By Ted Gest
Eight of America's leading criminal justice scholars look back over four decades of analysis--and draw lessons for future policy and research.
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By Erik Roskes
Therapeutic courts may have consequences not intended by their leaders and participants. Most of these courts begin with noble motives. That said, good intentions can lead in many directions if unchecked by objective reviewers or evaluators.
Read full entry »Senior Associate
Pew Center on the States
Florida
Read full entry »The 2011 Stockholm Prize in Criminology has been jointly awarded to John Laub, director of the National Institute of Justice, and Robert Sampson, a Harvard social sciences professor, for their research showing why and how criminals stop offending. Laub and Sampson are authors of a long-running life-course study of criminal behavior. They discovered that even very active criminals can stop committing crimes for good after key "turning points" in their lives, including marriage, military service and employment. Their influential work has been been published in numerous articles and two books, "Crime in the Making" (1993) and "Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives" (2003).
Laub and Sampson will receive the prize next June in Stockholm, Sweden. The international prize is awarded by the Swedish Ministry of Justice for outstanding achievements in crime research or for the application of research by practitioners for the reduction of crime and the advancement of human rights. Laub directs the NIJ, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. He is on leave as a University of Maryland criminology professor. Sampson, former chairman of Harvard's Department of Sociology, is on leave at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York.
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In 1935, the United States opened the first federal prison to house convicted drug addicts. The "Narcotic Farm" in Lexington, Kentucky soon became an epicenter for drug treatment and addiction research. For forty years it was alsothe gathering place for this country’s growing drug subculture.
Find out more about the the book and accompanying documentary here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on Drugs.
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After the Madoff affair and the Dutch construction fraud were exposed researcher Henk van de Bunt examined the problem in a new article," Walls of Secrecy and Silence: The Madoff Case and Cartels in the Construction Industry." The report argues that the success of these massive fraud lies in the successful concealment of illegal activities by the perpetrators and in the presence of silence in their social environment.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on Fraud.
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The State Department released their annual report, "To Walk the Earth in Safety," about its worldwide weapons eradication program in mine clearance and destruction assistance. Th U.S. works in 32 countries to destroy weapons, as well as implement programs to assist conflict survivors and inform area residents of potential risks from unexploded munitions.
Read the report here.
Use The Crime Report for more information on international criminal justice.
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The criminal justice division of the American Bar Association released their annual report: The State of Criminal Justice 2010. Authors from across the criminal justice field provide essays on topics ranging from white collar crime to international law to juvenile justice. The 2010 volume contains 19 chapters focusing on specific aspects of the criminal justice field, with new addition of full text and reports of all of the adopted official ABA policies passed in 2009-2010 that address criminal justice issues.
Access the report here.
Additionally the committee also released a list of active criminal justice Federal legislation.
Read the list here.
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New data on identity theft victimization reported by households from the National Crime Victimization Survey was released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. These statistical tables provide 2007 data on rates and types of identity theft, as well as demographic characteristics of victimized households and their monetary losses.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on identity theft.
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On June 25 and 26th 2010, 18 journalists from across the country gathered with preeminent experts in tribal justice at The University of New Mexico School Of Law for a specialized reporting institute. The Institute, one of a series of advanced journalism workshops on pressing topics supported annually by the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation, is co-sponsored by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on Media, Crime and Justice (CMCJ), the Department of Communication &Journalism at University of New Mexico, the School of Law at the University of New Mexico and the Native American Journalists Association.
Topics discussed included: jurisdictional issues on and off reservation, violence against women, substance abuse use among native population, and the theft of native art and cultural artifacts. Speakers included: Brendan Johnson, U.S. Attorney, District of South Dakota, Bernadine Martin, Chief Prosecutor, Navajo Nation, Everett Little Whiteman, Director of Public Safety, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Marcus MacCaskill, Special Agent, FBI, and Tracy Toulou, Director of the Office of Tribal Justice, Department of Justice.
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Read the full Web site here.
Use The Crime Report to find out more information about police accountability and civil liberties.
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Adam Gelb, Director of the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States, was on Capitol Hill May 11, testifying before a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee about the state of the American criminal justice system. With 1 out of 100 Americans behind bars, Gelb testified that five states now spend more money on incarceration than they do on higher education, but that the success of some states in reducing incarceration rates "firmly debunk[s] the notion that if imprisonment goes down, crime will go up." Gelb praised efforts at "justice reinvestment" and the HOPE Probation program, and asked Congress to support them.
Click here to read the testimony.
Read full entry »April 21, 2:00-3:30 p.m.
Office of Justice Programs
810 7th Street NW
Washington, DC
The seminar is free, but you must RSVP to gain access to the building. RSVP to Yolanda Curtis at 202-305-2554 or Yolanda.Curtis@usdoj.gov. Allow 20 minutes to go through security.
Read full entry »March 18, 2010
American University Washington College of Law, Room 528
Washington, D.C.
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