RAND work on public safety issues ranges from policing and prisons to violent crime and the illegal drug trade, as well as homeland security and emergency preparedness. RAND delivers research that reflects our core values of quality and objectivity and helps inform policy debates that are often riddled with arguments driven not by evidence but by emotion and ideology.
Commentary
The fact is that the United States needs to gear up for the coming era of cyber threats — and start by ensuring its financial flank is not catastrophically compromised, writes Mark Sparkman.
Commentary
An aircraft's capacity and speed largely determine the rate at which water or retardant can be applied to a fire. Very large air tankers (VLATs) certainly have the capacity to apply large amounts of fluids to a fire, but because of the distances travelled they may not be able to get a second load very quickly.
Report
Emergency departments account for a rising proportion of hospital admissions and serve increasingly as an advanced diagnostic center for primary care physicians. While often targeted as the most expensive place to get medical care, emergency rooms remain an important safety net for Americans who cannot get care elsewhere.
News Release
Hospital emergency departments play a growing role in the U.S. health care system, accounting for a rising proportion of hospital admissions and serving increasingly as an advanced diagnostic center for primary care physicians.
Research Brief
This brief summarizes a RAND analysis of the role of that hospital emergency departments may come to play in either contributing to or reducing the rising costs of health care.
Commentary
Under a Social Impact Bond, private investors — rather than the government — provide up-front funding for programs that tackle such challenges as recidivism or homelessness. If these programs succeed, the government pays some of the savings back to the investors.
Announcement
To celebrate our first 60 years, we created 60 Ways RAND Has Made a Difference, an online book to illustrate our most notable contributions. On our 65th birthday, we provide five of the most recent ways in which we at RAND are proud to have made a difference.
Commentary
Having dealt with outbreaks of H5N1 bird flu and other communicable diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and H1N1 swine flu in 2009, health officials are now far better prepared to detect new diseases early and react quickly to monitor and contain their spread.
Report
Assesses to what extent the Council to Improve Foodborne Outbreak Response's Guidelines and associated Toolkit are reaching their intended users and achieving their intended goals.
Report
Describes several approaches for detecting racial profiling by police and calls for their use in monitoring the implementation of state and local immigration laws.
Blog
Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center and coauthor of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know, hosted an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session on Reddit this week. He fielded questions from participants on a variety of drug policy issues.
Commentary
Policymakers in Washington and Colorado are confronting some new and tricky issues that have never been addressed. For them, and for anyone else thinking about changing their pot laws, there are seven key decision areas that will shape the costs and benefits of marijuana legalization.
Commentary
Boston's health care providers reacted the way they did because they knew what they were supposed to do. Those who did not were smart enough to follow the lead of those who did. That's how a “ritualized” disaster plan works.
Commentary
Basing public safety decisions on risk analysis allows authorities to devote public resources to those counterterrorism measures that have the potential to do the most good, writes Henry Willis.
Commentary
In recent years, especially following the economic downturn, states, counties, and cities have looked for ways to reduce costs and maintain basic policing services, leading many to question what the investment in counterterrorism and homeland security has achieved for their jurisdiction.
Commentary
Although official after-action reports are still being compiled, it looks like Boston's first responders and hospitals delivered under difficult circumstances, writes Arthur Kellermann.
Commentary
The path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions.
Commentary
The risk of overreaching in the name of homeland security is great. But the best and most likely outcome of this latest attack would be a measured security response built around Americans engaging anew in their own security, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
Journal Article
In the age of austerity, Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) provision is now the focus of policymakers' efficiency drives.
Journal Article
The authors discuss how current legal developments raise complications and may limit the ability of researchers to work on terrorism and conflict topics.
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