For the latest homeland security news, alerts, threats or for emergency planning information, visit the Department of Homeland Security at www.dhs.gov. 

Understanding the Homeland Security Advisory System.

LINKS TO
FEDERAL SERVICES

NCJRS Announces

National Criminal Justice Reference Service

An important priority for law enforcement is the safe return of missing persons.   But few of the approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States have uniform procedures for taking a missing persons report or obtaining critical information for the identification of human remains. At the same time many coroners and medical examiners have not been able to obtain the benefits of a national database that can help identify missing persons. 

Under the President's DNA Initiative, the U.S. Department of Justice has developed model State legislation that suggests how States can improve the way missing persons and human remains information is collected, analyzed, and shared.

The model legislation is the product of collaboration with Federal, State, and local law enforcement, experts, victim advocates, forensic scientists, and key policymakers. It takes into account many proposals and comments received at a national strategy meeting held in Philadelphia in April 2005.

The Justice Department encourages States to use and adapt the model State legislation to meet their needs. The legislation, support materials, case studies, field assessments, and other additional resources can be found on www.DNA.gov.   Now available on www.DNA.gov is the NIJ training course "What Every Law Enforcement Officer Should Know About DNA Evidence."

Other information from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service can be found at: www.NCJRS.org

RECOMMENDED READS

The Compstat Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business and the Public Sector (Paperback)

by William J. Bratton (Foreword), Vincent E. Henry

The New York City Police Department has achieved great reductions in crime through the Compstat process. Major crimes have declined 66%, and homicides are down 77% since 1993. These statistics translate into thousands of lives saved and significantly improved quality of life for all the people of New York. Those who argue that factors other than the police were responsible for this decline ignore the significant institutional changes in the NYPD and its method of policing.

It was not simply hiring thousands of cops and putting them on the street, it was a matter of changing the way those cops worked. This involved not only technological change, such as the use of computer pin mapping, but also managerial and cultural change within the NYPD. The result was a more analytical and focused NYPD, a more responsive and flexible department, better able to serve the people of New York. Compstat was driving force behind those changes.

Who’s Really in Prison for Marijuana?

The Office of National Drug Control Policy announces the release of a publication that debunks the myth that America's prisons are filled with low-level, nonviolent marijuana users.

Pro-drug advocates actively spread misinformation about the number of people in prison for marijuana, and their claims are widely accepted as conventional wisdom. But they are false claims.

Entire Report in
PDF format
(766 kb)

"Who's Really in Prison for Marijuana?" uses the most reliable state and Federal data to show that the number of inmates imprisoned solely for marijuana offenses is actually quite low, and only a fraction of that number are first-time offenders. The vast majority of drug prisoners, in fact, are traffickers, violent criminals, repeat offenders, or various combinations of these types.

According to the most recent available data:

• Just 1.6 percent of the state inmate population were held for offenses involving marijuana only;

• Less than 1 percent (0.7 percent) of state prisoners were incarcerated with marijuana possession as the only charge; and

• Only 0.3 percent of all state prisoners convicted for marijuana possession and no other crimes were first-time offenders.

The numbers on the Federal level reflect a similar trend. Of all drug defendants sentenced in Federal courts for marijuana crimes in 2001, the overwhelming majority were convicted for trafficking.

This information is available on the ONDCP Website

 

Fixing Broken Windows (1996)

ISBN: 0684824469

Broken windows breed disorder. So said George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson in a groundbreaking article for the Atlantic Monthly in 1982. Now Kelling returns with Catherine M. Coles to call community policing and the aggressive protection of public spaces the best crime-control options available. Three-strikes-and-you're-out is fine as far as it goes, say the authors, but it focuses on punishment rather than prevention. Kelling and Coles make sensible suggestions for restoring law and order to the places where they no longer seem to exist. Their argument is aided immensely by real-life examples of how their "broken windows" strategy has reduced crime where it's been tried.

The authors asserted that the best way to fight crime is to fight the disorder that precedes it:

We suggest that "untended" behavior leads to the breakdown of community controls.

A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other's children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle.

A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move; they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates. People start drinking in front of the grocery; in time, an inebriate slumps to the sidewalk and is allowed to sleep it off. Pedestrians are approached by panhandlers.

Wilson and Kelling elaborated on a related theme in "Making Neighborhoods Safe" (February, 1989); they explored the idea of community-oriented policing that focuses on preventative measures as well as punitive response to incidents. They found this approach, which was being practiced increasingly throughout the country, to represent the most significant redefinition of police work in the past half century.

The authors cite several factors, including the rise of individualism, the decriminalization of drunkenness and the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, that contribute to public disorder. Many of the homeless, they note, are not merely down on their luck but suffer serious behavioral problems.

They explain how civic reforms during the 1950s that professionalized police services shifted police work from crime prevention to crime response, thus creating some of the unintended consequences that more recent reforms have had to address.

Beginning most notably with the New York City Transit Police, for whom Kelling consulted, police departments have recently focused on minor offenses, capturing a large number of serious criminals in the process.

Other police departments, with the assistance of civic groups, have begun similar work. The authors provide cogent advice, backed by copious endnotes, on how to implement similar strategies.

More Reads:

The Crime Fighter : Putting the Bad Guys Out of Business by Jack Maple

Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing by Edwin J. Delattre

The Turnaround : How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic by Peter Knobler

The Compstat Paradigm: Management Accountability in Policing, Business and the Public Sector by William J. Bratton

Crime and Punishment in America by Elliott Currie

Supervision of Police Personnel (6th Edition) by Nathan F. Iannone

Community Policing, Chicago Style (Studies in Crime and Public Policy) by Wesley G. Skogan

Illusion of Order : The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing, by Bernard E. Harcourt

A General Theory of Crime by Michael R. Gottfredson

Managing Police Operations: Implementing the NYPD Crime Control Model Using COMPSTAT by Phyllis P. McDonald

Problem-Oriented Policing and Crime Prevention by Anthony A. Braga

Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America by Michael Tonry

Thinking about Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture (Studies in Crime & Public Policy) by Michael Tonry