In This Issue:

• Conference Presentations:
  American Probation and Parole Association Training Institute
  

National Forum on Criminal Justice and Public Safety

• Recent Events:
  CSEC Bulletin
  

National Reentry Resource Center Webinar

• JPC in the News:
  Nancy La Vigne quoted on Public Surveillance Systems
  

John Roman discusses Private Prisons

• Publications:
  Homicides in the District of Columbia by Police District, 2001 – 2009
  

Violence Prevention at Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School Research Report and Summary Brief

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August is typically a sleepy month in Washington, D.C., but the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center (JPC) staff was actively presenting, publishing, and interacting with the media on a variety of topics, including reentry from jail, parole supervision practices, human trafficking prosecutions, and violence prevention. The following presents highlights of these activities over the past month.

Jesse Jannetta, Research Associate in JPC, presented at the American Probation and Parole Association Annual Training Institute on August 17th, 2010. His first presentation discussed the three major initiatives of the Urban Institute’s work on the state of practice in parole supervision: Putting Public Safety First, a document of best practices for parole supervision; An Evolving Field: Findings from the 2008 Parole Practices Survey and the Parole Academy, a technical assistance effort funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance and conducted in partnership with the National Parole Resource Center to assist states in implementing the 13 parole supervision strategies laid out in Putting Public Safety First. He also presented on the Transition from Prison to Community and the Transition from Jail to Community initiatives, both funded by the National Institute of Corrections.

JPC Research Associate Janeen Buck Willison also presented on the Transition from Jail to Community (TJC) Initiative at the National Forum on Criminal Justice and Public Safety on August 3rd, 2010. She discussed how to create performance measures that improve decisionmaking in local criminal justice systems, using the TJC model as an example. The outcomes that are currently being tracked in TJC sites include public safety indicators (e.g., reduced reoffending, reduced length of jail stays for returning individuals), reintegration indicators (e.g., reduced substance abuse, increased employment) and process measures (e.g., screening, assessment, referrals).

JPC’s research was featured in a recently released Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) bulletin on federally prosecuted Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) cases. The bulletin is based on a larger JPC report on the topic authored by JPC researchers Bill Adams, Colleen Owens and Kevonne Small. The report presents the results of a national longitudinal analysis of federal prosecutions since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000 and can be downloaded here.

On August 26th, 2010, JPC researcher Jesse Jannetta presented in a National Reentry Resource Center webinar for local government officials interested in promoting the successful reentry of the formerly incarcerated. He discussed the role of local government in reentry and how reentry tools and resources such as the Transition from Jail to Community Implementation Toolkit can help local government agencies establish and sustain reentry efforts.

JPC Director Nancy La Vigne was quoted in a Gapers Block story and featured on Chicago Public Radio discussing the costs and benefits of using public surveillance cameras in the city of Chicago. La Vigne reported on preliminary findings from the Urban Institute’s evaluation of public surveillance systems, funded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which suggest that cameras reduced crime in one Chicago neighborhood included in the study, but not the other. Despite the mixed results, the evaluation found that for every $1 spent on cameras, Chicago saved over $2 by preventing crimes.

Senior Research Associate John Roman was quoted in a CNN piece on the higher cost of private prisons in the U.S. Roman argued that despite the fact that private prisons could pay lower wages and fewer benefits compared to government-run prisons, private prisons do not have any incentives to help inmates reintegrate into society upon release, which could lead to a higher recidivism rate and higher overall cost of the prison system.

Joshua Markman and John Roman

JPC researchers Joshua Markman and John Roman co-authored a brief, published through the D.C. Crime Policy Institute, which examines homicides in the District of Columbia over the period 2001 — 2009 and provides in-depth findings on the changes in homicide rates, both citywide and by police district. The analysis found that homicides declined more than 70 percent between 1991 and 2009, and by 20 percent between 2008 and 2009 alone. District-level analyses revealed that in all Districts but District 4, homicide rates dropped from 2006 — 2009. District 4 experienced a small increase in its homicide rate. Homicides were also found to be relatively rare in District 1, 2, and 3.

Research Report and Summary Brief

Jocelyn Fontaine, Sara Debus-Sherrill, P. Mitchell Downey, Samantha S. Lowry

JPC Research Associate Jocelyn Fontaine led a team of researchers in examining the violence prevention activities taking place at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School during the 2008-2009 school year. This report and summary brief include: a logic model of the school's violence prevention approach; detailed information on each of the violence prevention activities within the violence prevention approach and how they compare to national best practices; student and faculty perceptions of the school climate and the violence prevention approach; recommendations to the school administrators on how to strengthen their violence prevention approach based on the assessment findings; and recommendations for next steps in school violence prevention research.