National Institute Of Justice Research Articles

Cutting Procedures, Tensile Testing, and Ageing of Flexible Unidirectional Composite Laminates.

Many body armor designs incorporate unidirectional (UD) laminates. UD laminates are constructed of thin (<0.05 mm) layers of high-performance yarns, where the yarns in each layer are oriented parallel to each other and held in place using binder resins and thin polymer films. The armor is constructed by stacking the unidirectional layers in different orientations. To date, only very preliminary work has been performed to characterize the ageing of the binder resins used in unidirectional laminates and the effects on their performance. For example, during the development of the conditioning protocol used in the National Institute of Justice Standard-0101.06, UD laminates showed visual signs of delamination and reductions in V50, which is the velocity at which half of the projectiles are expected to perforate the armor, after ageing. A better understanding of the material property changes in UD laminates is necessary to comprehend the long-term performance of armors constructed from these materials. There are no current standards recommended for mechanically interrogating unidirectional (UD) laminate materials. This study explores methods and best practices for accurately testing the mechanical properties of these materials and proposes a new test methodology for these materials. Best practices for ageing these materials are also described.

Neighborhood churches and their relationship to neighborhood processes important for crime prevention

ABSTRACT Neighborhood organizations are important aspects of the urban landscape that are increasingly being studied in relationship to crime. However, the neighborhood mechanisms through which organizations are hypothesized to affect crime have rarely been examined. Rooted in social disorganization theory, this study examines the effects of churches—a common and important neighborhood organization—on neighborhood social processes related to crime prevention (i.e., informal social control, social ties, conventional values). These processes are measured with survey data from approximately 2,300 residents in 66 neighborhoods. Several measures for churches are examined in relation to these social processes using multilevel modeling. Data come from several sources, including survey data previously collected for a National Institute of Justice–funded study, the U.S. Census Bureau, and Polk City Directories. Findings show that churches have significant effects on the processes examined; however, the type of church measure used impacts these findings. The total number of churches in the neighborhood and within a buffer zone around the neighborhood, Mainline Protestant, community-oriented (“Bridging”), and Evangelical Protestant churches had significant (or marginally significant) effects on at least one processes examined, although some of these effects were only in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

A Decade of Experimental Research on Blunt Force Cranial Fracture

The objective of this presentation is to present key findings from the past decade of experimental research on pediatric and adult cranial fracture undertaken through a National Institute of Justice (NIJ)‐funded interdisciplinary collaboration between the Michigan State University (MSU) Forensic Anthropology and Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratories.The MSU trauma research initiative developed from collaborations between these laboratories on forensic cases involving blunt force fractures. We were often asked to address questions regarding minimum number and locations of impacts and, in pediatric cases, whether these injuries reflected child abuse. However, our analyses were limited by a lack of systematic research and baseline experimental data on cranial fracture development. In particular, there is a lack of consensus in the literature regarding where fractures form relative to the point of impact (POI). Prominent early research by Gurdjian and colleagues (1950) indicates fractures can initiate peripheral to the POI in areas of out‐bending. However, in a recent study Kroman (2003) claims that cranial fractures initiate only at the POI. Our research over the past decade has addressed this scientific gap through a series of biomechanical impact experiments using pediatric animal and adult human models.In 2007, our team received an NIJ grant to investigate pediatric cranial fracture through experiments on a porcine model. A key result was that fractures consistently initiated peripheral to the POI. Specimens exhibited multiple, unconnected linear fractures, often in several adjacent bones. These fracture patterns were compared to human cases in the Pediatric Cranial Fracture Registry, a database of pediatric deaths involving blunt cranial fracture developed during our 2011 NIJ grant. The striking similarities between the human and porcine cases suggest that peripheral initiation also occurs in humans. This finding has significant medico‐legal implications, considering the presence of multiple cranial fractures is considered a strong indicator of child abuse. Our research demonstrates that a single impact can produce multiple, non‐intersecting cranial fractures.Our most recent 2015 NIJ grant investigated adult cranial fractures through a series of filmed impact experiments on whole head cadaver specimens. Video from these experiments revealed that peripheral initiation also occurs in adults. This has implications for the assessment of impact location: in some cases, linear fractures occurred peripherally with no damage at the POI.This research represents a major shift in understanding of cranial fracture development. The results indicate that the assumption that cranial fractures only initiate at the POI is not only flawed, but could also lead to inaccurate assessments of locations and numbers of impact. Finally, this work provides a template for future experimental trauma research, an area the field of forensic anthropology has only begun to explore.Support or Funding InformationThese projects were supported by the National Institute of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this presentation are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

