Department of Justice February 22, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups or individuals who would like to enter into a cooperative agreement with NIC for the eighteen month development phase of a new initiative, ``Evidence Based Decision Making for Local Criminal Justice Systems'' (justice systems). Project Goal: The overall goal of the initiative is to establish and test articulated linkages (information tools and protocols) between local criminal justice decisions and the application of human and organizational change principles (evidence based practices) to achieve measurable reduction of pretrial misconduct and post-conviction risk of re-offending. The unique focus of the initiative is locally developed strategies of criminal justice officials (broadly defined below) that guide practice within existing sentencing statutes and rules. The initiative intends to: (1) Improve the quality of information that leads to making individual case decisions in local systems, and (2) engage these systems as policy making bodies to collectively improve the effectiveness and capacity of the decision processes related to pretrial release/sentencing options. The local officials will include judges, prosecutors, public defenders, court administrators, police, human service providers, county executives and legislators, and jail, probation and pretrial services agencies' administrators. Local criminal justice decisions are defined broadly to include dispositions regarding: Pretrial release or detention and the setting of bail and pretrial release conditions, pretrial diversion or post plea diversion ``sentences,'' charging and plea bargaining, sentencing of adjudicated offenders regarding use of community and custody options, mitigation or reduction of sentences, and responses to violations of conditions of pretrial release and community sentences.