Join the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) for their free, virtual “Destination Zero Officer Safety and Wellness Conference” on November 10, 2020 at 11:00–4:00 p.m. ET. The conference gathers law enforcement officials seeking to enhance their employees’ safety and wellness and will feature the following five sessions:
- Session 1: Improving General Officer Safety
- Session 2: Improving Officer Traffic Safety
- Session 3: Improving Wellness and Resiliency
- Session 4: Live Panel Discussion on Policing During These Unprecedented Times
- Session 5: Live Panel Discussion on Destination Zero, How to Submit, and Keys to Success
On August 27, 2020, Project Safe Neighborhoods hosted the webinar “Trauma-Informed Law Enforcement Strategies for Combating Victim, Witness, and Community Intimidation and Retaliation.” The recording is available on their website. The webinar covers the following topics:
- Overview of victim, witness, and community intimidation and retaliation.
- How trauma-informed law enforcement responses can prevent retaliation and intimidation.
- Trauma-informed strategies.
- Federal and state programs to support victims and witnesses.
- Case studies and examples, including in local law enforcement.
- Strategies for local law enforcement.
- Trauma-informed strategies for interviewing victims and witnesses.
Join the Zero Abuse Project and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center for their upcoming webinar “DNA: Making Sense of the Methods & Science Behind Your Samples” on November 10, 2020 at 3:00 p.m. ET. This webinar will cover the science behind DNA and the various aspects that go into gathering, processing, and interpreting DNA results.
Join The Council of State Governments Justice Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance for their webinar “Diverting People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities from the Criminal Justice System” on October 29, 2020 at 2:00–3:30 p.m. ET. This webinar will discuss reasons people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) can be overlooked in the criminal justice system and ways to effectively divert them from the system. Presenters will also focus on people who have co-occurring I/DD, substance use disorders, and mental illnesses. Participants will learn about training and technical assistance opportunities from The Arc, a national community-based organization advocating for and with people with I/DD, as well as key resources on diversion best practices.
In July 2020, RTI International released the report “Enacting an Improved Response to Sexual Assault: A Criminal Justice Practitioner’s Guide” by Patricia A. Melton. Outlining various studies, Melton writes that improving criminal justice agencies’ responses to sexual assault strengthens community safety and builds better relationships between community members and criminal justice agencies. Melton notes that pursuing sexual assault cases can be difficult for various reasons, some of which include lack of evidence and eyewitness accounts. However, agencies can improve their response by having a strategic sustainable approach to addressing sexual assault cases. RTI defines an “improved response” as “an approach that supports effective investigation and prosecution of sexual assault cases, holds perpetrators accountable, and promotes healing and recovery for victims of sexual assault.”
View the report to learn how to develop an effective approach to sexual assault cases.
In June 2020, the Center for Court Innovation released the report “Reducing Pretrial Detention in New York City: Data-Driven Strategies for Decarceration” by Michael Rempel and Tia Pooler. The report notes that 65 percent of arrested individuals in the United States and 75 percent of arrested individuals in New York City (as of 2019) are held in local jails pretrial and prior to conviction. The slowness of pretrial release and the prohibitive costs increase jail time and cause more people to accept guilty pleas just to end incarceration. Additionally, spending time in jail can create instability for incarcerated individuals in jobs, family life, and other factors, which hurts communities.
To address these issues, the report outlines a case study in New York that discusses the state eliminating bail and pretrial detention in most criminal cases and requiring judges to consider defendants’ financial situations when setting bail. New York City expanded supervised release, which allows defendants to be released under supervision to ensure they appear in court. While these reforms still need to be evaluated, they could prove to be a useful pretrial model.
Read the report to learn more!
Join the Justice Clearinghouse and the National Sheriffs’ Association for their webinar “The Future of the Dark Web” on October 20, 2020 at 1:00–2:00 p.m. ET. Attendees will learn about “big business” and how people make money from it in relation to the dark web. The webinar will also cover the current and future state of encryption—specifically wide-scale use of end-to-end encryption and the personal adoption of anonymizing networks like The Onion Router (Tor)—and how that will affect criminal investigations.
Every year, thousands of people die from drug overdose. According to data collected from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System, there were over 67,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2018. Part of combatting this issue involves studying the factors that go into opioid-related deaths. To help with this process, Melissa Heinen and Mallory O’Brien, from the Institute for Intergovernmental Research, wrote “Overdose Fatality Review: A Practitioner’s Guide to Implementation,” released in July 2020, as part of the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Program. Overdose fatality reviews (OFRs) help identify system gaps and community-based approaches to prevention and intervention. OFRs can help agencies identify patterns and needs across their jurisdictions to help prevent overdose-related deaths. The guide is organized in five modules:
- Recruit Your OFR Members
- Plan Your OFR Meeting
- Facilitate Your OFR Meeting
- Collect Your OFR Data
- Build a Recommendation Plan
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, through its technical assistance provider Advocates for Human Potential (AHP), is seeking applications from organizations, including, but not limited to, nonprofits and universities, to develop evidence-based clinical guidelines and protocols to help jail administrators, correctional officers, and jail-based clinicians identify and safely manage substance withdrawal management in a jail-based setting. One applicant will be selected to undertake this effort.
The award recipient will complete the following major activities:
- Convene an expert committee to inform the development of the clinical guidelines.
- Conduct an environmental scan of existing guidelines for withdrawal management of opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol, methamphetamine, and cocaine individually or in combination for adults (18 years and older), including special populations.
- Incorporate findings from the above two efforts to create a detailed content outline for the product.
- Produce draft- and final-version guidelines and protocols, which includes facilitating expert reviews.
Important dates:
- RFA Release Date: September 30, 2020
- Informational webinar: October 5. View the recording. View the slides.
- Application deadline: October 28, 2020, 5:00 p.m. ET
- Anticipated selection date: November 9, 2020
- Anticipated start date: November 23, 2020
For more information, please visit http://s.iir.com/QwQrrHVY. Proposals for this grant program must be submitted to AHP, at WithdrawalManagement_RFA@ahpnet.com, by 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, October 28, 2020. If you have any questions, please reach out to Deann Jepson at djepson@ahpnet.com.
Due to the complexity of prosecuting sexual violence, a startlingly low number of cases ever make it to court let alone result in conviction. This disappointing reality can be self-perpetuating—victims do not bring charges, and law enforcement and prosecution do not pursue cases, especially if they do not seem winnable. Two reports by AEquitas, the Justice Management Institute, and the Urban Institute, developed under the Sexual Assault Justice Initiative, outline ways to change this: “Model Response to Sexual Violence for Prosecutors (RSVP Model): An Invitation to Lead, Volume I: Prosecution Practices” and “Model Response to Sexual Violence for Prosecutors (RSVP Model): Measuring the Impact, Volume II: Performance Management.” They recommend that rather than focusing on convictions as a measure for success, law enforcement and prosecutors should focus on the quality of the prosecution process. The RSVP Model can serve as a methodology for responding to sexual violence cases. The first volume outlines the RSVP Model, and the second volume outlines how to measure performance improvements after implementing standards from volume one.
Visit AEquitas’s website to find these and other resources related to gender-based violence and human trafficking.