The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, through its Federal Justice Statistics Resource Center, compiles comprehensive information describing suspects and defendants processed in the federal criminal justice system. The Federal Criminal Case Processing Statistics data tool is an interface that can be used to analyze case processing data on offenders who violate federal law. Users can generate various statistics in the areas of federal law enforcement, prosecution, courts, and incarceration for the years between 1998 and 2019. Users can also look up data based on title and section of the U.S. Criminal Code for the years between 1994 and 2019.

The Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act, administered by the California Board of State and Community Corrections, provides funding to counties to support programs that have proven their effectiveness in curbing crime among at-risk youth and youth involved in the juvenile justice system. In Los Angeles County, the Probation Department oversees the implementation of Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act-funded programs, which are selected by the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, which comprises stakeholders from county agencies, city agencies, and community-based organizations, and approved by the county before being submitted to the state. This report presents findings from a gap analysis which aimed to examine the extent to which the Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council has access to and considers information regarding best practices for juvenile justice systems when making funding decisions for Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act programs and projects. The report notes that 8 best practices emerged in a literature review in the field of juvenile justice programming. These include (1) providing a continuum of services for different risk and need levels; (2) using a positive youth development approach; (3) ensuring that programming is family-focused and community-led; (4) providing trauma-informed care; (5) applying a racial equity framework; (6) providing culturally appropriate and responsive programming; (7) using evidence-based practices and programs; and (8) attending to implementation and fidelity. Although stakeholders understand the importance of best practices, several key barriers exist to ensuring that they are reflected in the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act portfolio. These barriers include a lack of clear definitions or metrics associated with each best practice, the need for better data regarding program effectiveness, and a lack of information to determine whether programs applying for funding are consistent with the best practices.

In the national conversation around criminal justice reform in the United States, there are competing views about people with criminal histories. On the one hand, there is a long-standing view that people with criminal histories recidivate often and quickly. In the past several years, however, there has been a growing movement arguing that people should not be defined by their criminal histories and that people with criminal histories are not criminals in the persistent sense of the word. In particular, the behaviors of criminal justice cohorts are too often mistakenly used to describe, or are entangled with descriptions of, behaviors of the overall population of people who have ever had a conviction, served time in prison, or experienced some other event in the criminal justice system. This confusion has consequences. This paper demonstrates that the most-cited recidivism statistics often are based on criminal justice cohort samples that disproportionately contain frequent participants in the criminal justice system and, as a result, have higher recidivism rates compared with the broader population of concern.

One-fifth of U.S. high school students report being bullied each year. The authors use internet search data for real-time tracking of bullying patterns as COVID-19 disrupted in-person schooling. Using Google Trends, which makes publicly available monthly internet search behavior both nationally and by state, the authors used the search intensity, which calculates the fraction of a given area’s Google searches devoted to school bullying, cyberbullying, and bullying. The authors first show that, pre-pandemic, internet searches contain useful information about actual bullying behavior. The authors then show that searches for school bullying and cyberbullying dropped 30-35% as schools shifted to remote learning in spring 2020. The gradual return to in-person instruction starting in fall 2020 partially returns bullying searches to pre-pandemic levels. This rare positive effect may partly explain recent mixed evidence on the pandemic’s impact on students’ mental health and well-being.

Through partnerships with outside organizations and agencies, schools can provide more students with the learning conditions they need to thrive. Following an initial report that describes these partnerships and the evidence for them, and reflects on how these partnerships can assist districts and schools in meeting the social and emotional needs of all students, this report focuses specifically on suggestions for how school districts can create systems and structures that help schools build and sustain partnerships. It presents steps to (1) plan and implement partnerships, (2) build trusting relationships, and (3) promote partnerships’ sustainability and long-term success.

Colorado allocates additional school district funding for at-risk students, currently defined as those eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. But this definition hinders some school districts from adopting universal meal programs, creates substantial data collection burdens, and may not fully describe the share of students with economic need. This report uses feedback collected from Colorado stakeholders and national experts, as well as Colorado-specific data, to assess seven potential at-risk measures such as 1) the share of students below a given poverty level, as determined by tax records or 2) the share of students from a household with income below the federal poverty level, based on students’ residential locations within a geographic school district. Based on survey data and interview feedback, a strong at-risk measure would improve free meal access, capture all eligible students, align in scale with the current free or reduced-price lunch share, reflect actual student enrollment, and minimize school burdens and costs.

The goal of this study was three-fold: (1) evaluate the overall impacts of COVID-19 claims on California’s workers’ compensation system, (2) evaluate the overall impacts of COVID-19 claims on California’s workers’ compensation indemnity benefits, medical benefits, and death benefits, including differences in the impacts across differing occupational groups, and (3) assess the overall and cost impacts of the frontline worker and outbreak presumptions created by California Senate Bill 1159 on California workers’ compensation system. California Senate Bill 1159 codified an executive order that established a legal presumption that COVID-19 is work-related under specific circumstances. These circumstances included two groups: (1) health-care workers and workers in specified health care facilities, active firefighters, and peace officers primarily engaged in active law enforcement; and (2) workers not covered by the frontline presumption who tested positive for COVID-19 while working outside the home during an outbreak period at their job site. Overall, the study uncovered several challenges with the functioning of the workers' compensation system during the pandemic. For employers, these challenges primarily related to handling a large, fluctuating volume of claims within shortened claim administration timeframes for making an initial claim decision. For workers, confusion around filing a COVID-19 claim presented challenges, including questions about what occupations were covered and qualified for workers' compensation under the presumption and whether a positive COVID-19 test was needed. In the face of these challenges, the study examined how the specific aspects of the presumptions identified by Senate Bill 1159 impacted workers and employers within the workers' compensation system.