National Institute of Justice: An Update on Forensic Science Resources

National Institute of Justice: An Update on Forensic Science Resources

Assessing the validity of police integrity scale in a comparative context

ABSTRACT The current study examines the validity of the police integrity measure created by Klockars et al. (1997, The measurement of police integrity. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice. pp. 65–70; 2006, The Measurement of Police Integrity. Research in Brief. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice: Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Available from: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181465.pdf). Whereas this theoretical and methodological approach has been used by many scholars across the world, there are no systematic assessments of its validity. We primarily investigate the criterion validity by assessing whether the data on police integrity are appropriately correlated with other independent indicators of integrity. We rely on the descriptive statistics from many prior police integrity studies conducted over the last 20 years and on other nation/state level available sources of data (Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, the International Crime Victimization Survey, the World Value Survey, and the World Governance Indicators). We find relatively robust evidence of criterion validity of the measures, although the strength of this relationship varies across criteria. The theoretical, methodological, and policy implications are discussed.

Comparative Analysis of Forensic Software on Android-based Blackberry Messenger using NIJ Framework

Instant Messaging application is the most widely used application all over the world. Blackberry Messenger is a multiplatform instant messaging with lots of features that can be a magnet for many people to use Blackberry Messenger for commiting digital crimes. In the process of investigating digital crime cases, digital evidences are required. To obtain digital evidence, a set of forensic tools are needed to conduct forensic process on physical evidences. The topic of this research is to describe the forensic process and to compare the current forensic tools used based on acquired digital evidences by using method that refers to mobile device forensic guidelines made by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). The forensic tools used in this research are Magnet AXIOM, Belkasoft Evidence Center, and MOBILedit Forensic Express. The outcome shows that Magnet AXIOM has the highest capability to obtain digital evidences, Belkasoft Evidence Center has superiority in terms of data text acquisition, and MOBILedit Forensic Express has superiority in physical evidence preserving and cloning.

Classification Strategies for Fusing UV/visible Absorbance and Fluorescence Microspectrophotometry Spectra from Textile Fibers

Award No. 2010-DN-BX-K220 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice

Effect of structural hybridization on ballistic performance of aramid fabrics

This article presents an investigation regarding the ballistic performance of hybrid panels formed by combining woven and unidirectional (UD) para-aramid fabrics. For this purpose, hybrid panels are formed by combining woven and UD para-aramid fabrics with different ply ratios. The hybrid panels formed in this way are subjected to ballistic tests according to National Institute of Justice (NIJ) standard. The results show that hybrid panels present 4.48% less trauma depth as compared to 100% woven fabric panels and 3% less trauma diameter as compared to 100% UD fabric panels. Furthermore, 13.9% less energy is transmitted to the back side of hybrid panels as compared to 100% UD fabric panels. The energy absorbed per unit weight in hybrid panels is 8.48% more as compared to 100% woven fabrics. Additionally, in wet conditions, less trauma depth of hybrid panels is observed as compared to both 100% woven and 100% K-Flex UD fabric panels. No significant difference is realized in trauma diameter between hybrid panels and 100% woven fabric panels in wet conditions. However, 3.25% less trauma diameter is noticed in hybrid panels as compared to 100% UD fabric panels.

