains a major
consideration. Paul Estaver, who directed the
initial drafting, editing, and input of data at
NIJ, noted the importance attached to this part of
the process. "We went to great lengths to be sure
the information was accurate," he said. All
information for each entry was verified before
inclusion in the data base.

Several criteria were established to consider a
program's "eligibility" for PAVNET. Programs judged
to be "promising" are aimed at resolving a violence
problem or making a community safer, have clear and
measurable goals, and have been in operation for at
least a year. The targeted problem needs to be
significant in number of people affected or has to
meet another, similar standard. Perhaps most
important was the emphasis on evaluation. Whenever
possible, evidence that programs have achieved some
success in meeting their stated goals is included
in the description. This is done to help PAVNET
users determine if the initiatives can be adopted
or adapted elsewhere. 

PAVNET online and other formats

PAVNET is available in three formats: in a printed,
hard-copy version; on diskettes (both in
WordPerfect and ASCII); and via the Internet. NIJ's
G. Martin Lively, who worked with John Kane of the
Department of Agriculture to coordinate the
technical aspects of PAVNET Online, noted there is
sound reasoning behind the offer of multiple
formats. "We may be a little ahead of the curve in
providing this information via the international
information superstructure," he said, "because
Internet connectivity is not yet universal or
universally available." He added, however, that the
growing use of the Internet (by one estimate it
links 45,000 networks and serves between 10 and 25
million users2) seems proof positive that the
potential user base for PAVNET Online will grow
accordingly. 

To help Internet users navigate the Information
Superhighway to reach PAVNET Online, a guide for
online users has been published.3 And for anyone
with a personal computer but without Internet
access, the diskette version of PAVNET is
available.4 

The advent of more advanced technology does not
spell the abrupt demise of tools developed earlier.
They will continue to coexist for some time to
come. PAVNET was created in this period of
transition--between the time of universal
accessibility to online information and reliance on
printed documents. So PAVNET has also been made
available in a two-volume, hard-copy format.5

Cost savings and other benefits. Like any other
electronic search and retrieval system, PAVNET
Online creates savings in time and other resources.
But such savings also accrue from use of the print
version as well. Whatever its format, PAVNET means
"one-stop shopping" for the consumer of
information.

Obviously, PAVNET Online generates the most
benefits, for both "suppliers" and "customers." On
the supplier end, a one-time, front-end input of
resources was needed for initial data input, and
resources are needed on an ongoing basis for
administration and management. Still, the savings
and government efficiency accrue from eliminating
printing and distribution costs. Inventory problems
(even inventory itself) can become a thing of the
past. Customers need no longer wait for the mail to
arrive, for they can view, download (transfer),
print, and make multiple copies of any of these
public-domain files when they want them. Speed of
information retrieval, probably the greatest
advantage for users, can also result in cost
savings. At least for the present, many users get
Internet access free of charge through their
sponsoring institution.

Internet accessibility also enables the supplier to
update and manage information on a real-time basis.
Paper documents can have a short "shelf life" when
their contents become out-of-date. PAVNET Online
does not require reprints. For the user, the
information will always be as current as real-time
data entry permits. 

The genesis of PAVNET

The initial steps in creating PAVNET were taken by
the National Institute of Justice, an agency of the
Justice Department. But PAVNET's reach is far
beyond the domain of criminal justice. It contains
programs in education, health, job training and
placement, counseling, recreation, and many other
areas. The reason the net was cast so wide is the
recognition that violence cannot be defeated
through law enforcement alone or even with all the
multiple resources at the disposal of the criminal
justice system. Violence needs to be approached
from many angles, and that calls for the
involvement of many disciplines. To paraphrase the
African proverb: it takes the resources of the
entire community to save a child. 

The need for a multifaceted approach was part of
the thinking behind Project PACT (Pulling America's
Communities Together), the program PAVNET was
initially designed to support. Begun in the fall of
1993, PACT started as a consortium of Federal
agencies that serves as a catalyst to build
coalitions at every level--local, State, and
Federal--to reduce violence. In the cities
designated as PACT sites, the Federal Government
takes on the role of facilitator and coordinator,
helping communities as they themselves define the
specific violence-related problem they want to
address and as they shape their own response. That
mandate extends to helping the sites ensure their
anti-violence strategies are comprehensive; that
is, inclusive of the full spectrum of approaches,
from prevention through control, represented by the
several Federal agencies in Project PACT. 

The PACT program itself makes no commitment to
Federal funding. Rather, the emphasis is on
technical assistance, such as providing
information. The response to the call for better
online information about Federal resources and
guides to promising anti-violence activities was
the genesis of PAVNET.6 In the startup stages of
PAVNET, the support of the Department of Justice
representative on the PACT team, Shay Bilchik (now
Director of the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention) was invaluable. 

The team that developed PAVNET was headed by Paul
Cascarano, Assistant Director of NIJ. Cascarano
summarized the objective he set for himself and his
team: "What we wanted to do," he said, "was to
build a mechanism that could pull together all the
information about programs and strategies that show
promise of success, put it in one place, and make
it widely available."

Building the data base

Federal interagency cooperation is the linchpin of
PAVNET. The number of cabinet-level agencies that
have joined PAVNET is now seven,7 but there is no
limit to membership. Units within each agency
tapped information clearinghouses plus other
sources to find promising programs and other
resources in their respective mission areas. Thus,
for example, the Department of Agriculture
contributed a listing for Project CARES (Children
at Risk Extended School), a school-based child care
program for at-risk elementary school students and
their families, which the agency co-sponsors
through its extension agent in Ogden, Utah. 

Among the entries from the U.S. Department of Labor
is the Center for Employment Training, a job
training and placement program operating in several
States for at-risk youth, farmworkers, and others.
One of the listings provided by the Department of
Justice-operated National Criminal Justice
Reference Service is the Mediation and Restitution
Services (MARS) program, which offers juvenile
offenders the opportunity to repay the losses
incurred by the injured parties as an alternative
to prison. 

The information in PAVNET comes from these and many
other sources. But although there are several
sources, users of PAVNET access what to all intents
and purposes is a single, comprehensive, seamlessly
constructed data base. 

