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 About the National Institute of Justice

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ), a component of the Office of Justice Programs, is the research agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. Created by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, NIJ is authorized to support research, evaluation, and demonstration programs, development of technology, and both national and international information dissemination. Specific mandates of the Act direct NIJ to:


 * Sponsor special projects and research and development programs that will improve and strengthen the criminal justice system and reduce or prevent crime.
 * Conduct national demonstration projects that employ innovative or promising approaches for improving criminal justice.
 * Develop new technologies to fight crime and improve criminal justice.
 * Evaluate the effectiveness of criminal justice programs and identify programs that promise to be successful if continued or repeated.
 * Recommend actions that can be taken by Federal, State, and local governments as well as by private organizations to improve criminal justice.
 * Carry out research on criminal behavior.
 * Develop new methods of crime prevention and reduction of crime and delinquency.

In recent years, NIJ has greatly expanded its initiatives, the result of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the Crime Act), partnerships with other Federal agencies and private foundations, advances in technology, and a new international focus. Some examples of these new initiatives:


 * Exploring key issues in community policing, violence against women, violence within the family, sentencing reforms, and specialized courts such as drug courts.
 * Developing dual-use technologies to support national defense and local law enforcement needs.
 * Establishing four regional National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Centers and a Border Research and Technology Center.
 * Strengthening NIJ's links with the international community through participation in the United Nations network of criminological institutes, the U.N. Criminal Justice Information Network, UNOJUST (United Nations Online Justice Clearinghouse), and the NIJ International Center.
 * Improving the online capability of NIJ's criminal justice information clearinghouse.
 * Establishing the ADAM (Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring) program—formerly the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program—to increase the number of drug-testing sites and study drug-related crime.

The Institute Director establishes the Institute's objectives, guided by the priorities of the Office of Justice Programs, the Department of Justice, and the needs of the criminal justice field. The Institute actively solicits the views of criminal justice professionals and researchers in the continuing search for answers that inform public policymaking in crime and justice.