A Visualization Approach to Analyze Android Smartphone Data

This study aims to design and develop an interactive system that can visualize evidence collected from Android smartphone data. This project is developing to support forensic investigator in investigating the security incidents particularly involving Android smartphone forensic data. The used of smartphone in crime was widely recognized. Several types of personnel information are stored in their smartphones. When the investigator analyses the image data of the smartphone, the investigator can know the behaviour of the smartphone’s owner and his social relationship with other people. The analysis of smartphone forensic data is cover in mobile device forensic. Mobile device forensics is a branch of digital forensics relating to recovery of digital evidence from a mobile device under forensically sound condition. The digital investigation model used in this project is the model proposed by United States National Institute of Justice (NIJ) which consists four phases, which are collection phase, examination phase, analysis phase and presentation phase. This project related with analysis phase and presentation phase only. This paper introduces Visroid, a new tool that provides a suite of visualization for Android smartphone data.

Beyond the final report

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of key findings from research published from the Assessing Police Use of Force Policy and Outcomes study, a project funded by the National Institute of Justice.Design/methodology/approachKey findings from a national survey of police agencies on use of force policy and from an in-depth look at police use of force outcomes across eight cities published over the last ten years are synthesized to provide a cumulative perspective regarding the outcomes of the project.FindingsThe majority of police departments had a written force policy and reporting requirements, however, there was no commonly accepted force policy. Patrol officers were conservative in their views of what is reasonable force, administrative policy does matter in influencing force usage, and the use of a TASER impacted the likelihood of injury for both officers and citizens. Additional findings were also reviewed in the areas of complaints, police culture, first-line supervision, college education, and promotional aspirations.Originality/valueWhile federal funding for policing related research projects are commonplace, taking a look back ten years later and summarizing key findings is uncommon. Doing so provides concise feedback to practitioners in one readily digestible manuscript. Furthermore, the paper also demonstrates the additional value to the original investment made by the National Institute of Justice.

Assessing the Activity of Synthetic Opioid AH‐7921 and U‐47700 Analogs in Cloned Human Mu‐Opioid Receptor Expressing Fibrosarcoma HT‐1080 Cells

While important for their antinociceptive properties in medicine, opioids are commonly abused in America due to easily accessible opiate prescription pain medication. Classic opioids can induce adverse side effects such as gastrointestinal dysfunction and fatal respiratory depression, the latter of which is a key underlying factor contributing to the rising rates of lethality of opioid abuse. New synthetic opioids are emerging on the black market, many of which have not been characterized for structure activity relationships at human mu‐opiate receptors (hOPRM1). The rise of new synthetic opioids complicates the opioid crisis in America as they often escape the traditional illicit drug classifications established by law enforcement and may be more potent and lethal than conventional molecules. In this study, we developed a stable amino terminal HA‐tagged hOPRM1 expressing human fibrosarcoma (HT1080) cell line for determining the pharmacology of a panel of opioids analogs derived from synthetic opioids AH‐7921 and U‐47700. Expression of hOPRM1 was verified by Western blot and immunocytochemistry. Assessing the morphine response in this cell line revealed that morphine EC50 (39.3 nM) was comparable to published findings and were naloxone reversible, thereby validating this cell line. The analogs were assessed for their ability to suppress forskolin‐induced cyclic AMP (cAMP) levels in a hOPRM1‐dependent manner revealing a subset of structurally‐related analogs showing functional activity. The preliminary results found in this study indicate that some of the synthetic opioid analogs are likely to have abuse potential based on their ability to bind to and activate the human OPRM1 receptor.Support or Funding InformationThis project was supported by Award No. 2016‐R2‐CX‐0059, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Pengaruh Ketebalan terhadap Daya Serap Energi Impak pada Rompi Anti Peluru yang Terbuat dari Komposit Hgm-epoxy dan Serat Karbon

