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As a former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department, I am worried. Here’s why.
President Joe Biden recently released his budget request to Congress, and while I applaud its overall approach to public safety, focusing on things like community-based groups, supporting victims, addressing the gun violence epidemic, and police recruitment and training, much less attention and resources are devoted to building the evidence-base for this infusion of resources.
With the lone exception of hate crimes, there was no mention of data and statistics to evaluate such efforts and improve the nation’s crime and justice data systems. Worse yet, the section of the president’s budget that focused on research and development does not mention research to inform public safety.
The president’s budget sets priorities, but Congress alone has the power of the purse. It has woefully underfunded Justice’s two science agencies devoted to crime and justice, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
These agencies have been under-resourced for decades compared to their science counterparts in other federal agencies. These two agencies are fundamental to informing public safety decisions. Initially created in 1969 and renamed in 1978, NIJ serves the country as the research, development and evaluation agency of Justice. BJS was authorized in 1979 to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. Evaluation and data go hand-in-hand when crafting public safety policy.
Together, the budgets of these two agencies have hovered around $70 million to $80 million annually, well below the amounts provided to other federal science and statistical agencies. By comparison, the National Institute for Nursing Research budget stands at just under $200 million, and the budget for the Institute for Educational Sciences is at a staggering $800 million.
It strikes me that investing similar amounts in understanding patterns of crime and victimization and evaluating practices designed to improve public safety are equally important.
Without adequate resources dedicated to fundamental questions of what works best to prevent crime, deter offending and best serve victims, our ability to enact effective, evidence-based policies is severely hampered.
Safety is a fundamental human right that transcends political ideologies and partisan agendas. During my term as director of BJS, senators from both sides of the aisle wrote to me about expanding the collection of data on carjacking and human trafficking. By bolstering funding for research and evaluation and improving data collection in criminal justice and public safety, Congress can fulfill its obligation to protect and serve all citizens equitably.
Alex R. Piquero is a professor of sociology and criminology and a distinguished scholar at the University of Miami/InsideSources
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