Department of Justice 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

On September 20, 2007, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register (72 FR 53734) proposing to conform its regulations to recent statutory amendments to the Controlled Substances Act that changed certain patient limitations for practitioners who dispense or prescribe certain narcotic drugs for maintenance or detoxification treatment. DEA received one comment in support of this rulemaking. DEA is finalizing the rule as proposed.

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups or individuals to enter into a cooperative agreement for a 12-month, developmental phase of a new initiative, ``Identifying the Characteristics of High Performing Correctional Organizations.'' This project will focus on developing a methodology to allow organizations to build from their strengths to identify and bridge gaps between current performance and optimal performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness and accountability. Project Goal: The products from this cooperative agreement will be to establish a model, accompanying assessment methodology, and appropriate performance measures that define a high performance correctional agency or system. The model will synthesize the literature about building high-performance organizations into diagnostic tools that can be put to practical use by organizations to understand their business practices and overall performance. The intended user of the tools are local and state operated jails, prisons and community corrections agencies or systems. The intended outcome for this project is to establish a model, assessment methodology, performance indicators, and practical strategies to (1) Develop ways to address agency inefficiencies that result from the lack of a ``holistic'' and integrated perspective; (2) establish a core set of values or guiding principles that agencies can apply to correctional disciplines to enhance business practices; (3) improve organizational performance by assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, resources and threats; (4) prioritize goals and objectives; and (5) contain costs associated with operating correctional agencies and systems. This project will: Define the ``hard side'' of correctional organizations i.e. strategic plan, mission statement, capacity building, policy/procedure etc; their leadership and management philosophy; organizational structure; and other operational characteristics. Identify methods to improve the infrastructure, activities, and outputs of correctional organizations to be better aligned with operational practices, community partnerships, offender reentry and the best use of resources. Identify evidence based and/or best practices. Develop and test tools that can be put to practical use. Develop methods to measure the degree to which correctional organizations are functioning that comprises the actual output or result measured against its intended outputs or goals and objectives in determining performance.

Notice of the Availability of the Record of Decision. The U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announces the availability of the Record of Decision (ROD) concerning the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed development of a Federal Correctional Complex (FCC) in the Aliceville, Alabama area.

The purpose of this notice is to announce the meeting of the Criminal Justice Information Services (CJTS) Advisory Policy Board (APB). The CJIS APB is a federal advisory committee established pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This meeting announcement is being published as required by Section 10 of the FACA. The CJIS APB is responsible for reviewing policy issues and appropriate technical and operational issues related to the programs administered by the FBI's CJIS Division, and thereafter, making appropriate recommendations to the FBI Director. The programs administered by the CJIS Division are the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, the Interstate Identification Index, Law Enforcement Online, National Crime Information Center, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the National Incident-Based Reporting System, Law Enforcement National Data Exchange, and Uniform Crime Reporting. The meeting will be open to the public on a first-come, first- seated basis. Any member of the public wishing to file a written statement concerning the CJIS Division programs or wishing to address this session should notify Senior CJTS Advisor Roy G. Weise at (304) 625-2730 at least 24 hours prior to the start of the session. The notification should contain the requestor's name, corporate designation, and consumer affiliation or government designation along with a short statement describing the topic to be addressed and the time needed for the presentation. A requestor will ordinarily be allowed no more than 15 minutes to present a topic. Dates and Times: The APB will meet in open session from 8:30 a.m. until 5 p.m., on June 11-12, 2008.

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from qualified organizations or individuals who would like to enter into an 18-month cooperative agreement with NIC. It is intended that the following three products will be delivered by the awardee during the 18-month time period: Revision and updating of the NIC document entitled Civil Liabilities and Other Legal Issues for Probation/Parole Officers and Supervisors, Third Edition, U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections; Rolando V. del Carmen and Maldine Beth Barnhill, Gene Bonham, Jr., Lance Hignite, & Todd Jermstad, Sam Houston State University, 2001; Development of an Executive Supplement for directors and chiefs of probation, parole and other community corrections agencies that identifies legal issues and responsibilities unique to their chief executive level positions; Development of various adult learning vehicles for training and dissemination of the material in the Fourth Edition of the core document as well as the new Executive Supplement.