International Document Exchange

Exchanging research documents between U.S. researchers and policy makers in other countries.

The National Institute of Justice International Document Exchange (IDE) program is coordinated by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). The IDE program is a valuable international acquisitions tool for NCJRS. Currently comprising 153 members from 55 countries, the IDE program also serves as a worldwide network for information exchange in the field of criminal justice.

Members receive a monthly e-mail with an order form featuring new materials available from NCJRS partner agencies. Items on that order form may be ordered with shipping charges waived during that particular month. Any items ordered from NCJRS that do not appear on the current month’s order form will incur standard shipping and handling charges. The dedicated web page also contains an IDE membership directory, which lists members, contact information, publications available, and the specific criminal justice areas of interest and collection holdings for members' organizations.

In exchange, IDE members are asked to contribute reports and studies to NCJRS that address their country's criminal justice system and its responses to contemporary crime issues as well as other areas of interest to the IDE member. Publications are reviewed for inclusion in the NCJRS Abstracts Database, a resource containing more than 185,000 abstracts to criminal justice studies and reports. The Abstracts Database is available online at the NCJRS Web site.