Crime and Justice

Publications on Crime/Justice

This report is based on research conducted by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center on the violence prevention activities taking place at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School during the 2008-2009 school year. Based on an assessment of the school's violence prevention approach using qualitative and quantitative data from stakeholder interviews, field observations, programmatic records, and surveys with students and faculty, this report includes: a logic model of the school's violence prevention approach; detailed information on each of the violence prevention activities within the violence prevention approach and how they compare to national best practices; student and faculty perceptions of the school climate and the violence prevention approach; and recommendations to the school administrators on how to strengthen their violence prevention approach based on the assessment findings. The report concludes with brief remarks on next steps in school violence prevention research.

This summary brief is based on research conducted by the Urban Institute's Justice Policy Center on the violence prevention activities taking place at the Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter High School during the 2008-2009 school year. Researchers from the Justice Policy Center conducted an assessment of the school's violence prevention activities using qualitative and quantitative data from stakeholder interviews, programmatic records, and surveys with students and faculty. This brief provides an overview of Thurgood Marshall Academy's violence prevention approach; a more detailed report on the full assessment will follow in Summer 2010.

Political battles over malpractice reform have recurred for 35 years, starting at the state level. Many states have enacted caps on awards and other tort reforms amid liability insurance crises proclaimed in the mid-1970s, mid-1980s, and early 2000s. Since the mid-1990s, Republicans have unsuccessfully sought similar malpractice limits at the federal level. Sharp run-ups in claims rates preceded the first two crises; the last seemed more driven by increases in awards and other costs, along with insurance market developments. Defensive medicine arose separately as a national policy issue in the late 1960s. At the time, medical liability was expanding from the very low level of the 1950s because of shifts in both tort doctrines and social culture.

Eight years after the Madden/Wells redevelopment started, this brief presents what has happened to the original residents, including the type of housing assistance they received and where they lived in 2009. Despite a number of challenges, we found that by 2009, all of the residents had relocated and nearly one in five former Madden/Wells residents was living in a new mixed-income housing development. Most of the former Madden/Wells residents reported that their current housing and neighborhood was better than Madden/Wells. However, only a minority lived in economically or racially diverse neighborhoods that offer real opportunities for themselves and their children.

This brief examines homicides in the District of Columbia over the period 2001 — 2009, both citywide and by police district. The analysis found that homicides declined more than 70 percent between 1991 and 2009, and 20 percent between 2008 and 2009. District-level analyses found that in all Districts but District 4, homicide rates dropped from 2006 — 2009. District 4 saw a small increase in its homicide rate. Homicides were also found to be relatively rare in District 1, 2, and 3. The full brief provides more in-depth findings on the changes in homicide rates in other Districts.