Public opinion surveys show that crime is the number one issue on the minds of Americans. Crime dominates evening news broadcasts, demands large shares of governmental budgets, influences our decisions about where to live, and plays a role in our choices on Election Day. Crime also inflicts enormous losses on youths, families, and the Nation's sense of security. Yet there is no consensus about what we should do to meet the challenge of crime and the demand for justice. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has initiated this lecture series to broaden the reach of research conducted under...

Violence inflicted by one family member against another includes child physical and sexual abuse and neglect; domestic violence; and elder abuse. Sorting out and understanding violent behavior among family members presents complex challenges. Many factors render traditional criminal justice responses inappropriate or ineffective-the cyclical nature of family violence, the relationship between the perpetrator and victim, the causes and effects for both perpetrator and victim; the frequent ambivalence of the victim/witnesses toward involvement of the criminal justice system because of coercion...

In 1992, a paper by George Kelling appeared in The City Journal titled "Measuring What Matters." In this paper, Kelling raised the perennial specter of police performance measurement, but this time with a new twist. His discussion focused on the organizational performance measurement demands of community oriented policing. In essence, Kelling's argument was that our traditional yardstick was outdated and needed to be changed. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) also recognized that our historic measures of police organizational...