RESEARCH FORUM--NATIONAL ASSESSMENT PROGRAM: 1994 SURVEY RESULTS


    Approximately every 3 years, the National Assessment Program
(NAP) conducts a survey to identify the most pressing needs and
problems faced by the various components of the criminal justice
system at the State and local levels. By identifying what
agencies confront on a day-to-day basis, the survey can provide
direction in developing programs and strategies to respond to
their problems.
    
    The National Assessment Program is a major part of an
ongoing dialogue between the National Institute of Justice and
the criminal justice community. More than 2,500 officials in the
criminal justice community participated in the 1994 NAP survey.
This research forum summarizes the survey findings. (1)   

SURVEY PARTICIPANTS

    Representatives of virtually every component of the State
and local criminal justice system took part in the survey. At the
local level, the questionnaire was sent to police chiefs,
sheriffs, jail administrators, prosecutors, public defenders,
judges, trial court administrators, and probation and parole
directors. At the State level, attorneys general, commissioners
of corrections, State court administrators, probation and parole
directors, and prison wardens were queried.

    The sample encompassed all 50 States and the District of
Columbia. Within the States, researchers chose a random sample of
411 counties, including 211 counties with populations greater
than 250,000 and 200 counties with populations of 50,000 to
250,000. The police chiefs were selected by identifying the city
in each county with the highest population.

QUESTIONS ASKED

    Researchers tailored survey questions to match the specific
responsibilities of the various kinds of agencies. Thus, jail
administrators were asked about such issues as crowding and
inmates' medical needs, whereas prosecutors, judges, and trial
court administrators were asked about sentencing alternatives and
pretrial practices. Questions on staffing and training needs were
common to all types of agencies.

    The survey focused on three major areas of inquiry-workload
problems, staffing, and operations and procedures. Respondents
were asked to indicate the extent to which particular issues
contributed to workload problems. For example, with regard to
specific violent crimes, such as child abuse or domestic
violence, the survey participants were asked whether their
agencies have been able to handle the workload adequately. 

    In addition, respondents were asked about solutions to the
problems identified. They indicated what approaches they now take
to handle specific problems and whether they believed these
approaches need improvement.

    Throughout the survey, open-ended questions enabled
respondents to comment on details of their problems and needs and
to describe their own experiences. The comments complemented and
enhanced the quantitative results by providing insight from
the respondents on the reasons for the workload problems.

PROBLEMS CITED 

    The views of the survey participants mirror those of most
Americans. The themes of violence, drugs, and firearms dominated
the responses, and respondents repeatedly expressed concern about
young people, both as offenders and as victims of violence.

Violent Crime

    More than 65 percent of respondents indicated that cases
involving violence caused problems in workload management. 
Police chiefs and sheriffs indicated domestic violence as the
primary concern, while prosecutors ranked child abuse and
domestic violence high.

    Of the jail administrators, more than 80 percent said that
arrests for violent crime contributed to crowding in their
facilities. They cited only arrests for drug charges as
contributing more.

    By contrast, police chiefs and sheriffs ranked homicide
lowest, although public defenders and judges ranked it high.
Carjacking and asset forfeiture were cited by relatively few
respondents.

Drugs

    Drug-related crime caused workload difficulties to an even
greater extent than violent crime. More than 80 percent of the
respondents noted drug possession and/or drug sales as creating
problems for their departments. Drug crime has so dominated
police operations in the past few years that large departments,
according to the survey, have undertaken special measures to
respond, including asset forfeiture, buy-busts, directed patrol,
Neighborhood Watch, and drug units.

    Whereas the police and sheriffs focus on enforcement aimed
at drug crime, other surveyed agencies are involved more directly
in treatment. Most of them offer treatment as an alternative
sanction for offenders. However, at least 80 percent of these
respondents indicated that improvements were needed in treatment
services.

    Ninety-three percent of probation and parole agency
directors surveyed reported having drug testing programs for
offenders under community supervision. However, the value of
these testing programs received mixed reviews. Some thought these
programs effectively discouraged illicit drug use and provided a
useful supervision tool; others thought they took too much time
and were relied on too heavily for validating good behavior.

Firearms

    More than 80 percent of police chiefs and sheriffs said
crimes committed with a firearm contributed to their workload
problems. They particularly were concerned about the availability
of firearms to juveniles.

    Initiatives for addressing the problem of firearms included
gun turn-ins and buy-backs. Thirty-seven percent of the police
chiefs surveyed said they participated in these programs, and an
equal percentage would like to see such programs in their
jurisdictions.

    Among those departments with gun turn-ins or buy-backs, the
majority were satisfied with the results. Overall, the views on
these programs were mixed, with the most favorable comments
coming from urban areas and the most unfavorable comments from
suburban and rural communities.

