High-Priority Criminal Justice Technology Needs

• NCJ Number: 225375
• Date Published: March 2009
• Length: 26 pages
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Issue Overview

Annotation

After describing the mission and organization of the U.S. Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ), this booklet describes NIJ’s efforts in research, development, testing, and evaluation of criminal justice technology, followed by the identification and description of high-priority criminal justice technology needs.

Abstract

NIJ is the research, development, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Justice Department. It provides objective, independent, evidence-based knowledge and tools to meet the challenges of crime and justice, particularly at the State and local levels. NIJ’s two operating offices are the Office of Research and Evaluation and the Office of Science and Technology. The Office of Research and Evaluation develops, conducts, directs, and supervises social science research and evaluation activities across a wide variety of criminal justice issues. The Office of Science and Technology manages technology research, development, testing, and evaluation; the development of guides and technical standards; and programs for building capacity and providing technology assistance to local, State, tribal, and Federal criminal justice agencies and crime laboratories. This booklet describes how NIJ sets its research agenda, as well as its research development, testing, and evaluation process. Other NIJ activities described are standards and compliance testing, as well as investing with partners. NIJ’s descriptions of high-priority criminal justice technology needs are organized into five functional areas: protecting the public, ensuring officer safety, confirming the guilty and protecting the innocent, improving the efficiency of justice, and enabling informed decisionmaking. In each of these areas, specific needs are described that require some type of technological development, testing, and evaluation. NIJ resource Web sites are listed and described.