Strengthening the National Institute of Justice
By: Committee on Assessing the Research Program of the National Institute of Justice ; Charles F. Wellford, Betty M. Chemers, and Julie A. Schuck, editors ; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education ; National Research Council of the National Academies
Contributors: Wellford, Charles F.; Chemers, Betty M.; Schuck, Julie Anne; National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Law and Justice
Publisher: National Academies Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 310
ISBN-13: 9780309156356
Subjects: National Institute of Justice (U.S.); Administration of Criminal justice; Evaluation
Description: "The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the nation's primary resource for advancing scientific research, development, and evaluation on crime and crime control and the administration of justice in the United States. Headed by a presidentially appointed director, it is one of the major units in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under its authorizing legislation, NIJ awards grants and contracts to a variety of public and private organizations and individuals. At the request of NIJ, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice assesses the operations and quality of the full range of its programs. These include social science research, science and technology research and development, capacity building, and technology assistance.

The book concludes that a federal research institute such as NIJ is vital to the nation's continuing efforts to control crime and administer justice. No other federal, state, local, or private organization can do what NIJ was created to do. Forty years ago, Congress envisioned a science agency dedicated to building knowledge to support crime prevention and control by developing a wide range of techniques for dealing with individual offenders, identifying injustices and biases in the administration of justice, and supporting more basic and operational research on crime and the criminal justice system and the involvement of the community in crime control efforts. As the embodiment of that vision, NIJ has accomplished a great deal. It has succeeded in developing a body of knowledge on such important topics as hot spots policing, violence against women, the role of firearms and drugs in crime, drug courts, and forensic DNA analysis. It has helped build the crime and justice research infrastructure. It has also widely disseminated the results of its research programs to help guide practice and policy. But its efforts have been severely hampered by a lack of independence, authority, and discretionary resources to carry out its mission."--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.

Also available online.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The federal role in research on crime and justice; title: The research program offices; title: Research operations and staffing resources; title: Building a research infrastructure and guiding policy and practice; title: Assessing research programs; title: Recommendations.