U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice February 1996 Thinking Globally To Act Locally NIJ Improves Worldwide Access to Criminal Justice Information The Latest Criminal Justice Videotape Series From NIJ: Research in Progress Learn about the latest developments in criminal justice research from prominent criminal justice experts. Each 60-minute VHS tape presents a well-known scholar discussing his or her current studies and how they relate to existing criminal justice research and includes the lecturer’s responses to audience questions. Community Policing Sentencing Policy NCJ 153273 NCJ 152236 Wesley Skogan, Ph.D. Community Policing in Peter W. Greenwood, Ph.D. Three Strikes, You’re Out: Chicago: Fact or Fiction? Benefits and Costs of California’s New Mandatory NCJ 153730 Sentencing Law. Lawrence W. Sherman, Ph.D. Reducing Gun Violence: NCJ 152237 Community Policing Against Gun Crime. Christian Pfeiffer, Ph.D. Sentencing Policy and Crime Rates in Reunified Germany. Drug AbuseTreatment NCJ 152692 Violence Prevention James Inciardi, Ph.D. A Corrections-Based Continuum NCJ 152235 of Effective Drug Abuse Treatment. Alfred Blumstein, Ph.D. Youth Violence, Guns, and Illicit Drug Markets. High-Risk Youth/ NCJ 152238 Arthur L. Kellerman, M.D., M.P.H. Understanding and Child Abuse Preventing Violence: A Public Health Perspective. NCJ 153270 NCJ 153850 Adele Harrell, Ph.D. Intervening With High-Risk Scott H. Decker, Ph.D., and Susan Pennell. Monitoring Youth: Preliminary Findings From the Children At- the Illegal Firearms Market. Risk Program. NCJ 153271 NCJ 153272 Marvin Wolfgang, Ph.D. Crime in a Birth Cohort: Cathy Spatz Widom, Ph.D. The Cycle of Violence A Replication in the People’s Republic of China. Revisited Six Years Later. NCJ 154277 NCJ 156923 Terrie Moffitt, Ph.D. Partner Violence Among Young Orlando Rodriguez, Ph.D. The New Immigrant Adults. Hispanic Populations: Implications for Crime and Delinquency in the Next Decade. NCJ 156924 Robert Sampson, Ph.D. Communities and Crime: NCJ 157643 A Study in Chicago. Benjamin E. Saunders, Ph.D., and Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph.D. Prevalence and Consequences of Child Victim- NCJ 156925 ization: Preliminary Results from the National Survey John Monahan, Ph.D. Mental Illness and Violent of Adolescents. Crime. Individual titles are available for only $19 in the United States and $24 in NTSC Format for Canada and other countries. To order, call the National Criminal Justice Reference Service at 800–851–3420. Contents Issue No. 230 The past year was one of great promise for FEATURE criminal justice. Most notably, the Crime Act of 1994 passed its first-year milestone, Thinking Globally To Act Locally: and although its future remains uncertain, NIJ Improves Worldwide Access to much has been accomplished, in program areas and in research and evaluation. At NIJ, Criminal Justice Information we began an ambitious new research agenda 2 in response to the Act as well as to other major issues of concern to the public and criminal justice. Research in Action Thus, this issue of the Journal includes a retrospective of our Crime Act-related The Crime Act One Year Later: activities and a discussion of NIJ activity NIJ’s Role generated by Title IV, the Violence Against Women Act. 9 Drug-related crime and gang crime are Prison-Based Therapeutic Communities: treated by prominent researchers. Douglas Their Success With Drug-Abusing Offenders Lipton explains why there is cause for opti- mism regarding the efficacy of treatment 12 for drug-abusing offenders; and Cheryl Maxson argues that although gangs continue Violence Against Women: Reflections to plague our communities, the diffusion on NIJ’s Research Agenda of gang members from urban areas appears 21 not to be as dramatic a factor in influencing gang activity as had been believed. Street Gang Migration: How Big a Threat? Ensuring that research findings make their 26 way into practice is a special interest of NIJ, and strengthening ties between researchers Rethinking Criminal Justice Policy: and practitioners is one means to that end. A View From the Research Community NIJ was gratified when the Attorney General asked the American Society of Criminology 32 (ASC) to identify recent research findings that could inform crime control policy. Sum- Update on CALEA Study maries of the ASC reports are presented here. 37 There is also an update on NIJ’s involve- ment in an area in which I take particular pride. When President Clinton addressed the United Nations on the 50th anniversary The National Institute of Justice Journal clearinghouse of criminal justice informa- of its founding, he noted that the lines be- (previously known as NIJ Reports) tion, is sponsored by the Office of Justice tween crime committed at home and abroad is published by the National Institute of Programs agencies and the Office of Na- are becoming increasingly blurred. The Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Depart- tional Drug Control Policy. Registered users steps we