RESPONSES TO CRIME

    The survey respondents also noted what they were doing to
address the problems identified and whether they believed the
response was adequate. Community policing and youth programs were
the initiatives most cited.

Community Policing

    Police chiefs and sheriffs cited community policing most
frequently as their approach to deter crime. Most of those who
have not adopted community policing indicated that they want to
do so. The most common community policing components were foot
patrols, special units, and neighborhood substations.

    Police chiefs and sheriffs cited a number of reasons for
shifting away from the traditional policing model, including the
desire to improve neighborhood quality of life, involve citizens
in crime-fighting (especially against drugs), and undertake a
more concerted effort at crime prevention. Staffing presents a
challenge, and some respondents noted the need for more officers
to expand community policing efforts.

    Training needs tempered the enthusiasm for community
policing. Eighty-three percent of the police chiefs and sheriffs
who had community policing programs said training should be
improved. An obstacle to training included making time available;
others noted the difficulty in selling the new approach.

Youth Programs

    Efforts to deter young people from crime, including drug-
and gang-related crime, ranked high on the agendas of police
chiefs, sheriffs, and other responding officials. Schools
represented the focal point for these efforts, to include school
resource officers, Adopt-A-School programs, and D.A.R.E.
programs.

    Almost three-fourths of the police chiefs had programs for
at-risk youths, and most others would like to see them
established. Considerably fewer sheriff's departments (53
percent) had these programs, but the vast majority who did not
have them indicated an interest in them.

    One of the greatest needs, expressed by police chiefs and
sheriffs alike, was to prevent juveniles from obtaining guns.
Eighty-five percent of the police chiefs said existing methods
needed to be improved, and a large percentage indicated that
their jurisdictions lacked any method to prevent juveniles from
obtaining firearms.

GANGS AND GANG-RELATED CRIME

    Gangs and gang-related crime challenge not only the police
and sheriffs but also prosecutors and corrections administrators.
The survey revealed that gang-related crime is a problem in the
vast majority of large jurisdictions, and it is becoming a
growing concern in less-populated areas.

    Among police chiefs in jurisdictions with more than 250,000
residents, 73 percent said gang-related crime contributed to
workload problems. By comparison, 55 percent of the police in
medium-sized jurisdictions (those with populations between
100,000 and 250,000) and 45 percent in smaller jurisdictions
(those with populations of 100,000 or fewer) said they were
experiencing the problem. Not only was gang-related crime
reported to be extensive, but it appeared to be growing.

    Police and sheriffs generally take a two-pronged approach to
gang crime--enforcement and prevention through education.
Enforcement may include the establishment of gang task forces or
special gang units. One jurisdiction disbanded its traffic unit
and converted it to a gang unit.

    Prevention often focuses on the schools. Specific tactics
include the use of school resource officers or implementation of
the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) and D.A.R.E.
programs.

    The prosecution of gang-related crime has been a particular
challenge in large jurisdictions, where 58 percent of the
prosecutors surveyed said this type of crime was adding to their
workload problems. In contrast, 33 percent of prosecutors in
small jurisdictions cited gang-related crime as contributing to
their workload problems. Prosecutors said fear of retaliation
against potential witnesses was a major inhibiting factor in
prosecuting gang crime.

    The presence of gangs in correctional facilities raises the
issues of classification and staff training among jail
administrators and prison wardens. In correctional facilities
that have gangs, administrators need classification procedures to
identify gang members accurately and training to prepare staff to
deal with this type of inmate. In addition, gangs appear to pose
a more serious problem in prisons than jails because of the
longer period of incarceration. Wardens said gangs generally
exacerbate overcrowding problems because they often must be
segregated.

JAIL AND PRISON CROWDING

    The familiar story of crowded conditions in jails has
changed somewhat, mainly due to increased construction. While the
number of jail admissions has increased in recent years, so did
the capital budget for jails, which more than doubled, to permit
additional bed spaces. Imposition of maximum capacity limits, as
well as weekend sentencing and alternative sanctions, were other
reasons jail administrators cited for the less-crowded
conditions.
    
    Still, 35 percent of the jail administrators admitted that
crowding continued in their facilities. They cited the main
reasons as drug offenses, violent crime, probation and parole
violations, length of sentences, and jail incarceration of
convicted felons who otherwise would have been sent to prison.

    Of the prison wardens who responded to the survey, 37
percent reported crowded conditions. Their reasons included drug
crime (reported by 88 percent of the wardens), violent crime,
longer sentences, parole violations, and insufficient alternative
sanctions.

