Internet Studio: Building the Infrastructure for the World Justice Information Network, Final Report

• NCJ Number: 196663
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 63 pages
• Grant Number(s): 98-IJ-CX-K004
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description

Annotation

This report describes the development, release, growth, and maintenance of the World Justice Information Network (WJIN) at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Internet Studio, along with the technical support and an Internet grants competition for the United States-Ukraine Research Partnerships Project.

Abstract

By the summer of 1998, a state-of-the-art Internet facility, located at the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division Training Center, had been installed and was fully operational. The WJIN has been developed to use this facility for network capacity building, electronic content development and dissemination, and demonstration and training. In July 1998, the WJIN was inaugurated at the NIJ annual research and evaluation conference in Washington, DC. WJIN began as an electronic content collection and dissemination vehicle for the international criminal justice community, and it has developed into its current status as a web portal for criminal justice issues. The immediate goal of the current project was to beta-test WJIN within the international criminal justice community, build a user-base of up to 5,000 professionals, and simultaneously continue to add functionality to and improve the system. In May 1999, NIJ awarded the Rule of Law Foundation a supplement to the project award to continue development and maintenance of WJIN, as well as provide substantial technical support and administration for Internet grants as part of a joint project with the Ukrainian Academy of Law Science, called the U.S.-Ukraine Research Partnerships Project. This project was designed to match up United States and Ukrainian criminological researchers to conduct original research in areas of interest to both countries. Membership in WJIN has far surpassed the target of 5,000, reaching 8,000 (representing 118 countries) by April 2001, making WJIN one of the premiere Internet sites for information about international criminal justice. The site has included nearly 5,000 links to online documents distributed throughout 26 content channels, creating a powerful criminal justice search engine. Efforts under the U.S.-Ukraine Research Partnerships Project have facilitated communication among U.S. and Ukrainian researchers through the purchase of personal computers and e-mail accounts, beginning in December 1999. Grant awards have been made to 21 organizations to act as "data holders" of criminal justice data the researchers needed to complete their research. The project has also provided substantial programmatic support to the project's funders at the NIJ and the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the U.S. State Department for the duration of the project. Extensive data pertinent to project achievements are provided.