Skip to page content

Criminal Law

Commentary
How Policies That Punish Pregnant Women Backfire
There is overwhelming evidence and consensus from the medical and public health communities that supportive approaches are what help pregnant women with substance use disorders. Unfortunately, the overturning of Roe v. Wade has opened the door for more policies that police and punish women rather than these solutions that can save lives.
Aug 2, 2022
Commercial Book
Assessing the Harms of Crime: A New Framework for Criminal Policy
Assessing the Harms of Crime provides a firm analytical foundation for making normative decisions about criminal and related policy, taking harm—and its reduction—as a conceptual starting point and supplying the means for systematic, empirical analysis in a harm assessment framework.
Jun 29, 2022
Journal Article
Does Mens Rea Matter?
Does mens rea matter to the criminal legal system? Our study addresses this question by performing the first-ever empirical analysis of a culpable mental state's impact on administration of a criminal statute.
Mar 23, 2022
Journal Article
Sentencing Scorecards: Reducing Racial Disparities in Prison Sentences at Their Source
Scorecards are a common tool for public policy decisionmaking, but none highlight racial disparities in incarceration. We constructed county-level scorecards for racial disparities in incarceration rates for the NY State Permanent Commission on Sentencing.
Oct 21, 2020
News Release
Punishing Pregnant Women for Substance Use Is Linked to Higher Rates of Newborns Experiencing Opioid Withdrawal
State policies that impose punitive action against pregnant women who use illicit substances are associated with higher rates of infants being born with opioid withdrawal. This suggests that policymakers should instead focus on public health approaches that bolster prevention and expand access to treatment.
Nov 13, 2019
Tool
Forensic DNA Surveillance Tool
This tool shows criminal justice policymakers how state policies affect the size and racial composition of forensic DNA databases. Users can view current state policies or change inputs and assumptions to see how database composition is impacted.
Aug 12, 2019
Report
Ethics in Scientific Research
An analysis of how ethics are created, monitored, and enforced finds which ethical principles are common across scientific disciplines, how these ethics might vary geographically, and how emerging topics are shaping future ethics.
Jun 5, 2019
Report
Tool Created to Help Multinational Companies Assess Risk of Bribery When Doing Business in Foreign Countries
Corruption can hinder global business investment — particularly in emerging markets — but multinational companies often have difficulty assessing the business bribery risk in other countries. A new tool, called the TRACE Matrix, can help.
May 13, 2019
Journal Article
The Effects of Holistic Defense on Criminal Justice Outcomes
Using administrative data covering over half a million cases and a quasi-experimental research design, we estimate the causal effect of holistic defense on case outcomes and future offending.
Jan 29, 2019
Report
Alcohol and international football tournaments
This case study reviews the available evidence on the connection between alcohol and international football.
Dec 11, 2018
Commentary
The Rules of the Game: Reducing Antisocial Behavior and Violence at Football Events
Violent behavior at football matches has garnered international media attention for decades even though the vast majority of matches pass without any significant violent incidents. Despite the widespread attention toward harmful behaviors, there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of current practices targeting negative fan behavior.
Aug 14, 2018
Report
Violent and Antisocial Behaviour at Football Events: Review of interventions
This report presents the findings of a study on approaches that have been taken to prevent and respond to antisocial and violent behaviours among football fans, and the extent to which these approaches proved effective.
Jul 23, 2018
Report
Why Do Some Football Fans Engage in Violent and Antisocial Behavior?
Negative behavior by fans at football (soccer) matches—such as verbal abuse, destruction of property, and assault—has garnered international media attention for decades. No single factor is responsible, but alcohol, sporting rivalries, and socio-political factors play a role.
Jul 23, 2018
Journal Article
NIJ's Multisite Evaluation of Prosecutor-Led Diversion Programs: Strategies, Impacts, and Cost-Effectiveness
This study examines 16 prosecutor-led diversion programs in 11 jurisdictions across the country, and conducts impact evaluations of five programs and cost evaluations of four programs.
May 17, 2018
Journal Article
Prosecutor-Led Pretrial Diversion: Case Studies in Eleven Jurisdictions
The primary focus of this study is to provide a national portrait of prosecutor-led diversion through case studies of the goals, history, policies, and practices of diversion programs implemented in 11 prosecutors' offices.
May 17, 2018
Journal Article
Think Mass Shootings Are Terrorism? Careful What You Wish For
Those arguing America needs a new domestic terrorism law haven't thought things through.
Jan 4, 2018
Report
Helping Law Enforcement Use Data from Mobile Applications: A Guide to the Prototype Mobile Information and Knowledge Ecosystem (MIKE) Tool
Mobile devices automatically and unobtrusively collect data about their users. This report documents a prototype tool created to help interested stakeholders better understand this mobile app ecosystem, and its use by law enforcement.
Apr 28, 2017
Journal Article
Starting from the End: A Plea for Focusing on the Consequences of Crime
Since its institutionalization as an autonomous discipline in the late 19th century, criminology's main project has been identifying the causes of crime.
Dec 29, 2015
Journal Article
Policing, Boundaries and the State: The Changing Landscape of Sovereignty and Security
This study examines institutional rearrangements of policing, boundaries and the state.
Dec 29, 2015
Report
Electronic Surveillance of Mobile Devices for Law Enforcement
Mobile phones collect and retain enormous amounts of information that can be useful in criminal investigations. However, state and local law enforcement face substantial challenges when accessing these data.
Dec 10, 2015

1
2
3
Next

Research conducted by

Researcher Spotlight

Douglas C. Ligor

Senior Behavioral/Social Scientist

Doug Ligor is a senior behavioral/social scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research areas include: homeland and national security law, regulation and policy, particularly as they relate to immigration, border security, migration, asylum, and refugee processing; space governance and…
James M. Anderson

Director, Justice Policy Program

James Anderson is director of the Justice Policy Program and the RAND Institute for Civil Justice and a senior behavioral/social scientist at the RAND Corporation. He has been the principal investigator on a wide range of projects, ranging from policy implications of autonomous vehicle…

Explore Our People »