are taking to improve communica- ment of Justice, to announce the Institute’s of NCJRS receive the National Institute tion of criminal justice information world- policy-relevant research results and initia- of Justice Journal and Catalog free. To be- wide are included here. tives. The Attorney General has determined come a registered user, write NCJRS User that publication of this periodical is neces- Services, Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849– I want to express my gratitude for the re- sary in the transaction of the public busi- 6000, call 800–851–3420, or e-mail sponse from practitioners and researchers to ness required by law of the Department of [email protected]. the changes at NIJ and to ask for your con- Justice. tinued input. For our part, we at NIJ antici- The National Institute of Justice is a com- Opinions or points of view expressed in this ponent of the Office of Justice Programs, pate a year in which we will move closer to document are those of the authors and do not which also includes the Bureau of Justice translating these changes into better criminal necessarily reflect the official position of Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, justice operations. the U.S. Department of Justice. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin- quency Prevention, and Office for Victims Jeremy Travis The National Criminal Justice Reference of Crime. Director Service (NCJRS), a centralized national National Institute of Justice February 1996 1 Thinking Globally To Act Locally: NIJ Improves Worldwide Access to Criminal Justice Information by G. Martin Lively police chiefs and sheriffs responsible for controlling crime in U.S. towns, cities, and counties, their Russian he adage of the en- T counterparts’ concern may vironmental movement, seem foreign in more ways “Think globally, act lo- than one. cally,” also has meaning for criminal justice. In- Consumed by urgent creasingly, to be effective problems at home—gun- requires thinking beyond related crime, drug of- the local or even the na- fenses, gangs, and youth tional level. The problem violence—law enforcement of organized crime in Mos- officials are likely to have cow is an example. To the little time to contemplate 2 National Institute of Justice Journal events occurring almost halfway international exchange of informa- sophisticated and using advanced around the globe. But if they become tion in criminal justice and for faster, communication technologies to com- aware that Russian organized crime easier, worldwide access. The neces- mit crime, law enforcement, prosecu- is emigrating to Brooklyn, they may sity for collaboration among nations to tion, and other components of crim- want to learn more about crime trends control this type of crime is fairly easy inal justice need to be proficient in in Moscow. to understand because of obvious bi- their use as well. The global reach of lateral or multilateral interests. There the Internet means that the criminal The appearance of Russian organized are other trends in which the need justice community can tap resources crime in this country exemplifies the for international exchange may not be worldwide and communicate rapidly, 1 increase in transnational crime and is so evident. Crime and crime-related easily, and inexpensively. one reason criminal justice practition- problems are becoming strikingly fa- ers need to be apprised of what is hap- miliar, irrespective of geography. One The political changes that have created pening outside the U.S. It is only one such problem is juvenile offending, new freedoms and opened borders in example of the way in which crime no which is reportedly escalating steadily a number of countries have also made longer respects national borders, a de- worldwide.3 At the recent quinquen- it easier to commit and export crime. velopment noted by President Clinton nial United Nations Congress on Establishing institutions that are the in his address at the 50th anniversary crime, many issues familiar to crimi- foundation of an orderly society is a 2 of the United Nations. As the lines nal justice agencies in the U.S.—urban major part of the rebuilding process in between local crime and international crime, juvenile crime, and violence these societies. To assist the emerging crime become more and more blurred, against women—were on the agenda. democracies, NIJ is developing a sys- the need for information about these They are becoming familiar in other tem that will give them online access trends is growing as is the need for countries as well as our own.4 to information they can use to create access to it. The National Institute of institutions based on the rule of law. Justice (NIJ), which has long been ac- Forms of crime unknown until re- tive in promoting international infor- cently can have effects at the national With foreign-based criminal activity mation exchange, is expanding its and even the local level although they increasingly affecting domestic crime, role in response to these new realities.