Research Priorities

As part of its strategic planning, NIJ has identified high-priority research, development, and evaluation needs of the field. NIJ believes that by making substantial progress in these areas over the next 3–5 years, the Institute will contribute significantly to enhancing the administration of justice and improving public safety in our Nation. The priorities inform decisions about the scope of future work and the dissemination of NIJ-sponsored knowledge and technologies in each of the major subject matter portfolios shown below. At the same time, NIJ maintains the flexibility to respond to emerging needs and to consider the merits of individual projects that may contribute to other worthwhile goals.

Below are the portfolios with their high priority goals:

• Law Enforcement/Policing
• Justice Systems (Sentencing, Courts, Prosecution, Defense)
• Corrections
• Investigative and Forensic Sciences (including DNA)
• Counterterrorism/Critical Incidents
• Crime Prevention/Causes of Crime
• Violence and Victimization (including Violent Crimes)
• Drugs, Alcohol, and Crime
• Interoperability, Spatial Information, and Automated Systems
• Program Evaluation

Law Enforcement/Policing High Priority Goals

1. Identify ways that police and law enforcement agencies can improve their effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.
2. Enhance officer safety while minimizing unnecessary risks to suspects and others.
3. Improve the ability of police organizations to collect, analyze, disseminate, and utilize information effectively and to communicate reliably and securely.
4. Identify procedures, policies, technologies, and basic knowledge that will maximize appropriate and lawful police actions.
5. Enhance local investigative resources by identifying and disseminating investigative best practices and by developing technologies and techniques that help locate suspects and establish guilt.

Justice Systems (Sentencing, Courts, Prosecution, Defense) High Priority Goals

1. Develop sophisticated understanding about trial court organization, structure, and leadership to improve the fairness, effectiveness, and efficiency of trial courts.
2. Evaluate specialized courts and specialized prosecution strategies.
3. Create knowledge about sentencing strategies, plea bargaining, time served, and specialty courts so that the public is protected, offender criminality is reduced, and system costs are most effectively managed.
4. Evaluate court services for litigants and other participants with special needs.
5. Improve understanding of how the introduction of new, sophisticated scientific evidence into court systems is affecting the system.

Corrections High Priority Goals

1. Create knowledge and develop technologies on how prisons, jails, and community corrections can be better managed to provide safe, secure, and cost-effective operations.
2. Create knowledge on how best to assess and manage special offender populations in prisons, jails, and in the community.
3. Develop effective treatment/intervention strategies that enhance public safety by maximizing the successful reentry of offenders into communities.
4. Research the causes of prison sexual assault and factors that may deter the reporting of such assaults and evaluate strategies, practices, and policies designed to prevent it.

Investigative and Forensic Sciences (including DNA) High Priority Goals

1. Develop DNA and forensic technologies, tools, and information that reliably and timely identify criminal offenders.
2. Validate and demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of existing forensic sciences techniques for use in the criminal justice system.
3. Develop strategies to enhance the capacities of State and local governments to effectively use forensic evidence to solve crimes.

Counterterrorism/Critical Incidents High Priority Goals

1. Synthesize existing knowledge about terrorist groups, their structures, motives, finances, etc.
2. Develop knowledge and tools that helps prevent, deter, or apprehend terrorists, including improving intelligence gathering, information sharing, risk assessment, target hardening, surveillance, and detection.
3. Improve the tools and techniques available to first responders in a critical incident.
4. Evaluate and refine technologies, practices, and procedures to minimize harm to persons, property, and communities from terrorism.

Crime Prevention/Causes of Crime High Priority Goals

1. Increase the practical knowledge of those factors (individual, peer, community, and societal) that may lead to delinquent or criminal behavior.
2. Develop knowledge of programs, interventions, and strategies that prevent crime by at-risk populations.
3. Improve the ability to prevent crime in specific contexts, including schools, using selected physical design, access control strategies, and technologies.
4. Develop knowledge relevant to community-based and faith-based approaches that prevent crime.
5. Improve the understanding of deterrence mechanisms that prevent crime.

Violence and Victimization (including Violent Crimes) High Priority Goals

1. Develop knowledge of strategies to prevent sexual assaults and victimization of children.
2. Develop knowledge of practical approaches to reduce domestic/intimate partner violence.
3. Identify ways to prevent repeat victimization.
4. Expand knowledge on nature of white collar crime, identity theft, and elder fraud and strategies to prevent victimization.
5. Develop practical knowledge of approaches to reduce community violence.
6. Evaluate policies and interventions to address crime victims' needs.

Drugs, Alcohol, and Crime High Priority Goals

1. Increase understanding of relationships between drugs, alcohol, and crime.
2. Identify ways to disrupt/deter drug markets and drug sales.
3. Develop strategies to prevent or detect drug or alcohol-related crime.
4. Evaluate strategies to reduce drug dependency among offenders, including drug courts and drug treatment in correctional settings.

Interoperability, Spatial Information, and Automated Systems High Priority Goals

1. Develop and demonstrate advanced interoperability communications and information sharing technologies for public safety.
2. Identify and develop open architecture standards for voice, data, image, and video communication systems for the public safety community.
3. Research, develop, and evaluate spatial information systems—including their social, economic, and legal impacts—that increase data sharing between agencies, integrate disparate data sets, and enhance decisionmaking processes.
4. Develop and demonstrate advanced technologies and standards for public safety applications, including biometrics, smart sensing systems, data mining and analysis, tools for learning, and command and control systems.
5. Develop advanced technology tools and standards for State and local governments to prevent and investigate electronic crime, leveraging the capabilities of other agencies.

Program Evaluation High Priority Goals

1. Develop the capacity to conduct cost-effectiveness evaluations of criminal justice programs and technologies.
2. Improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of NIJ evaluations.
3. Improve the utility of evaluation results for policy, practice, and program development, in part through interim reporting and timely reporting of final results.

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