Toward a distributed data base. Initial data input
and processing, as well as quality control
(verification of facts, for example), editorial
support, and production of the printed volumes and
the diskettes were handled largely by NIJ, chiefly
through its information clearinghouse, the National
Criminal Justice Reference Service. Placing the
data online was largely the work of John Gladstone,
a systems manager with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, under the direction of John Kane, who
coordinates the Youth Development Information
Center at the National Agricultural Library. To
update the data on a continuous basis, plans are
for each PAVNET member agency to input its own data
as well as to manage it for the purposes of future
quality control, adding and purging data, and
making other changes. 

In this distributed data base structure, a single
point of entry would remain for the user, but input
would have several access points--as many as there
are participating agencies. To the user, PAVNET
Online would retain the appearance of a centralized
repository, but that centralization would exist in
virtual reality, through electronic linkages among
the data bases. Data input and management would be
"distributed" among the PAVNET agencies, which are
expected to increase. Thanks to the Internet,
resources can expand indefinitely. 

The information infrastructure

Building the PAVNET Online structures was in large
part the work of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Extension Service. USDA has played
this central role because it already had the
necessary hardware and software, used for the past
several years to publish Youth Development
Information Center documents electronically via the
Internet. This system was adopted for use by PAVNET
Online. 

The system is physically housed at USDA and managed
from its National Agricultural Library (NAL). On
the NAL gopher, the data base was uploaded on the
Internet and tools were built to help users
navigate the system. John Kane noted the benefits
of gopher technology: "We chose this software,
which is basically a menu-based way to retrieve
information," he said, "because for users who
either telnet to8 or log directly onto the system
over the Internet, it increases the chances they're
going to find exactly what they want. Gopher
technology allows you to get from where you are to
practically anywhere else on the Internet without
having to know in advance where the information you
want is located." 

Kane cited the new possibilities opened up with
World Wide Web technology, which allows users to
view documents in exactly the way they were created
in print. "More and more people are getting access
to the Web, and we need to accommodate them," he
said. To do so, a home page is being created for
PAVNET on the Internet. (A home page is best
explained by way of analogy: it is to the
information resource what the cover of a magazine
is to what is inside the magazine.) 

------------------------------
PAVNET Online Via the Internet: A How To

A few keystrokes on the computer put a wealth of
information about youth anti-violence programs and
other resources to reduce violence literally at the
user's fingertips. PAVNET Online is reached through
the Internet, the vast system of computer networks
and users that links millions of people around the
world.

On-Ramps 

Those with direct access to an Inter-net connection
can reach PAVNET by gophering pavnet.esusda.gov and
selecting "3" from the main menu. 

For those who do not have this capacity, there are
other ways of reaching PAVNET Online. A commercial
Internet provider, such as America Online, is one
way. Users who need help in reaching PAVNET can
send an e-mail to jgladsto@nalusda.gov or to
askncjrs@aspensys.com.

PAVNET Online files can be obtained through e-mail,
by sending a message to almanac@ra.esusda.gov, and
issuing one or more of the following commands:

send pavnet catalog
send pavnet-funding catalog
send pavnet-programs catalog
send pavnet-infosource catalog 

Road Maps 

Full details of the ways to access PAVNET Online
are presented in the Pavnet Online User's Guide,
which is available in hard-copy format and online.
It not only helps users travel the Information
Superhighway to PAVNET Online, but also helps them
navigate the online menus (directories of
information) and use the search capabilities to
find specific topics. 

For online access to the Guide itself, select 
"About PAVNET Online" from the main PAVNET menu;
then select "PAVNET Online User's Guide" to view
the text of the guide.

Online Dialog 

A PAVNET mail group hosts discussions among people
who are interested in anti-violence issues. 

Anyone who wishes to subscribe can do so by sending
an e-mail to almanac@ace.esusda.gov and inserting
"subscribe pavnet-mg" in the body of the message. 
------------------------------

Search tools. Built into PAVNET Online are search
tools that make locating information about specific
topics a simple exercise. A user might want to find
information about programs operating in his or her
State or about programs in certain subject
categories. For example, the search can be narrowed
to information about programs in Maryland or those
dealing with "conflict resolution." The "search
engine" scans the full text of each data entry
rapidly to match the word or words the user wants
to find. 

Expanding resources. Gopher technology also points
PAVNET Online users to Federal clearinghouse and
private-sector data bases that in turn point to
other resources for information about violence
prevention information. For example, the gopher
menu can be used to connect directly with the
National Criminal Justice Reference Service and
with the National Clearinghouse on Alcohol and Drug
Information. A "Latest Addition to PAVNET Online"
section presents information about related topics,
such as conference announcements, legislative
initiatives, and new features of PAVNET, among them
how to obtain files via e-mail. 

John Gladstone, who provides technical support to
PAVNET Online, noted what motivated the team in
offering these added services. "We want to be as
timely as possible, and as comprehensive as
possible," he said, "and we also want to create
pathways that link the users as a group, beyond
what they can achieve over the phone."

One way to promote dialog among users is through
listservs--electronic mail groups or information
exchanges that enable subscribers to send messages
on predetermined topics to everyone on the list and
also to receive messages. Within a few weeks after
the recently created PAVNET listserv was
established, hundreds of subscribers, in police
agencies, correctional facilities, community
programs, and institutions of higher education,
located here and abroad, had signed up. (See PAVNET
Online Via the Internet for directions on how to
subscribe to the listserv--pavnet-mg.) The PAVNET
listserv is designed to host online discussions,
nationwide and internationally, on anti-violence
issues and permit more community involvement in
building PAVNET. 

PAVNET II 

PAVNET reflects what is happening in the field all
over the United States. But programs and practices
in the field are often established on the basis of
research or are modified and replicated following
evaluations. This link between practice and
research suggested the need for a data base of
information about ongoing research in violence. 

Like practice in the field, research in violence is
not confined to criminal justice, but covers many
disciplines, such as health. The National
Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, for example, are among the
agencies conducting research into one or more
aspect of violence. PAVNET II has been proposed as
a way to centralize information about research in
violence being conducted from many perspectives.
The data base would extend to projects under way in
institutions of higher education and private
research organizations that receive their support
from a Federal or State agency, or private
foundations.

Such a resource could have several uses: it would
help eliminate duplicate research projects and
thereby generate cost savings; it would foster
collaboration on related projects; and, by
including projects undertaken by disciplines
outside criminal justice, would be another means to
promote a multidisciplinary approach to reducing
violence. 

