Crime Prevention

This month, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) released a white paper that shares successful international interventions that have been initiated to foster desistance. Since the mid-1990s, there have been regularly sustained research efforts to expand global knowledge of why people stop offending, which have been instrumental for increased awareness of desistance causes. However, a critical gap remains of practical strategies for implementation in crime-prevention practices and sentencing procedures within the criminal justice system.

In August, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention conducted a literature review of national evidence-based research on restorative justice for juveniles. The framework has long been debated on its differences to more traditional interactions with justice-involved individuals. By uniting victims, justice-involved youths, community members, and other key stakeholders, restorative justice programs seek to help youths understand the implications of their actions and offer opportunities for community reconnection and harm reduction.

This year, AEquitas released a guide for preventing and responding to violent crime by enhancing prosecutors’ ability to build safer communities through increased collaboration with community leaders. As key members of the criminal justice system, prosecutors can play an important role in uniting community leaders to create and implement policies, practices, and initiatives for sustainability and the reduction of violence.

The Vera Institute of Justice has recently developed a guide to analyzing jail data to better inform impactful policy creation and social change. The guide provides strategies for obtaining quantitative data on jail populations from local government and other sources, definitions of data points generally collected about jail populations, best-practices for prepping data sets for most effective analysis, and suggestions for different types of analysis that could be performed with that data.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the National Gang Center (NCG) have published a guide for law enforcement officials to developing a framework to address youth gang problems in their communities. A Law Enforcement Official’s Guide to the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model aims to provide law enforcement leaders with an overview of the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model, which is an evidence-based framework for the coordination of multiple data-driven, anti-gang and violence-reduction strategies to address youth gang problems.

On August 18, 2021, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Education, and the White House Domestic Policy Council, hosted the third webinar in the Community Violence Intervention (CVI) Webinar Series. During the webinar, titled “CVI Webinar Series Part 3: CVI in Practice,” leading CVI experts shared their on-the-ground experiences on how to implement CVI strategies within communities.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services, has published a guide on Evidence-Based Crime Reduction Strategies for Small, Rural, and Tribal Agencies. This guide aims to provide information on evidence-based policing practices in small, rural, and tribal agencies to help tackle the unique challenges these law enforcement agencies face.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) has recently expanded its Firearms Technical Assistance Project (FTAP), which aims to help communities across the country reduce domestic violence homicides and injuries committed with firearms.

As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to support communities seeking to implement or expand community violence intervention efforts, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of Education, and the White House Domestic Policy Council, has hosted a webinar series on Community Violence Intervention (CVI).

The recently published third edition of Law Enforcement Intelligence – A Guide for State, Local, and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies (Law Enforcement Intelligence Guide) aims to spark a policy-oriented discussion of current initiatives, national standards, and best practices for law enforcement agencies aiming to enhance intelligence capabilities. The guide builds upon the previous two editions by describing changes in intelligence practices in the context emerging threats and criminal extremism beyond international terrorism.