Bulletproof vests are outer clothing commonly used to protect military personnel from projectile attacks and explosion material distributions. In this study the bulletproof vests were made of composite particles composed of an epoxy matrix with a Hollow Glass Microsphere (HGM) amplifier and carbon fiber. The study was conducted by doing simulation analysis using Finite Element Method in accordance with NIJ (National Institute of Justice) of American Standard 0101.06 for class IIIA weapons category. The thickness of bulletproof vest was varied from 1 to 20 mm in order to obtain the optimal thickness. After obtaining optimal thickness of the bulletproof vest, then verification with experimental will be done to validate the simulation result. The results showed that the increase in the thickness has increase the toughness and rigidity of a bulletproof vest. A bulletproof vest with a thickness of 20 mm able to absorb bullet energy of 348.27 Joule and kinetic energy which passed the body of 138, 77 Joule with a penetration depth of 5.54 mm. Thus, it has met the NIJ Standard 0101.06 standard of U.S. The energy passed to the body is smaller than 170 Joule.

Forensic Accounting Education in the UAE

This paper presents the current scenario of offerings and availability of forensic accounting education in universities in the UAE. This study is useful in gaining a complete understanding of available courses on forensic accounting at the graduate and postgraduate level, especially in accounting specialization. The results will help provide an insight into the direction of forensic accounting education in the UAE, where developing and improving forensic accounting education offerings has created serious buzz across the globe. Because of the increasing number of various corporate scandals all over the world, forensic accounting education has become the order of the day, and every accounting student needs to be trained in this field and every university has to offer it as part of the curriculum. The results of this study show that very few universities in the UAE offer and focus on this course as part of their curriculum in graduate and postgraduate levels. This study takes into consideration the current scenario of this course’s offerings among UAE universities, and the second outcome of this paper provides a comparison of course contents with the recommendations of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in the USA.

Criminologists and Historians of Crime: A Partnership Well Worth Pursuing

From 2013 to 2016, I had the privilege of serving as a member of the National Academy of Science’s Roundtable on Crime Trends. The Roundtable, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, brought together scholars from criminology, public health, economics, and sociology, as well as jurists, public health officials, and former police chiefs, in an effort to better understand recent trends in street crime in the United States, particularly the so-called “crime drop” of the 1990s. Ably chair...

Conducting Anonymous, Incentivized, Online Surveys With Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents: Lessons Learned From a National Polyvictimization Study.

Sexual and gender minority adolescents represent an understudied and hard-to-reach population who experience higher rates of mental and behavioral health problems in comparison to their cisgender, heterosexual peers. Online surveys and the proliferation of Internet-connected devices among adolescents offer an exciting opportunity for researchers to begin addressing research gaps and past methodological limitations with these hard-to-reach populations. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance to researchers who are designing and implementing anonymous, incentivized, online surveys by examining the following critical domains-(a) recruitment and engagement: means of leveraging social media and videos to recruit and engage a more nationally representative sample; (b) safety and protection: strategies for administering informed consent and protecting participant anonymity and well-being; and (c) data integrity: mechanisms to detect dishonest and repeat responders. To facilitate discussion of these aims, concrete examples are used from SpeakOut-a 3-year, national study funded by the National Institute of Justice that utilized an anonymous, incentivized, online survey with a large sample of sexual and gender minority adolescents ( N = 1,177) to identify the prevalence, incidence, and correlates of polyvictimization. The article concludes with lessons learned from this national study and recommendations for technological innovations and future research that will strengthen the utility of anonymous, incentivized, online surveys to study sexual and gender minority adolescents and other hard-to-reach populations.

