This report details ongoing and completed efforts to measure and analyze the nationwide incidence of human trafficking, to describe characteristics of human trafficking victims and offenders, and to describe criminal justice responses to human trafficking offenses. The report provides information on human trafficking suspects referred to and prosecuted by U.S. attorneys, human trafficking defendants convicted and sentenced to federal prison, and admissions to state prison for human trafficking. The report found that a total of 2,027 persons were referred to U.S. attorneys for human trafficking offenses in Fiscal Year 2021, a 49% increase from the 1,360 persons referred in 2011. The number of persons prosecuted for human trafficking more than doubled from 2011 to 2021 (from 729 persons to 1,672 persons, respectively). Additionally, at yearend 2021, 1,657 persons were in the custody of a state prison serving a sentence for a human trafficking offense.

This policy brief proposes aligning supervision conditions with the Risk-Needs-Responsivity (RNR) framework to improve outcomes for individuals on supervision and the community. Community supervision, commonly known as probation or parole, involves people serving part of their sentence under supervision while living in the community. Supervision conditions are requirements that individuals must comply with during this period, such as engaging in a treatment program, maintaining employment, or regularly checking in with their probation or parole officer. The RNR framework requires matching the level of supervision with the person’s risk to reoffend, targeting criminogenic needs (factors associated with reoffending that can be changed with intervention) through appropriate treatment or services, and tailoring interventions to individual learning styles. The RNR framework proposes five principles to guide supervision conditions: (1) impose fewer conditions as risk level decreases, (2) eliminate or minimize standard conditions, (3) use special/additional conditions to target one or two of the highest scoring criminogenic needs, (4) offer services rather than conditions to address responsivity barriers, and (5) impose no conditions or only a minimal set of standard conditions when no risk and needs assessment is available. The authors posit that by shifting the focus from solely restricting behavior to addressing criminogenic needs and promoting meaningful behavior change, conditions can better serve their intended purposes of reducing reoffending and ensuring public safety.

This research investigates the impact wrongful convictions have on victims of crimes. In cases where the wrong person is convicted, crime victims face unique challenges and emotional turmoil, stemming from the knowledge that the true perpetrator remains unidentified and unpunished. This study delves into the psychological, emotional, and social consequences experienced by these victims, shedding light on their struggles to seek justice and find closure. This study analyzes case studies of wrongful conviction cases, highlighting the complexities and nuances of victim experiences across various contexts. In addition to illuminating the issues, this research explores potential support mechanisms and legal reforms designed to address the unique needs of victims in wrongful conviction cases. This includes examining victim compensation programs and the role of victim impact statements during exoneration proceedings. Ultimately, this study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the far-reaching consequences of wrongful convictions, extending beyond the exonerees themselves to encompass the often-overlooked experiences of crime victims.

Millions of young Americans face an obstacle course after high school as they transition into adulthood. The path to further education and good jobs can be hard to find and access. This is especially true for young people from low-income backgrounds or those whose parents don’t have college degrees. High school graduation rates have steadily increased over time, but they are still not at a level to be satisfied with. More than half a million young people leave high school without a diploma every year, and this number compounds quickly over time. Over a five-year period, there will be 2.5 million more young people who should have high school diplomas but don’t. More than one in 10 students who enter ninth grade (13%) do not complete high school on time. Non-completion rates are higher among students from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and Black and Latino or Hispanic students. Policy makers do not have to start from scratch to improve the situation. Across the country, there are successful programs that are achieving appropriate goals, but at nowhere near the scale required. Policy makers need to codify and share what works while also continuing to learn and build the evidence base. Some programs and approaches have been extensively evaluated, particularly in postsecondary education, such as combining ongoing enhanced advising services with financial support and other program reforms. There is also strong research supporting the effectiveness of job training programs targeting specific sectors and occupations—combining strong employer relationships with industry-relevant curriculum and support services.

In this report, the authors describe what they learned through field research at six promising community college – K-12 partnerships in Florida (Chipola College, Miami Dade College, and Tallahassee Community College) and Texas (Lee College, Navarro College, and San Jacinto College) that have begun to extend guided pathways practices to dual enrollment offerings and that have achieved strong results using dual enrollment to expand college access and opportunities for Black, Hispanic, and low-income high school students. Guided pathways is a whole-college redesign model designed to help all students explore, choose, plan, and complete programs aligned with their career and education goals efficiently and affordably. The authors also discuss two multifaceted dual enrollment equity pathways (DEEP) leadership strategies that emerged from their fieldwork for (1) establishing a shared DEEP mindset and (2) enabling DEEP practices at scale. DEEP is a research-based framework for rethinking dual enrollment as a more equitable on-ramp to college programs of study that lead to family-supporting, career-path jobs for students who might not otherwise pursue education after college. The authors found that leaders at some of these colleges – and at secondary schools they are partnering with – are also using guided pathways practices to rethink dual enrollment as an on-ramp to college programs of study that lead to family-supporting, career-path jobs for students who might not otherwise pursue education after high school. Additionally, the college and K-12 leaders stated that their efforts in DEEP outreach, alignment, advising, and supports would not be effective without a strong college–K-12 dual enrollment partnership.