NIJ has been exploring what it would take to
establish this data base. Feasibility work now
under way is targeted to finding out what agencies
sponsor such research, how to access the data for
input, what restrictions might limit access, and
how to create structures for inputting and managing
the data through a single point of entry.

------------------------------
How To Obtain the PAVNET Guides

Formats 

o A two-volume Resource Guide. Volume 1, Promising
Programs, contains indexes of programs by subject,
title, funding sources, and geographic location.
Volume 2, Information Sources, Funding, and
Technical Assistance, contains a subject index to
identify sources for direct help and information,
plus a list of publications for additional sources
of funding.

Costs, including postage and handling, are: 

Volume 1, Promising Programs (NCJ 150044): U.S.
$17, Canada $23, other countries $54.

Volume 2, Information Sources, Funding, and
Technical Assistance (NCJ 150045): U.S. $12, Canada
$17, other countries $29.

Both volumes (NCJ 15422): U.S. $25, Canada $34,
other countries $83.

o The PAVNET Online User's Guide helps users
navigate the PAVNET menus and use the search
capabilities. (NCJ 152057): Free.

o PAVNET on diskette. The PAVNET Resource Guide,
Volumes 1 and 2, are also available on two 3.5"
high-density diskettes in WordPerfect 5.1, and on
two 3.5" high-density diskettes in ASCII.
WordPerfect's search capabilities and the ASCII
editor can be used to find the information. The
"Read Me" file presents instructions. 

WordPerfect (DD 152402): U.S. $16, Canada and other
countries $21.

ASCII (DD 152403): U.S. $16, Canada and other
countries $21.

To order any of these PAVNET items, write to NCJRS,
Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000, call 800-851-
3420 or e-mail askncjrs@aspensys.com.
------------------------------

Government reinvented 

NIJ Director Jeremy Travis summarized the
significance of PAVNET's simplifying systems,
structures, and processes: "PAVNET is all about
reinventing government. That means making
government more responsive." So successful has the
project been in improving "customer service," that
it was formally recognized for its contribution to
government reinvention.9 Two of its most
distinctive features--Federal interagency
cooperation and the coordination of multiple online
data bases--led to its designation as a model
project in the government reinvention process. As a
"reinvention laboratory," PAVNET becomes a model
for replication elsewhere in the Federal
Government. 

Director Travis noted that although the process of
building PAVNET has been innovative, the "product"
is the central consideration for NIJ. "Reinventing
government is only the means," he said. "What has
been first and foremost in the minds of the PAVNET
team is the end." That end is breaking down
barriers to communication, and linking community to
community. The "partnership" in Partnerships
Against Violence is not just the coalition of
Federal agencies, Travis noted, but the coalitions
nurtured at the grass roots level with the help of
the PAVNET project. And ultimately, he said, the
end is repairing, improving, and sustaining the
quality of life of our communities by doing
something about the violence that continues to
claim the lives of so many of our young people. 

Notes

1. See the article on youth violence by Alfred
Blumstein, elsewhere in this issue.

2. Lambert, Steve, and Walt Howe, Internet Basics:
Your Online Access to the Global Electronic
Superhighway, New York: Random House, 1993. 

3. PAVNET Online User's Guide, Research in Action,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice,
National Institute of Justice, March 1995.

4. The PAVNET files are available on two 3.5"
diskettes for use in DOS-based personal computers
in either WordPerfect 5.1 or ASCII, for $16. 

5. Volume 1, Promising Programs; and volume 2,
Information Sources, Funding, and Technical
Assistance. Both volumes were published by the U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, in December 1994. (The draft version was
published in August 1994.) 

6. Report to the President and the Domestic Policy
Council from the Interdepartmental Working Group on
Violence, Washington, D.C., January 1994.

7. Currently, in addition to the Office of Justice
Programs of the U.S. Department of Justice (Bureau
of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, National Institute of Justice, Office
for Victims of Crime, and Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention) and the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, PAVNET membership
consists of the U.S. Department of Education, the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
the U.S. Department of Labor, and, to a limited
extent, the U.S. Department of Defense.

8. Telnet is a way to use the Internet to connect
to a computer that is housed at a distant location.


9. On December 7, 1994, Vice President Al Gore
presented the "Hammer Award" to the team that
developed PAVNET. The award was given as part of
National Performance Review process of "reinventing
government." (The name of the award derives from
the tool being used symbolically to build an
efficient and effective government. The hammer
presented in the award, which cost $6, recalls the
hammers purportedly purchased by the government for
$600 that once became a symbol of government
waste.) 

Joan Alpert, who is with the National Criminal
Justice Reference Service, coordinated the
drafting, editing, data input, and production of
PAVNET. Judy Reardon is a writer-editor with
NCJRS.\
---------------------------------------------------
The Anatomy of Fraud: Report of a Nationwide Survey

by Richard Titus, Fred Heinzelmann, and John M.
Boyle

Millions of Americans are learning--sometimes the
hard way--to deal with one or another of the
following scenarios: 

o When they answer the phone, the voice at the
other end tells them they have won a free vacation
at an exotic locale, and the caller needs only a
credit card number to verify their identity.

o In retrieving their mail, they find a letter
requesting a contribution to a charitable
organization whose name is similar to one that is
well known.

o They answer the doorbell to find an
official-looking and -sounding individual who
describes a roof problem with their house, says it
violates the building code, needs immediate
attention, and offers his company's service to make
the repair.

o They find a notice in the mail urging them to
call a 900 number that will access information
about a cost-free plan for loan consolidation.

The scenarios are infinitely varied, but many have
one aim: to defraud. The considerable media
attention being paid to these crimes suggests how
common they have become. Yet locating more
systematic information--how frequently the crimes
occur, what types are most common, who is most
prone to be victimized--is no easy task. One reason
is that data on these offenses are not collected in
the major Federal Government crime surveys. Partly
as a result, research on the topic has been
limited.1 Two recent studies, which focused on
telemarketing fraud and fraud in direct personal
marketing, revealed these crimes to be fairly
extensive.2 

Meeting the need for comprehensive, accurate data 

The need for systematic information about economic
crimes, including personal fraud, has been noted by
criminal justice professionals and researchers.3
Finding out how much damage is being inflicted by
personal fraud is essential if the criminal justice
system is to provide an optimal response. 