Book Review: Barbara Owen, James Wells, and Joycelyn Pollock, In Search of Safety: Confronting Inequality in Women’s Imprisonment

Book Review: Barbara Owen, James Wells, and Joycelyn Pollock, In Search of Safety: Confronting Inequality in Women's Imprisonment. Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. ISBN: 9780520288720 (Paperback). 260 Pages. $29.95.[Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2017 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]When the United States embarked on a policy of mass incarceration during the waning decades of the twentieth century, few considered the impact that this correctional course change would have on women. Women offenders had been largely invisible or forgotten by a criminology that emerged to complement, explain, and occasionally critique state efforts to control and discipline unruly and dangerous men. In the classic texts on crime, literally disappeared from data sets, from discussions of crime patterns, and most importantly for this discussion from life behind bars. For centuries, very often, little or no thought was given to the possibility of a female prisoner until she appeared at the door of the institution (Rafter 1990). It was as though crime and punishment existed in a world in which gender equaled male, and were correctional afterthoughts, at best.Some of this intellectual and institutional neglect was understandable. For most of the last century, we imprisoned only about five to ten thousand (Calahan 1986). In 1980, there were just 12,000 in U.S. state and federal prisons and they constituted only 3.9 percent of those in prisons. After decades of mass imprisonment, though, there are now one hundred thousand in U.S. prisons (111,495 in 2015), and these accounted for 7.2 percent of those in prison (Carson and Anderson, 2016: 5). In four decades, the number of being held in the nation's prisons increased nearly ten-fold and the women's imprisonment boom was born. What had started as a war on drugs quickly morphed into an unannounced and unplanned reshaping of the women's correctional landscape, and what some have dubbed a war on women (Bloom, Chesney-Lind, and Owen, 1994).After this draconian policy shift, it is probably appropriate to take stock of the state of women's imprisonment in the United States. In Search of Safety: Confronting Inequality in Women's Imprisonment by Barbara Owen, James Wells, and Joycelyn Pollock is a timely and sobering assessment of what mass imprisonment has meant for behind bars in our country. One could hardly have asked for a better team to compile the assessment. Both Owen and Pollock are authors of highly respected books on the topic of women's imprisonment; Owen's In the Mix which is a classic ethnography of a woman's prison, and Pollock's classic Women, Prison and Society is a highly respected compendium of the history and current state of women's imprisonment. Wells brings to this group a wealth of first hand experience as a former correctional officer who has extensive experience assessing safety in correctional facilities, and an impressive track record for obtaining external grants.Importantly, the book relies on three federally funded studies on the nation's conditions of confinement, with a focus on abuse and assault: an National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study that collected qualitative data from staff at twelve housing men and women, a second NIJ study that examined sexual violence in women's prisons using 40 focus groups (with approximately 150 respondents) in four states, and finally an National Institute of Corrections (NIC) study that conducted a survey of over 4000 prisoners held in fifteen dispersed federal, state, county, and private correctional facilities (15). They also, importantly, conducted a content analysis of fifty letters sent to the Just Detention International detailing women's experiences with assault while imprisoned. …

M. Sparrow (2016). Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform

M. Sparrow (2016). Handcuffed: What Holds Policing Back, and the Keys to Reform

National versus Local Production

Public finance and public choice economists have contrasting views on the determinants of public sector size. This article makes a unique contribution to this literature by exploring an integer count of output, rather than the commonly used dollar approximation of output, using data that are homogeneous across the levels of government, where a unit of observation is not a governing body, but rather a service provider. Specifically, this article explores the counteracting effects of fiscal federalism and economies of scale using data from the National Institute of Justice with an application of data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis. I determine that provision of forensic science services at the national level rather than local level does not lead to higher relative cost, and national production may be relatively more efficient. In general, however, neither locally nor nationally operated laboratories are operating at an efficient scale, a potential argument for privatization, insourcing, or outsourcing.

What Does the Trump Administration Mean for the Mérida Agreement?