This report analyzes data from the 2020 Census to highlight the nation’s housing in 2020 and changes in housing characteristics primarily between 2010 and 2020 for the nation, states, core-based statistical areas, and counties. Between 2010 and 2020, housing characteristics shifted in many parts of the nation as a result of various events and housing market conditions. Chief among these were the ongoing impacts and recovery from the Great Recession and foreclosure crisis of the late 2000s. The decade began during the soft housing markets that followed the Great Recession, as millions of homes continued to work their way through the foreclosure process. In subsequent years, slow construction of new units, historically low interest rates, and home price growth combined to generate concerns about housing affordability and limited housing inventory by the end of the decade. Lastly, the 2020 Census data were collected during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, capturing housing unit characteristics as of April 1, 2020. Data from the 2020 Census reflect the combined effects of these changes, describing housing unit characteristics in 2020 for a wide range of different geographies. Nationally, the homeowner vacancy rate in 2020 was 1.5%, a decrease of 0.9 percentage points from 2010, when the rate was 2.4%. The District of Columbia had a homeowner vacancy rate of 2.4%, which was higher than any of the states. Florida (2.0%) and Oklahoma (2.0%) followed and were the only states to have a rate of at least 2.0% in 2020. In 2010, 34 states, in addition to the District of Columbia, had a homeowner vacancy rate of at least 2.0%.

Financial institutions are increasingly using financial technology, the use of technology and innovation to provide financial products and services. Policymakers have raised questions about whether regulators’ staff have the technological skills and expertise needed to oversee entities offering products and services that use this technology. This report examines the technological skills or expertise of regulators’ staff; regulators’ workforce planning practices; how regulators address innovation in financial technology; and how regulators use technology to improve their supervisory capabilities. The authors found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency require many of their staff responsible for policymaking and oversight related to financial technology to have some level of technological skills. All of the agencies have developed programs or provided training to help develop staff knowledge of financial technology. However, the agencies have not systematically or comprehensively collected data on staff’s technological skills related to financial technology or conducted assessments to determine the financial technology skills these staff need. The agencies also have not measured the effectiveness of their financial technology training in addressing their skill needs. Three of the agencies have offices dedicated to addressing innovation in financial technology or the financial industry more broadly, but they have not developed performance goals or measures that target their key activities. All of the regulators reported using a variety of technologies to improve their supervisory capabilities. Examples include a tool that reviews compliance with certain legal requirements and the use of machine learning techniques to help identify risk. Additionally, all of the regulators had at least one strategic objective focused on improving supervision with technology. However, four of the agencies have not developed performance measures for these objectives. The authors made recommendations regarding data collection and the development of performance measures.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the labor force with new generative AI tools that are projected to contribute trillions of dollars to the global economy by 2040. However, this opportunity comes with concerns about the impact of AI on workers and labor markets. As AI technology continues to evolve, there is a growing need for research to understand the technology's implications for workers, firms, and markets. This report addresses this pressing need by exploring the relationship between occupational exposure and AI-related technologies, wages, and employment. Using natural language processing (NLP) to identify semantic similarities between job task descriptions and U.S. technology patents awarded between 1976 and 2020, the authors evaluate occupational exposure to all technology patents in the United States, as well as to specific AI technologies, including machine learning, NLP, speech recognition, planning control, AI hardware, computer vision, and evolutionary computation. The authors' findings suggest that exposure to both general technology and AI technology patents is not uniform across occupational groups, over time, or across technology categories. They estimate that up to 15% of U.S. workers were highly exposed to AI technology patents by 2019 and find that the correlation between technology exposure and employment growth can depend on the routineness of the occupation. This report contributes to the growing literature on the labor market implications of AI and provides insights that can inform policy discussions around this emerging issue.

This report presents results from the 2022 National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey (N-SUMHSS), an annual survey of substance use and mental health treatment facilities in the United States. Conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the N-SUMHSS is designed to collect data on the location, characteristics, service provision and utilization of substance use and mental health treatment facilities. This report includes data and findings from 21,160 facilities throughout the United States. The nationwide facility response rate was 88%, ranging from 80.9% to 100%; the response rate of facilities in Florida was 88%. Overall, most facilities were operated by private organizations and most provided outpatient care and few provided residential care, and even fewer offered inpatient care. Some facilities offered specially tailored programs, such as those for adolescents, older adults, LGBTQ clients, veterans, or active duty military. Approximately three-fourths of substance use facilities offered pharmacotherapies as part of their treatment services for opioid use disorder, alcohol use disorder, or tobacco cessation. Other topics covered in this report include bed utilization rate, most frequently used antipsychotics in mental health facilities, provision of language assistance, and suicide prevention services.

COVID-19 has profoundly affected sleep, although little research has focused on high-risk populations for poor sleep health, including American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents. Findings demonstrate changes in sleep, including increases in sleep duration, delays in bedtimes and wake-times, and increases in sleep-wake disturbances. Higher levels of family cohesion and higher levels of engagement in traditional practices moderated pandemic-related increases in weekday sleep duration. Qualitative analyses revealed changes in adolescents' sleep and daily behaviors, as well as strategies adolescents used to cope with pandemic-related disruptions in sleep and routines. Findings demonstrate positive and negative changes in sleep during COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, including simultaneous increases in sleep duration and sleep-wake disturbances. Results highlight the importance of considering multi-level influences on adolescent sleep, such as early school start times, family dynamics, and cultural factors. A multi-level approach may help guide prevention and intervention efforts to improve adolescent sleep health.

This review examines 88 studies to assess the effectiveness of interactive social media interventions, in which adults are able to communicate directly with each other, on changing health behaviors, body functions, psychological health, well-being, and adverse effects. Interactive social media is defined as activities, practices, or behaviors among communities of people who have gathered online to interactively share information, knowledge, and opinions. The authors conclude that such interventions may improve some health behaviors, such as increasing the number of daily steps taken or taking part in screening tests, but may show little to no effect on other health behaviors, such as better diet or reducing tobacco use. The interventions may cause small health improvements, such as a small increase in amount of weight lost and a small reduction in resting heart rate. Interactive social media interventions may improve well-being but may have little to no effect on mental health, such as depression. The authors report the evidence is not strong due to extensive heterogeneity and small effects and suggest that future social media intervention trials use a common set of outcome measures, examine the role of mediating variables, and measure adherence.