Meeting the need for information was the thinking
behind a nationwide study of fraud conducted by the
National Institute of Justice. The aims were to
better grasp the extent to which this crime is
committed, and to probe such issues as the kinds of
fraud being perpetrated, the financial and other
losses suffered by victims, the types of people
most frequently victimized, and the actions taken
by people after they have been victimized. (See
"What is Personal Criminal Fraud" for a definition
of fraud as used in this study and "The Design of
the Fraud Study" for a description of the study
method.) 

Challenging conventional wisdom

While it may come as no surprise that a substantial
proportion of the adult population is affected by
fraud, or that fraud is more common than many
crimes reported in the National Crime Victimization
Survey, many of the other findings of the study
were unanticipated. For one thing, the researchers
found that when projected to the general
population, monetary losses are extremely high,
running into the billions. The widespread
perception of the elderly and the poorly educated
as most vulnerable was revealed to have little
basis in reality. Fraud was found to be no
respecter of age, gender, race, or income. In
short, many of the findings challenged the
conventional wisdom that has surrounded these
crimes in the absence of accurate and comprehensive
information. 

How many victims? 

Fraud claims many victims. More than half the
respondents (58 percent) reported having
experienced a victimization or an attempted
victimization thus far in their lives. Those who
had a fairly recent experience with fraud (in the
12 months before the survey) constituted almost
one-third (31 percent) of the 1,246 respondents.
The attempt to defraud these people was successful
in nearly half of the instances cited. 

How much is lost?

Losses are frequent and the amounts lost can be
high. More than 88 percent of the people
"successfully" victimized (and 13 percent of the
sample as a whole) reported losing money or
property. The amounts ranged widely, from less than
$25 to as much as $65,000. Projected to the
country's adult population, the average loss ($216)
yields an estimated annual figure of more than $40
billion.

Although typically the monetary loss is small, it
can be quite large, tending to vary with the type
of fraud. Thus, auto and appliance repair scams,
fraudulent prices (prices that turn out to be
higher than originally quoted by the seller),
900-number swindles, and fake warranties tend to
involve relatively large amounts (an average of
more than $250). In auto/appliance repair and
900-number frauds, losses can run as high as $3,000
or more, as can losses through fraudulent use of
bank or credit cards, impersonations of legitimate
brokers and financial planners, and fake insurance
and investment schemes.

Losses may not be just financial. In 20 percent of
the cases in which the attempt succeeded, the
victim experienced resultant credit or other
financial problems. Health or emotional problems
were reported in 14 percent of these cases, and
lost workdays in 13 percent. For more than one in
ten of these crimes, other members of the victim's
household suffered significant harm or loss. 

Who is victimized the most? 

The age factor. A common belief of people who
investigate fraud is that certain groups, such as
the elderly, are more vulnerable. This study
effectively dispelled that notion. Age does matter,
but as the study revealed, older people are less
likely to be victimized than younger people. In
this respect, fraud victimization follows the
pattern of other crimes. Moreover, when the elderly
are victimized, they are less apt than younger
people to lose money or property. 

A partial explanation for the perception of the
elderly as more frequently victimized may stem from
their greater tendency to report fraud to the
authorities. The reports bring these people to
investigators' attention. Another possibility is
that older people are being unfairly stereotyped.
The study findings suggest that far from being the
trusting and compliant victims commonly portrayed
in much of the fraud literature, the elderly
clearly get smarter as they get older. 

------------------------------
What Is Personal Criminal Fraud? 

A type of property crime, fraud is the deliberate
intent, targeted against individuals, to deceive
for the purpose of illegal financial gain. The
deception consists of the misrepresentation of
facts, generally through promises of goods,
services, or other benefits that do not exist or
that the offender never intended to provide. 

Included in this definition are various forms of
telemarketing fraud, frauds involving consumer
goods and services, deceptive financial advice, and
scams in insurance coverage and investment or
business dealings. Examples include offers of
"free" prizes that contain hidden costs, scams
involving credit assistance or loan consolidation,
unauthorized use of credit card or bank account
numbers, charity scams, worthless warranties,
fraudulent health or beauty products, and provision
of unnecessary or useless goods and services,
including repairs. 

Asking about Fraud 

The questions asked in the survey present examples
of the multiple types of fraud. Some of the
questions are as follows: 

o Has anyone ever sold or tried to sell you what
they claimed was a lottery ticket, or a ticket of
admission which turned out to be fake?

o Has a stockbroker, a financial planner, or
someone like that ever given you false, deceptive,
or deliberately misleading information or advice in
order to swindle you out of money or property?

o Has anyone ever pretended to be the police or a
bank official in order to get you to withdraw money
from your bank and give it to them?

o Has anyone convinced or tried to convince you to
put money into a business venture such as a
work-at-home plan, a franchise, or a business
opportunity that you found out was a fraud or a
fake?
------------------------------

Are the educated immune? Other than age, education
is the only factor affecting the frequency of
victimization. Here again, the findings challenge
conventional wisdom, which holds that educated
people are less likely to be victims of this type
of crime. What the survey found was that people at
the extremes of the education spectrum (those
without a high school diploma and those with
graduate degrees) are least likely to be touched by
fraud. It is those who have some college or an
undergraduate degree who appear to be the most
vulnerable to fraud. Moreover, the level of
education does not affect the outcome; that is,
education has no relationship to whether the fraud,
when attempted, actually succeeds. In fact, an
attempt to defraud someone with a graduate degree
is slightly more likely to succeed than an attempt
against someone who did not finish high school.

Education does not appear to confer the protection
that might be expected in a type of crime that
calls for a battle of wits (rather than a physical
confrontation) between victim and assailant. This
being the case, for an individual to believe that
more education means greater ability to deal with
con artists could prove a costly supposition. 

The combined effects of youth and education. It may
be that age and education are working in tandem to
make these fraud victims more vulnerable. Younger,
better-educated people may have wider interests and
engage in a broader range of activities. For these
reasons they may be more likely to find themselves
in circumstances (such as inclusion on telephone or
mailing lists) that can result in fraudulent
solicitations. In addition, the typically lower
incomes of young people in general may make them
more receptive to promises of fabulous bargains and
spectacular opportunities. Compared to their
elders, they have not had time to become sadder but
wiser about such matters.