Emerging technologies are shifting market power and introducing a range of risks that can only be managed through regulation. Emerging technologies include the rise of digital platforms and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, current approaches to governing technology are insufficient, fragmented, and lack the focus toward actionable goals. This paper proposes three tools that can be leveraged to support fit-for-purpose technology regulation for the 21st century: First, transparent and holistic policymaking levers that clearly communicate goals and identify trade-offs at the national and international levels; second, revamped efforts to collaborate across jurisdictions, particularly through standard-setting and evidence gathering of critical incidents across jurisdictions; and third, a shift toward agile governance, whether acquired through the system, design, or both. The authors note that while these approaches are not meant to be comprehensive, given the complexities of a fragmented and nonexistent governance system, the approach aims to tackle some of these complexities by addressing the policy context, content, and process in place to help formulate policy options.

The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) was the last of a series of housing-related legislative actions emerging from the Civil Rights era. It was enacted to combat redlining, although race is not mentioned in the original statute. Regulators have used low and moderate incomes (LMI) as a proxy for race with respect to people and neighborhoods. However, as awareness of the racial gaps in homeownership, wealth, and income increases, federal bank regulators are deliberating a major revision of CRA regulations that could include a more explicit inclusion of race. In this report, the authors examine the overlap between current CRA lending for purchase mortgages to LMI borrowers and neighborhoods and lending to minority borrowers and minority neighborhoods. The authors evaluate how well current LMI lending fosters lending to minority neighborhoods and how well it fosters lending to minority borrowers. The authors find that, predominantly minority neighborhoods receive less than their proportionate share of owner-occupied purchase loans and that this is particularly the case among bank lenders. Additionally, though minority borrowers are overall receiving their proportionate share of loans, Black borrowers are receiving smaller shares than Hispanic and Asian borrowers, and bank lending is underrepresented in LMI neighborhoods. This paper also considers the benefits and complexities of several possible strategies to bring explicit consideration of race into the CRA regulations, including: special consideration to lending in predominantly minority LMI neighborhoods and borrowers; expanding CRA credit to include lending in middle- and upper-income predominantly minority neighborhoods; and expanding CRA credit considerations to count loans to middle- and upper-income minority borrowers outside of LMI neighborhoods.

This report uses the most recent data from the National Vital Statistics System to update statistics on deaths from drug overdose in the United States, showing rates by demographic group and by specific types of drugs involved (such as opioids or stimulants), with a focus on changes from 2019 to 2020. From 2019 to 2020, the rate of drug overdose deaths increased for all sex, age, and race and Hispanic-origin groups. Overall, the age-adjusted rate increased 31%, from 21.6 per 100,000 in 2019 to 28.3 in 2020. From 2019 to 2020, the rate for males increased from 29.6 to 39.5, and the rate for females increased from 13.7 to 17.1 per 100,000. In both 2019 and 2020, adults aged 35-44 had the highest age-adjusted rate among people aged 15 and over. Although the greatest percentage increase in rates from 2019 to 2020 occurred among young people aged 15-24, rates also increased approximately 33% for adults aged 25-34 and 35-44. In both 2019 and 2020, rates were highest for non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native people. However, the greatest percentage increase in rates from 2019 to 2020 occurred among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander people.

Medicare provides vital health care coverage to millions of adults ages 65 and older and to some younger persons with a disability or end-stage renal disease. The program pays for a portion of the costs for certain inpatient and outpatient health care services and, for some, prescription drug costs. Yet, contrary to a common belief, Medicare does not cover all health care-related costs. Using the 2018 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, this report details actual health care spending by people enrolled in traditional Medicare and shows the financial burden of health care by share of income. Key findings from this report include that many Medicare beneficiaries face significant out-of-pocket expenses to meet their health care needs. In 2018, people with traditional Medicare spent an average of $6,168 on insurance premiums and medical services. One in 10 people with traditional Medicare spent at least $10,816 in 2018 and the top quarter of spenders paid an average of $14,123. Health care expenses can create a significant financial burden for many Medicare beneficiaries, with half the people with traditional Medicare spending at least 16% of their income on health care. And one in 10 beneficiaries spent at least 52% of their income on health care. Beneficiaries pay substantial amounts out of pocket for services and devices not covered by traditional Medicare, including hearing aids, eyeglasses, dental care, and long-term care services.

The convergence of revolutionary technologies, including genome editing and artificial intelligence, are revolutionizing modern medicine. At the nexus of these tools sits the emerging field of precision medicine, an area of immense potential which is increasingly attracting attention. Precision medicine uses personal information, such as DNA sequences, to prevent, diagnose, or treat disease. From targeting late-stage cancers to curing rare genetic diseases, precision medicine is poised to impact millions of people within the next decade. Despite such promise, this form of healthcare is not without unique challenges. Data storage and tracking, inefficient regulatory processes, and complex supply-chains all create barriers and bottlenecks that hamper the equitable delivery of precision medicine to society. Governments aiming to integrate precision medicine into their healthcare systems must find a way of overcoming technological, ethical, and legal challenges. Fortunately, an agile governance approach offers essential tools and processes capable of promoting technology innovation while safeguarding the public from unintended consequences. This report describes the process of precision medicine, from basic research to patient care, highlighting key challenges along the way, and describes the role agile governance can play in overcoming these challenges. Next, the report provides global case studies highlighting how governments, companies, and other stakeholders are using agile governance processes to prepare their countries and industries for precision medicine.