ALTERNATIVES TO INCARCERATION
    
    When asked about the availability in their jurisdictions of
several alternatives to incarceration, respondents cited
work-release centers as the most common, followed by electronic
monitoring, boot camps, and day-reporting centers (the least
common alternative). Among prosecutors, 92 percent said their
jurisdictions have work-release centers, 84 percent have
electronic monitoring, and 71 percent have boot camps, but only
48 percent have day-reporting centers.

    Public defenders felt more strongly than others about the
need to improve available options to incarceration. Probation and
parole agency directors were less likely than other groups to
want any of these alternatives in their jurisdictions. Their
comments suggested resistance may be due to the potential for
additional work for their agencies, which they said were already
overburdened.

    A relatively high percentage of the respondents said they
did not want boot camps. More probation and parole agency
directors were unreceptive to boot camps than to other types of
sanctions because they were not fully convinced of the camps'
effectiveness and because they were concerned about the amount of
time needed to manage the camps. Judges and trial court
administrators expressed more favorable opinions about boot
camps, although some harbored reservations.

    Over 90 percent of each respondent group, except probation
and parole directors, said work-release centers were an option
available in their jurisdictions. Probation and parole agency
directors were less receptive to work-release centers than other
respondents; almost one-third said they did not want or need
them. 

    Electronic monitoring followed only work-release centers as
the most frequently employed alternative to prison or routine
probations. More than one-half of the respondents in each
category said their jurisdictions had this type of program.

EMERGING ISSUES

    Several issues that have begun to attract the attention of
criminal justice professionals came to light in the survey. These
issues center on specific segments of the victim and criminal
populations with particular needs.

Cultural Diversity

    Police chiefs and sheriffs expressed concern about how to
develop initiatives to work with diverse groups, particularly
where language barriers exist. The differences between the
cultural composition of the community and the police force were
cited as barriers between police and residents.

    The specific strategies for working with culturally diverse
communities were fairly wide-ranging. The most common strategies
involved recruiting officers from culturally diverse backgrounds,
recruiting bilingual officers, training field staff to
communicate with people whose backgrounds differ from their own,
and offering foreign language training. In some States, cultural
diversity training is mandated by law.

Offenders with Mental Illness

    When respondents were asked about meeting the needs of the
mentally ill offenders in the criminal justice system, their
answers suggested a certain ambivalence. Several perceived a
shift in responsibility from the mental health community to the
criminal justice system. Others cited their own sense of
responsibility for providing mental health services to inmates.

    Compared to other possible problem areas identified in the
survey, the issue of the mentally ill offenders was noted as
contributing only moderately to workload problems. The comments
of sheriffs and police chiefs tended to focus on the perceived
failure of mental health agencies to fulfill their obligations.

Crimes Against the Elderly

    High percentages of police and sheriff's departments (88
percent and 77 percent, respectively) adopted measures to prevent
fraud against the elderly.  At the same time, both groups
believed more could be done, particularly given the unique needs
of older citizens.

    Prevention programs center on education, with typical
approaches including distribution of crime prevention information
and speeches at Neighborhood Watch meetings and senior citizens
associations. Departments also use the media to caution against
flimflam groups active in their areas.

Information Systems

    Overall, needs were greater in information systems than in
any other area explored in the survey. For almost every task or
application, the majority of respondents said their systems
needed improvement.

    Among police chiefs and sheriffs, applications of greatest
interest were expert systems, systems to support problem solving,
and court disposition information. Jail administrators and
wardens expressed interest in systems for automating inmate
medical and mental health records, court information, and inmate
programs. Prosecutors, judges, and trial court administrators
cited information systems to alleviate attorney scheduling
conflicts as a priority.

CONCLUSION

    The 1994 NAP survey revealed a number of findings that offer
particular insight from those on the front lines of crime and
justice. In reviewing these findings, criminal justice
professionals should find it useful to compare the solutions they
have devised with those of other jurisdictions, to identify the
extent to which a particular solution has been adopted, and to
assess the extent to which the results have been found
satisfactory. Their insight, in turn, can be used to refine and
shape individual approaches to addressing criminal activity.


ENDNOTE

    Because the survey process began in 1993, the results
reflect figures for 1992, the most recent year for which complete
information was available to the respondents.

_______________

    Excerpted from the National Institute of Justice, Research
in Brief, "National Assessment Program: 1994 Survey Results" (NCJ
153517), by Tom J. McEwen, Ph.D. The full report of the NAP
survey is available through the National Criminal Justice
Reference Service, Box 6000, Rockville, MD 20849-6000. Those
interested in obtaining a copy also can e-mail
askncjrs@njcrs.aspensys.com or call 1-800-851-3420. For the full
report, ask for NCJ 150856.
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