Is there a "typical" victim? Looking at the
characteristics of people affected by fraud
attempts that succeed, the researchers found no
standard profile. There is no "typical" fraud
victim. Demographic variables such as education,
income, age, race, and gender do not significantly
influence an individual's likelihood of succumbing
to a fraud attempt. Nor is the success of the
attempt related to the region of the country where
a prospective victim lives; fraud is as likely to
succeed in rural as in urban areas. In other words,
none of these factors is significant in predicting
whether attempted fraud will succeed.

The most common kinds of fraud 

When it comes to identifying the types of fraud
that are most common, the findings once again defy
the stereotypes. Frauds often cited by experts who
investigate these matters are the "pigeon drop,"
impersonations of bank officials or official
inspectors, and schemes involving counterfeit
tickets (such as lottery and admission tickets) and
fraudulent offers of credit repair. In fact, the
survey revealed that appliance and auto repair
scams, fraudulent prices, 900-number swindles, fake
subscriptions, and fake warranties were not only
attempted most frequently, but were also most
likely to succeed. 

Some may argue that the types of fraud found to be
most common involve consumer transactions and could
be interpreted as being misunderstandings between
vendors and customers, or as instances of consumer
dissatisfaction. However, the survey was
specifically designed to orient the respondent from
the outset to report events that were criminal and
fraudulent and that involved not misunderstandings
but deliberate intents to deceive. (See "The Design
of the Fraud Study.")

The findings also revealed that other types of
fraud, though frequently attempted, are not often
successful. These included offers of "free" prizes,
credit card number scams, and fake charities.

Circumstances affecting the outcome 

Knowledge and locational factors. The success or
failure of an attempt to defraud also depends on
the circumstances surrounding the crime. One
determining circumstance is the relationship of
victim to offender. Frauds in which the prospective
victim is acquainted with or has some knowledge of
the offender are more likely to succeed than those
in which victim and offender are strangers. This
makes intuitive sense, since acquaintance may
inspire trust. 

Success is also related to the way the contact is
first made. Frauds initially attempted through the
mail or by phone are less likely to succeed than
those made face to face, through a third person,
through television, or in the print media. The
location of the initial contact also affects
success. Fraud tends to be less successful when the
attempt is made in the victim's home than when
contact is made at the offender's home or place of
business, at the victim's work place, or in the
victim's neighborhood. 

The victim's knowledge of the crime. Other
circumstances affecting the outcome of attempted
fraud have to do with the way the victim relates to
the offense itself rather than to the offender.
Thus, if the victim knows nothing about the crime
being attempted, and if he or she takes no action
to investigate the matter before proceeding to take
the bait, the fraud is more likely to succeed.
Since this type of circumstance involves knowledge,
it is more amenable to modification and presents
opportunities for preventive intervention. 

Seeking help from the authorities 

One of the most unsettling findings was that only a
small percentage of incidents were reported to the
authorities: just 15 percent overall. Of these, the
majority (62 percent) were brought to the attention
of the police or other law enforcement agency,
while most of the remaining reports were filed with
consumer protection agencies and the Better
Business Bureau. Moreover, when victims reported
the incidents to authorities, they tended to
receive little in the way of a response. 

The likelihood that a fraud will be reported has no
relationship to whether it succeeded or failed. In
other words, victims are no more likely to report
cases in which the crime was carried out
successfully than those that were attempted but
failed.

What can be done to better combat fraud?

Public education could make a difference in
preventing fraud. As noted, attempts were less
likely to succeed in cases where victims had heard
of the particular fraud they experienced. Thus,
information about the types of fraud prevalent in a
certain area or at a certain time, and about the
modus operandi of con artists operating in a
certain area or at a certain time could be useful
in exposing the scams and forewarning prospective
victims. Since there is essentially no typical
victim, the information net needs to be cast
widely, highlighting the pervasiveness of the
threat and noting the at-risk status of virtually
all sectors of society. Young people and people
with relatively high levels of education need to
know they are not immune. Information about
prevalent frauds needs to be supplemented by
counsel about what prospective victims can do to
protect themselves through detection and
prevention. This information might be made
available through 800-numbers and by referrals to
service providers. 

A "heads-up" for law enforcement. The revelation
that comparatively few incidents are reported to
the authorities--law enforcement and others--and
that the response is not what victims think it
might be indicates another area of need and
suggests that fraud victims may merit more
attention than they are now receiving. 

------------------------------
The Design of the Fraud Study 

The survey that formed the basis of the study used
a random sample representative of the adult
population of the United States. A total of 1,246
respondents were contacted by telephone in the
survey, which was administered in 1991. With a
participation rate of 66 percent, minimal weighting
was required for nonparticipation.

Attempted as well as completed crimes were
examined, in what is believed to be the first study
of victimization by multiple types of fraud. An
initial series of questions was designed to orient
respondents' thinking to the criminal nature of
these incidents. The respondents were then
presented with descriptions of 21 types of fraud
(plus a catch-all "any other" category) and were
asked if they had ever been victimized or if an
attempt had ever been made to victimize them. 

Recent victimization was studied in some depth
through questions that probed for detailed
information about incidents of fraud or attempted
fraud experienced in the previous 12 months. The
focus on recent experience was meant to ensure
greater accuracy of recall. In these "incident
reports," respondents were asked about the
characteristics of the crime and the offender, the
effects of the crime, whether the crime was
reported, and what type of assistance, if any, was
received. 

Demographic data--information about age, race,
gender, education, and other information--were
obtained to enable researchers to profile the
victims. 

The survey instrument (the questionnaire) was
designed by National Institute of Justice staff
with input from fraud investigators and was
administered by the survey research firm of
Schulman, Ronca, and Bucuvalas; NIJ staff
researchers analyzed the results. 
------------------------------

Toward a better understanding

The study was intended as an overview of fraud,
designed in part as an exploratory attempt to find
out if fraud victimization could be effectively
measured. More indepth studies are needed to
explore the many facets of the issue. Future
research could take a number of directions: 

o Analyses of information avail-able from public
and private organizations that deal with consumer
protection and the investigation and prosecution of
fraud. Because reporting rates are low and may not
represent all fraud victims, other kinds of
research are also needed. 

o Analysis of information from victims, agencies to
which the victims report the incidents, and court
and corrections records. This more comprehensive
approach could be based on a representative sample
of cases and would produce a more complete picture
of how these crimes are perpetrated, investigated,
prosecuted, and punished. It might also include
detailed profiles of the offenders and their modus
operandi. 

o Regularly conducted, nationwide surveys of fraud
victimization, similar to the National Crime
Victimization Survey, conducted annually by the
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice
Statistics to obtain data on FBI-designated "Part
I" (serious) crimes. 

