Technology is important to improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and safety of the criminal justice system. The development of new technologies and new approaches for applying them has been and will likely continue to be an important catalyst for improvement in law enforcement, corrections, and the courts. However, use of technology in these sectors can be challenging, particularly for agencies located in small, rural, tribal, and border (SRTB) areas. SRTB justice systems account for three-quarters of all criminal justice agencies nationwide. Because these agencies are so geographically dispersed and have relatively few employees, they lack a centralized voice to influence the development of technologies and other solutions. To date, relatively little research has examined the needs of such agencies. The National Institute of Justice created the Justice Innovation Center (JIC) to provide current, rigorous, and actionable information on technology needs and priorities specific to SRTB agencies. JIC's purpose is to gather information on the challenges that SRTB agencies face, identify relevant technology solutions that can address those challenges, and assess these technology solutions as they are implemented in real-world situations. These activities will provide guidance to SRTB agencies for prioritizing, planning, and implementing technology. The JIC research team consists of staff from RAND Justice Policy and the Arizona State University Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety. This report summarizes JIC's research goals and efforts, which include a literature review, in-depth interviews with nearly 150 practitioners and topical experts, and focused discussions with an advisory panel of experts and practitioners.

In government administration and leadership, rural community leaders face unique challenges in delivering public services including (but not limited to) education, health care, and public safety. Meanwhile, residents who live in smaller and more isolated rural settings often face greater difficulties accessing provisions and services or commuting to work, among other economic development challenges. These factors may affect a community’s resiliency to and recovery from shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Local Government Administration in Small Town America devotes some overdue scholarly attention to the governance and administration of public programs in small towns and rural communities in the United States. The chapter contributors to this volume analyze some of the unique challenges rural communities face, as well as the policy tools that their governments employ to address them. The book explores ways that small town governments collaborate with one another, the state, and the federal government, and examines how local government officials use knowledge of people and place to improve policy performance. The chapters are designed to provide cases and strategies for students and practitioners in public administration to use in a small town environment, while also considering a community’s distinctive social and political culture, which determines how local political leaders and government practitioners might respond to demands and challenges they face. Local Government Administration in Small Town America is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students studying local government, as well as for rural practitioners navigating evolving challenges unique to their communities.

Globalization has had a sharp impact on the definition of ‘national security,’ as the interconnectedness of many threats calls for them to be addressed at the national and global level simultaneously. Law enforcement efforts must increasingly include elements of international and transnational communication and cooperation. Police forces in different countries must find common ways to share data and track international crime trends. This timely work analyzes key challenges confronting the law enforcement community, with regards to international crime, particularly illegal trafficking and terrorism. The contributions in this volume are the result of a series of workshops that brought together international law enforcement officials, researchers, and representatives from intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to examine the need for international police cooperation, the specific challenges this presents, and to propose solutions. This work will be of interest to researchers in law enforcement, criminal justice, crime prevention, and international relations.

This report presents empirical data describing the manpower planning currently being done in the criminal justice field and assesses future feasible developments. It provides a basis for further developmental efforts among criminal justice administrators planners, and researchers. The report resulted from Phase I of Michigan State University's Manpower Planning Development Project and is based on information summarized from interviews with nearly 250 people in over 100 agencies and from five questionnaires sent to more than 500 criminal justice agencies. Data collection concentrated in the areas of law enforcement, corrections, State planning agencies, and law enforcement standards and training councils. Findings focus on police and corrections manpower planning, comprehensive systems planning, the role of peace officer standards and training councils in manpower development, and the environment of manpower decisionmaking. One general study finding is that substantial interest exists in the system for increasing the degree to which human resources are efficiently and effectively utilized. Growing external pressures to plan and justify human resource decisions on rational criteria are coming from budget review authorities and from legislative, executive, and judicial bodies. However, capacities and needs for manpower planning vary greatly among agencies and are dependent on such factors as agency size, political climate, and the agency's function in the criminal justice system. Thus, manpower planning development must be tailored to individual agency needs, environments, and capacities. Although many individual data and analytical components necessary to manpower planning exist, agencies have not integrated these components into a coordinated approach to human resource management. Rather, data are collected and analyzed in reference to specific problems. Thus, more integrated approaches to manpower planning should be initiated.