Cybercrime is a challenge for local and state law enforcement. The Law Enforcement Cyber Center (LECC) was established by the Bureau of Justice Assistance as a resource in combatting cybercrime. This report summarizes the LECC's activities, which aimed to raise the awareness and enhance the education and capacity of criminal justice and public safety agencies with regard to cybercrime.
The use of ambulance data for crime reduction is a form of injury surveillance. Under this practice, data for assault-based injuries is shared with police and Community Safety Partnerships to help them identify where violent crime is taking place, which allows police to target their resources to reduce offending. This guidance is aimed at those who do not currently use ambulance data, or wish to extend their use of ambulance data.
This guide offers advice to police forces on how to make using ambulance data for police interventions easier. The guidance draws on findings from RAND Europe's report on using ambulance data for violence prevention.
We found that IMPACT Europe's main result is a more robust and quasi-standardised mode of measuring effectiveness, broadly defining and evaluating programmes and interventions.
Challenged by high costs and concerns that the U.S. corrections sector is not achieving its goals, there has been a growing focus on approaches to reform and improve the sector's performance. To contribute to the policy debate on its future, RAND interviewed a group of prominent correctional practitioners, consultants, and academics. This report outlines their perspectives on the current state of corrections and their vision for the future.
This study investigates whether this ambulance data adds potential value for injury surveillance, bringing new information over and above that already available. Within that, there is an assessment of data quality in terms of completeness and, for example, the extent that the data sources overlap. Secondly, it scopes whether and if so, how, these data could be applied to violence prevention activities.
California's Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act provides funds for counties to offer evidence-based programs for high-need juvenile probationers and at-risk youths. This report evaluates the program on statewide and county measures. It also compares system costs for program youths in the six months before and after entering a program.
Between January 2013 and September 2015, the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office sent letters to individuals who had just purchased a handgun reminding them of their legal responsibilities as gun owners. This report evaluates the effect of the letters sent by the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office on city-level rates of homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault with a firearm and conducts a cost-benefit assessment of this letter program.
Through a targeted literature review and comparative analysis, this report examines the transferable lessons that can be drawn from evaluations of gang interventions and applied to the development of evaluation practice in the field of counter violent extremism (CVE), where robust and rigorous evaluations are not yet the norm. It also demonstrates that in some areas, CVE research might offer useful insights to inform future gang evaluations.
RAND Europe and the University of Manchester explored the role played by the dark web in fuelling and/or facilitating the worldwide illegal arms trade. The overall aim was to estimate the size and scope of the trade in firearms and related products on cryptomarkets, including the number of dark web markets listing firearms and related products, and the range and type of firearms and related products advertised and sold on cryptomarkets.
Proposition 47 is designed to reduce state prison overcrowding, focus criminal justice expenditures on violent and serious offenses, and increase investments in prevention and support programs. This report recommends how to measure the impact of Proposition 47 (and future legislative mandates) on Los Angeles County operations and budgets and what metrics should be tracked.
This research brief presents findings from evaluations of community-based interventions to reduce violence's harmful effects on children.
To evaluate Safe Start interventions' effectiveness in reducing violence's harmful effects, RAND Corporation researchers partnered with community-based sites to develop rigorous controlled evaluation designs and analyze data on child and family outcomes. This report presents findings and perspectives from this evaluation.
Police body-worn cameras (BWCs) are an increasingly prominent research area in criminal justice. This trend mirrors current practice, with more and more law enforcement agencies implementing or procuring BWCs. This article offers a more robust theoretical composition for the causal mechanisms that can explain the efficacy of BWCs.
This publication is part of a series of four RAND Perspectives (PE) each focusing on different challenges in the Mediterranean region. The focus of this PE is on criminal activities and their implications for regional stability and security.
Spotlight, RAND Europe's annual review, features ways that our objective research and analysis expanded perspectives in 2016 to provide policy and decision makers the evidence and facts during a year of highly charged political debates.
RAND Europe, in partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Oxford, was commissioned in July 2015 to support the College of Policing in a process evaluation of the Stop and Search Training Pilot that was delivered across six police forces in England from August 2015 through October 2015. This report presents findings from the process evaluation.
This report summarises the key findings from the 2016 Thought Leadership Programme convened by Corsham Institute in conjunction with RAND Europe and St George's House to explore the opportunities and challenges that digital technologies are creating within society. This report summarises key findings from the four sessions and discusses overarching themes on how digital advances can be used to the benefit of society.
The use of body-worn cameras (BWCs) by the police is rising. One proposed effect of BWCs is reducing complaints against police.
This study aims to map alternatives to coercive sanctions (ACS) for drug law offences and drug-related crimes that are available under the law in each EU member state and describe the use of these sanctions in practice.
California's Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act provides funds for counties to offer evidence-based programs for high-need juvenile probationers and at-risk youths. This report evaluates the program on statewide and county measures. It also compares system costs for program youths in the six months before and after entering a program.
There are now around 50 online market places on the 'hidden web' (or 'dark web') that facilitate trade of illicit drugs. But it is not just the obscure corners of the Internet where drugs are on sale. Many web shops on the open Internet offer new psychoactive drugs as 'research chemicals'. This study investigates the extent and scope of such Internet-facilitated drugs trade, with particular focus on the role of the Netherlands in this trade.
The Internet has fundamentally changed ways of doing business, including the operations of illegal markets. RAND Europe was commissioned to investigate the role of the Internet in facilitating the drugs trade, particularly in the Netherlands.
RAND Europe was commissioned by National Trading Standards (NTS) to undertake an independent review of the Scams Team to help inform its future development, delivery and effectiveness. The review included an assessment of the Scams Team in its current form, recommendations for service improvements and future provision in the context of the Consumer Landscape Reforms and recommendations for existing measures and measure of consumer detriment.
Police use of force is at the forefront of public awareness in many countries. Body-worn videos (BWVs) have been proposed as a new way of reducing police use of force, as well as assaults against officers.