Specific questions to explore. Several issues could
not be examined within the scope of the current
study. These included:

o The reasons some people are more likely than
others to be targeted by con artists. (This is
important to explore because there are no
demographic differences between people targeted by
a fraud attempt and people who are not.) 

o The strategies employed by people who are more
adept than others in resisting attempts at fraud. 

o The public information programs that are most
effective in educating people about fraud and how
to resist it. 

o The ways that law enforcement and regulatory
agencies can more proactively detect and respond to
emerging fraud schemes with less reliance on
reporting by victims.

o How the criminal justice system can develop and
use more appropriate sanctions for deterring fraud.

Notes

1. For discussion of the limited research, see
Kusic, Jane, White Collar Crime Prevention
Handbook, Vienna, VA: White Collar Crime 101, 1989;
and Moore, Elizabeth, and Michael Mills, "The
Neglected Victims and Unexamined Costs of White
Collar Crime," Crime and Delinquency 36 (1990):
408-18.

2. A Harris and Associates study of telemarketing
fraud found it has been used against nearly one in
three Americans. A survey of telemarketing and
other direct personal marketing frauds, conducted
among older people by Princeton Survey Research
Associates under the sponsorship of the American
Association of Retired Persons (AARP), revealed
that three-fourths of the respondents said they had
recently been deceived or defrauded by such
schemes. Bass, Ron, and Lois Hoeffler,
Telephone-Based Fraud: A Survey of the American
Public, New York: Louis Harris and Associates,
Inc., 1992; and American Association of Retired
Persons, A Report on the 1993 Survey of Older
Consumer Behavior, Washington, D.C.: AARP, 1994.

3. Benson, Michael, Francis Cullen, and William
Maakestad, Local Prosecutors and Corporate Crime,
Research in Brief, Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice, 1993; Geis, Gilbert, and Ezra Stotland,
White Collar Crime: Theory and Research, Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage, 1980; and Moore and Mills,
"Neglected Victims and Unexamined Costs." 

Richard Titus, Ph.D., manages NIJ's victims of
crime program. Fred Heinzelmann, Ph.D., is the
former director of NIJ's crime prevention and
enforcement division. John M. Boyle, Ph.D., is
senior vice president of the survey research firm,
Schulman, Ronca, and Bucuvalas, Inc. Dr. Titus may
be reached at NIJ by fax at 202-307-6394, and by
e-mail at titus@justice.usdoj.gov.
--------------------------------------------

Technology Transfer From Defense: Concealed Weapon
Detection

Speaking to members of the defense, intelligence,
and industrial communities in November 1993, U.S.
Attorney General Janet Reno contrasted their
victory in the Cold War, ending with the collapse
of the Soviet Union, to the battle still being 
waged domestically against crime. She likened the
new mission of her audience--trying to keep the
peace in distant areas where "the enemy" is hard to
recognize, well-armed, and aggressive--to that of
the law enforcement community:

"So let me welcome you to the kind of war our
police fight every day. And let me challenge you to
turn your skills that served us so well in the Cold
War to helping us with the war we're now fighting
daily in the streets of our towns and cities across
the Nation."

Shortly after this challenge was issued, the
Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of
Defense (DoD) entered a 5-year partnership to
formalize joint technology sharing and development
efforts for law enforcement and those military
operations unrelated to war. The Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) signed by both agencies gives
examples of technologies that have both law
enforcement and military applications:

o Less-than-lethal weapons that use blinding
light/sticky foam.

o Inexpensive night vision goggles.

o "Smart guns" that can only be fired by an
authorized user.

o Virtual reality training, simulation, and mission
planning. 

o Devices that can detect bombs, mines, and
weapons. 

Under the MOU, the systematic transfer of existing
technologies into the law enforcement and criminal
justice communities is permitted for the first
time. One result of the cooperative arrangement has
been to enable DoD to use the regional centers of
the National Law Enforcement Technology Center
(NLETC) to support its nonwar-related research and
development work on producing better tools for law
enforcement. (For more information on NLETC, see
box, "Law Enforcement's `One-Stop Shop' for New
Technology Product Information.") Another major
consequence is an NIJ initiative to draw on DoD
technologies to develop ways to find concealed
weapons.

NIJ-sponsored research on a police department
experiment in Kansas City1 showed that crime rates
went down in neighborhoods where police seized
illegal weapons. The experiment was based on
adherence to Fourth Amendment limitations on
searching only those individuals for whom there was
reasonable suspicion that they were carrying
concealed weapons. But what would happen if
technology would permit less intrusive searches?

Developing devices to detect concealed weapons 

In response to growing public concern over the
illegal possession of concealed weapons on the
streets and in public buildings, NIJ launched an
initiative in March 1995 to promote development of
technology that would enhance the detection and
identification of weapons carried by unauthorized
individuals. NIJ Director Jeremy Travis defined the
goal of the project as finding ways to lower the
risk for law enforcement personnel in dealing with
criminal suspects. For example, police officers
could stop a car, order suspects out, and scan them
for concealed weapons without police officers'
having to leave the safety of their car. Funding to
design and field test prototype detection systems
has been approved for three separate technologies,
each employing different physical principles and
each having situation-specific strengths and
weaknesses. NIJ expects one or more of the
detectors to be in commercial production within 3
years. These technologies draw on those used by DoD
to track Russian submarines and locate buried
nuclear waste.

------------------------------
Law Enforcement's "One-Stop Shop" for New
Technology Product Information 

The law enforcement and criminal justice
communities now have access to a centralized
information source--a "one-stop" shop--for
state-of-the-art technology and product
information. The National Law Enforcement
Technology Center (NLETC) expands on NIJ's
Technology Assessment Program Information Center
(TAPIC), which has provided technology information
for nearly two decades. NLETC's data bases will
initially include: manufacturer and product
identification information, a user product data
exchange to link potential purchasers with product
users, and technical assistance to help agencies
locate or borrow equipment or identify experts in a
particular field.

Special advisory panels and councils--with members
from law enforcement, the courts, the military,
academia, and community and private industry
groups--will provide a "reality check" for
technologies under consideration for potential
development by NIJ. 