What Does the Trump Administration Mean for the Mérida Agreement? Carolyn Gallaher Historically, Mexico has not figured prominently in US presidential campaigns. The 2016 campaign was an exception. Republican nominee Donald Trump consistently used Mexico and its citizens as metaphors for what ails the US. During the first presidential debate, for example, he described the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as "the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere" (Gillespie 2016). Mexican citizens fared no better in Trump's rhetoric. He accused Mexico of dumping its rapists in the US and promised to build a wall to keep them out (Gamboa 2016). Given Trump's relentlessly negative portrayal of Mexico and its citizens, this paper asks what Trump's win might portend for the bilateral Mérida Initiative. I argue that Trump will likely weaken what is positive about the agreement and exacerbate what is negative about it. [End Page 179] A Brief Review of Mérida In 2007, US President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderón met in the Yucatan city of Mérida to discuss the problem of narco-trafficking. Eight months later, the Mérida Initiative was officially born. In the joint press release announcing the agreement, the two countries described narco-trafficking, and the solutions to it as a shared responsibility and promised to improve cooperation between their respective law enforcement agencies. The US Congress also pledged up to $1.4 billion in appropriations to get the ball rolling (U.S. Department of State 2008). To assess what the new Trump administration might mean for Mérida going forward, I begin by briefly outlining the initiative's strengths and weaknesses. I focus on one of the agreement's central strengths and one of its foremost weakness. A Needed Thaw The US and Mexico have long had a testy relationship where narco-trafficking is concerned. The low point in the relationship came in 1985 when Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent stationed in Guadalajara, was murdered. The DEA believed Mexican law enforcement purposely bungled the investigation because Camarena's killers paid them off. By contrast, Mexican officials were angry the DEA was operating in their country and believed Camarena was in over his head (Shannon 1988). For the next thirty years, bilateral cooperation on narco-trafficking was limited and marked by mutual distrust. In this context, the Mérida Initiative represented a major rupture. Mexican government officials had long demanded that the US acknowledge the role of demand in fostering narco-trafficking. As such, when the US announced the agreement by describing the fight against narco-trafficking as a "shared responsibility," Mexicans felt vindicated. Mexican scholar Raùl Benítez Manuat (2009) described Mérida as a paradigm shift in the two countries' relationship. For their part, US officials felt like they could finally engage in cooperation without Mexico labeling their efforts as breaches of sovereignty (Gallaher 2016). Many observers credit the final capture and arrest of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán to the improved cooperation Mérida begat (LaFranchi 2017). In my interviews for a collaborative research project funded by the National Institute of Justice (award number 2011-IJ-CX-0001) on US/Mexican law enforcement cooperation, I also found that better cooperation bled into casework not directly related to narco-trafficking, such as homicide and child kidnapping cases. Complicity For nearly a decade, human rights groups have accused Mexican security forces of violating human rights in their war against narco-traffickers (Amnesty 2015). When the US works with, or funds, units engaging in these violations, it risks becoming complicit in their abuses. Critics of Mérida claim the US has been slow to respond to this moral hazard. Indeed, Mexico has used Mérida money to purchase military equipment, such as Black Hawk helicopters, and to train military and police units—some with known ties to narco-traffickers (Franzblau 2015). They also argue that the US has been reticent to subject [End Page 180] Mexico to the Leahy Laws, which allow the US Departments of Defense and State to withhold foreign aid to countries not abiding by human rights standards (Seelke and Finklea 2017). The George...

Forensic Accounting Education in the UAE

Purpose: This paper presents the current scenario of offerings and availability of forensic accounting education in universities in the UAE. This study is useful in gaining a complete understanding of available courses on forensic accounting at the graduate and postgraduate level, especially in accounting specialization. The other purpose of this study is to compare the curriculum of UAE universities with the one recommended by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Research Method: A total of 75 institutions accredited and licensed by the CAA are included in this study. Course description or content is collected from universities by writing personal mails to concerned university program directors or deans to request for a copy of the same. Findings: The results provides insight into the direction of forensic accounting education in the UAE, where developing and improving forensic accounting education offerings has created serious buzz across the globe. Because of the increasing number of various corporate scandals all over the world, forensic accounting education has become the order of the day, and every accounting student needs to be trained in this field and every university has to offer it as part of the curriculum.