NLETC regional centers

Regional centers are integral to NLETC's mission of
providing diverse and timely support to law
enforcement and criminal justice communities. Each
of these centers, linked by a Technology
Information Network, will perform specialized
services: 

o Charleston, South Carolina--corrections
technologies and development of the electronic hub
for NLETC's Technology Information Network.

o Denver, Colorado--interoperability problems in
law enforcement, including ways to facilitate
communication across jurisdictional lines using
existing equipment.

o El Segundo, California--investigative and
surveillance technology support. 

o Rome, New York--weaponry and weapons safety
technologies.

o San Diego, California--development of
technologies to control border-related crime.

o Wheeling, West Virginia--technology transfer from
the Federal laboratories to industry for
development/manufacture of useful law enforcement
tools. 

The Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) at
the National Institute of Standards and Technology-
-another component of NLETC--develops voluntary
national performance standards for compliance
testing to ensure that individual items of
equipment are suitable for use by criminal justice
agencies. OLES also produces user guides that
explain in nontechnical terms the capabilities of
available equipment. Technologies now under
development include: improved methods for DNA
identification and fingerprinting, less-than-lethal
technologies for subduing suspects without injury,
and improved technology for suspect-tracking and
detection of contraband, concealed weapons, and
illicit substances. 

Accessing NLETC's information network

Users of NLETC's one-stop shop will be able to
access information about a broad range of products
and technologies applicable to their individual
requirements. Information on how to use NLETC's
network is currently accessible via:

o An 800 telephone number linked to the National
Center.

o Dial-up access to data bases and bulletin boards.

o Technology Beat newsletter.

o National and regional conferences and national
and local publications.

o Visitor centers that will showcase technology.

The NLETC center in Rockville, Maryland, houses a
reading room and a visitors area that showcases new
and emerging technologies. To learn more about
NLETC, please call 800-248-2742 or write NLETC, Box
1160, Rockville, MD 20849.
------------------------------

Passive millimeter wave images. The Millitech
Corporation's recent development of passive imaging
technology operating in the millimeter wave portion
of the electromagnetic spectrum offers the
opportunity for rapid and remote detection at a
distance of up to 12 feet, without a direct
physical search, of metallic and nonmetallic
weapons, plastic explosives, drugs, and other
contraband concealed under multiple layers of
clothing. This purely passive imaging technique
relies solely on existing natural emissions from
objects, does not require manmade irradiation of
the person. Screening observations of individuals
can be done remotely and with discretion as
required. Although passive millimeter wave imaging
devices do literally see through clothing, the
resulting image display does not reveal intimate
anatomical details of the person.

The passive imaging approach to the detection of
concealed weapons and other contraband hidden under
people's clothing works well at millimeter
wavelengths because of a fortunate convergence of
several key factors:

o Adequate resolution in a reasonable sensor size.

o The high transparency of virtually all clothing. 

o The extraordinarily high emissivity (the power of
a surface to emit heat by radiation) of human skin.


The project will include the development,
fabrication, and evaluation of a fixed-site camera
(that could be mounted on a police cruiser) and
monitoring console and a proof-of-concept hand-held
camera with a video screen, connected by cable to a
signal analyzer box. Designs will also be developed
for a totally portable, battery-powered camera and
a standoff camera system suitable for use from a
law enforcement vehicle.

Low-frequency electromagnetic radiation. The
Raytheon Company will design and field test a
concealed weapons detection device based on low
frequency electromagnetic radiation. When trained
on a subject and linked to a computer, the device
will send a signal (e.g., a green light) indicating
that the person is armed.

Much of the basic development work has already been
completed by Raytheon. In the NIJ project, the
company will conduct an experiment that will test
the system's feasibility and provide performance
data on probabilities of detection and false alarm
rates. The experiment will establish that
sufficient discriminating ability exists to meet
police "probable cause" requirements for a physical
search for weapons. This technology has the
potential for development of portable and
"standoff" weapon detection devices.

The system is expected to have a low probability of
false alarms, will not require the current type of
configuration in which a person walks through a
portal equipped with a magnetic sensor, and can be
operated in an unobtrusive manner. (Because the
system could be housed in a small object like a
brief case, a person under surveillance would not
be aware of being monitored.) The concept is based
on illuminating the subject with a low-intensity
electromagnetic pulse known as a Heaviside pulse
and measuring the time decay of the reradiated
energy from metal objects carried by the person.
The intensity and the time decay of the secondary
radiation can be characterized and the "signatures"
identified as a gun or nonthreatening metal object.
System applications range from large gathering
places, such as shopping malls, schools, meeting
places, and airports, to small stores and banks. 

Magnetic gradient measurements. The Idaho National
Engineering Laboratory concealed weapon detection
scheme will utilize a proven, existing technology
used in mineral exploration, environmental
characterization, military navigation, and
submarine detection. The technology is based on
passive sampling of the earth's magnetic field.
Local aberrations in the magnetic field produced by
ferromagnetic objects such as guns and knives will
be detected and measured by extremely sensitive
magnetometers. This is a new application of an
existing technology--magnetometer sensors, which
are commercially available.

The proposed approach is to construct a scanner
that can be a stand-alone unit, much like an
airport scanner system, or directly incorporated
into doorways or hallways of a building, but that
is more reliable than those currently in use. Data
will be collected simultaneously from all sensors
in the system providing a top to bottom magnetic
profile of a person. Reasonable suspicion will be
dictated by the location and magnitude of magnetic
anomalies. The system will be used to collect
magnetic profiles of a variety of weapons in
differing locations and a number of nonweapon
personal artifacts to establish an electronic
catalog of magnetic signatures. These signatures
will later be used in analysis schemes that will
determine the presence, location, and, potentially,
the type of weapon carried. This technology will
only detect ferromagnetic materials, but few
handguns are likely to be excluded from detection.

Crime-fighting tools for today 

As the weapon detection initiative illustrates,
much of the technology needed in the law
enforcement community has been around for awhile,
but until now it has not been available or fully
suited to law enforcement and criminal justice
requirements.  Through technology transfer,
existing and useful technologies to help fight
crime today can be quickly identified and adapted.
David Boyd, who as head of NIJ's Science and
Technology Division oversees these and other
projects that assist law enforcement, noted why
technology transfer is as important as technology
development. "We exploit what's already out there--
by taking products straight off the shelf or
spending some time adapting them to police use--and
we make gains in efficiency," he said. "And while
developing new technologies for law enforcement is
critically important, equally important is the
ability to deliver existing technologies into the
hands of the police right now." 

Notes

1. Sherman, Lawrence W., and James W. Shaw, The
Kansas City Gun Experiment, Research in Brief,
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice,
National Institute of Justice, January 1995 (NCJ
150855). 

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

The CALEA Standards: What Is the Fit With Community
Policing?

by Gary W. Cordner and Gerald L. Williams

Accreditation confers recognition that a level of
professional competence has been attained through
conformance with measurable standards. For law
enforcement agencies, standards are defined by the
Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement
Agencies (CALEA). Although only about 2 percent of
the Nation's 17,000 law enforcement agencies have
been accredited by CALEA, the program is important
because it signifies achievement on the part of the
accredited departments and because it establishes
uniform national standards for policing. 

CALEA standards cover many aspects of law
enforcement and tend to promote the adoption of
formalized practices. By contrast, community
policing calls for a more open, informal approach
to law enforcement than has been traditional. For
this reason, there is some belief that CALEA
standards are contradictory to the principles of
community policing. This thinking prompted a study
of the CALEA standards to determine their
compatibility with the community policing approach.


Researchers looked at problem-policing and
community policing, and also examined
organization/management as key aspects of structure
and process thought to be affected by
accreditation. Finally, researchers conducted an
overall assessment of the CALEA standards. The
study findings indicated that the CALEA standards
neither supported nor contradicted community
policing goals and policies. 

Application to community policing. For the most
part, the CALEA standards were silent or neutral
about community policing. Few standards pertained
directly to this enforcement approach, and those
that did corroborated community policing precepts.
For example, there were almost no standards related
to the issue of community input. Only a few
encouraged or required community input in areas
such as recruitment, crime prevention, and
community relations, but no standards clearly
discouraged or prohibited community input. Overall,
the accreditation standards supported a limited
form of community policing, and very few of them
appeared to seriously impede implementation of the
more far-reaching forms. 

Application to problem-oriented policing. When the
standards' compatibility with problem-solving or
problem-oriented policing was examined, the
researchers found them generally supportive of the
analysis and collaboration called for in these
approaches. One standard recommends analyzing vice
and organized crime complaints to "evaluate both
the community problem and public attitudes toward
the problem." A number of the standards encouraged
or required collaboration with outside agencies or
officials, among them courts, prosecutors, fire
departments, and social services (including
victim-witness assistance). 

None of the standards specifically refers to
problem-oriented policing, nor do any require the
full problem-solving process. Rather, they tend to
encourage analysis and collaboration within a
largely conventional and incident-based framework.
And although the standards do not proscribe
attention to fear of crime, disorder, and similar
matters, they tend to focus on the more traditional
issues of crime and traffic. 

Organization/management. Overwhelmingly, the
standards require formalization of organizational
practices. Usually, this takes the form of
requirements for written directives. Typical
standards begin with the phrase, "A written
directive," followed by such terms as "requires,"
"establishes," or "specifies." By no means,
however, do the standards seem to advocate the
centralized or hierarchical structures typical of
traditional law enforcement organizations. The
CALEA standards tend to require specialization by
task much more than the creation of special units,
but many of the pro-task specialization standards
simply require that responsibility for some
function be vested in an identifiable person or
position or that specialized training be provided. 

Managerial accountability is stressed in the
standards more than operational accountability. In
other words, managers and supervisors more than
patrol officers and detectives are covered in the
accountability standards. The accountability
standards that do apply to the rank-and-file tend
to emphasize administrative tasks rather than
performance or service to the public. 

A number of the standards encourage police
departments to be more concerned about employees
and customers and, perhaps surprisingly, given the
accreditation program's emphasis on promulgation of
written directives, few standards directly reduce
or even provide guidelines for police officer
discretion.

Overall assessment. By far, most CALEA standards
were deemed to have little affinity with either the
"professional" or community policing models. The
standards focused much more on administrative
matters than on police operations. Even standards
in sections entitled "Operations" often pertained
more to administration. Finally, the standards were
considered to be more process- than
outcome-oriented; that is, they emphasized methods
and procedures rather than goals, objectives, or
products.

While the CALEA standards do not directly conflict
with the principles of community policing, they
offer little more than modest support for a quite
limited version of this enforcement approach. Thus,
while the standards encourage law enforcement
agencies to gather and analyze data and to
collaborate with other public and private agencies,
they do not require systematic adoption of
problem-oriented policing. They view police work
and police administration more in terms of
incidents than problems, and they cite such current
concerns as drugs, citizens' fear, disorder, and
community relations in only a very few instances.
In general, the standards encourage agencies to
"work smarter, not harder," but not necessarily to
reconsider their basic assumptions about police
work and their basic methods of providing police
service. Taken as a whole, they reflect more
concern with internal organizational issues than
with substantive community problems.

For the most part, the standards tell police
executives how to set up and run their
organizations. They do not specify philosophy or
strategy to any great extent and they leave most
questions about day-to-day operations and service
delivery to each agency's discretion. Thus,
agencies committed to community policing will not
find much in the accreditation standards that
interfere with their strategic orientation. By the
same token, agencies that look to the accreditation
standards for strategic guidance will not be
directed to community policing to any great extent.


Implications for the future. It seems likely that
police officials who envision a fairly limited
version of community policing will find nothing in
the accreditation program's administratively
oriented standards that interferes with their
management of community policing. On the other
hand, police officials whose greatest concerns are
with empowering their officers, encouraging
risk-taking, and removing organizational barriers
to employee creativity may find the accreditation
standards more constraining to the implementation
of their versions of community policing. 

Since the study was conducted, the CALEA standards
have been revised, and a third edition was
published in April 1994. The impetus for the
revision, which reduced the number of standards by
more than half (from 897 to 436), was to eliminate
duplication. The change should make it easier for
police agencies to apply for accreditation and
should therefore generate more applications. The
researchers are analyzing the revised standards and
conducting case studies of law enforcement agencies
at 12 sites (all are CALEA-accredited), examining
how community policing functions within the
framework of the standards.

Gary W. Cordner, Ph.D., an NIJ Fellow, is a
professor in the College of Law Enforcement at
Eastern Kentucky University. Gerald L. Williams,
Ph.D., is Director of the Bill Blackwood Law
Enforcement Management Institute of Texas, at Sam
Houston State University. Their work is being
supported by NIJ grant #92-IJ-CX-K038