Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistic’s Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey, this report describes the number and demographics of full-time sworn officers employed by primary state law enforcement agencies in 2020. It also details job responsibilities, COVID-19 policies, and budgets of primary state law enforcement agencies. Primary state law enforcement agencies operate at the state level and may perform highway patrol, conduct statewide investigations, assist local and county police agencies with matters extending beyond their jurisdictions, and provide primary coverage in areas with no local or county police services. In 2020, primary state law enforcement agencies employed about 61,200 full-time sworn officers and almost 31,700 full-time civilian personnel. Nationally, primary state law enforcement agencies employed an average of 22 full-time equivalent sworn officers per 100,000 residents; Florida employed 1,820 full-time sworn officers in 2020, approximately 8 officers per 100,000 residents. About 7% of full-time sworn officers and intermediate supervisors in primary state law enforcement agencies were female. About 10% of full-time sworn officers in primary state law enforcement agencies were Hispanic, and 6% were Black. About 70% of primary state law enforcement agencies employed bilingual or multilingual staff. More than half (52%) of primary state law enforcement agencies had personnel assigned to full-time specialized units focused on impaired drivers. About two-thirds (65%) of primary state law enforcement agencies had personnel assigned full-time to special operations units (e.g., SWAT). Primary state law enforcement agencies reported a combined total budget of about $15 billion, with an average of $317 million per agency.

This report presents findings from the 2020 Juvenile Residential Facility Census. The facilities that hold youth vary in their operation, type, size, security features, screening practices, and services provided. Nationally, 25,014 youth charged with or adjudicated for an offense were held in 1,323 residential placement facilities on October 28, 2020. The report found that more than half of all facilities were publicly operated; these facilities held 77% of youth held for an offense. Additionally, nearly 7 in 10 facilities (68%) were small (20 or fewer residents), but more than half (51%) of all youth were held in medium-size facilities (holding 21–100 residents). Overall, data from the 2020 census indicate that the number of youth in residential placement continued a 20-year decline. Furthermore, the data also show that in 2020, more youth were held in county, city, or municipally operated facilities on the census date than were held in state operated facilities.

This brief report extends what is known about the link between animal cruelty and intimate partner violence (IPV) and family violence (FV). Specifically, it uses animal cruelty data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to explore characteristics of incidents where animal cruelty and IPV or FV occur together. Findings from the NIBRS animal cruelty data suggest the importance of parsing out specific intimate and family relationships. While these patterns are similar to IPV and FV that occur with crimes outside of animal cruelty, previous research on the link has not examined these relationships. This study also found the majority of animal cruelty incidents that occur with IPV or FV end in an arrest. No previous work has identified arrest patterns in these cases. This study provides a foundation for future research that can inform theoretical development and prevention efforts related to the link between animal cruelty and IPV and FV.

This report examines how human capital diversification, in the form of double majoring, affects the response of earnings to labor market shocks. Double majors experience substantial protection against earnings shocks, of 56%. This finding holds across different model specifications and data sets. Furthermore, the protection double majors experience is more pronounced when the two majors are more distantly related, highlighting the importance of diverse skill sets. Additional analyses demonstrate that double majors are more likely to work in jobs that require a diverse set of skills and knowledge and are less likely to work in occupations that are closely related to their majors.

Using data from the National Teacher and Principal Survey from 2020–21, this report describes the state of student loan borrowing and repayment among full-time, public school teachers and explores whether student loan burdens differ by teacher characteristics. The report found that just over 60% of all full-time, public school teachers—about 2.1 million—have taken out student loans to pay for their education. Among all teachers, 55.5% of teachers with a bachelor’s degree and 63.2% of teachers with a master’s degree have ever borrowed for their education, while 60.8% of all individuals who completed a bachelor’s degree and 66.2% of those who completed a master’s degree in any major in 2020 had taken out student loans. Additionally, the report found that roughly 1.3 million teachers are repaying their student loans, suggesting that the resumption of student loan repayments affects close to 4 of every 10 teachers (37.2%), nearly one third of whom (11.5% of all teachers) still owe their entire balance. Around 65% of teachers in their first 10 years of teaching have ever taken out loans, compared to about 41% of teachers with more than 30 years of experience. Compared to teachers in other subject areas, special education teachers are the most likely to have ever taken out student loans (65.2%) and the most likely to owe their entire balance (15.4%). Relative to other racial and ethnic groups studied, the rates of student loan borrowing and repayment are the highest among Black teachers, with about 71% of Black teachers having ever taken out student loans, and almost 60% still in repayment. Furthermore, over a third of borrowing teachers (36.7%) reported having worked multiple jobs at the same time because of their student loans.

As traditional handwriting is progressively being replaced by digital devices, it is essential to investigate the implications for the human brain. In this study, brain electrical activity was recorded in 36 university students as they were handwriting visually presented words using a digital pen and typewriting the words on a keyboard. Connectivity analyses were performed on electroencephalography (EEG) data recorded with a 256-channel sensor array. When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard, as shown by widespread theta/alpha connectivity coherence patterns between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning. Findings suggest that the spatiotemporal pattern from visual and proprioceptive information obtained through the precisely controlled hand movements when using a pen contribute extensively to the brain’s connectivity patterns that promote learning. The authors urge that children, from an early age, must be exposed to handwriting activities in school to establish the neuronal connectivity patterns that provide the brain with optimal conditions for learning. Although it is vital to maintain handwriting practice at school, it is also important to keep up with continuously developing technological advances. Therefore, both teachers and students should be aware of which practice has the best learning effect in what context, for example when taking lecture notes or when writing an essay.

Foodborne illness remains a common and costly public health problem in the U.S. Being able to efficiently trace products linked to a foodborne illness outbreak can help government agencies and those who produce and sell food identify the source of the outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for developing and implementing several rules required by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, enacted in 2011. In November 2022, the FDA promulgated a final rule on food traceability to help identify the source of outbreaks of foodborne illness. In developing the rule, the FDA established a list of certain foods for which enhanced recordkeeping is required, and set a compliance date of January 20, 2026. Entities handling an item on the list must maintain specific records, including a traceability plan, at certain points in the item's supply chain. FDA has taken some steps to help industry and nonfederal regulators prepare for compliance with and enforcement of the rule. Also, in late 2022, FDA began an iterative planning process for implementing the rule. However, as of October 2023, FDA had not finalized or documented an implementation plan, according to FDA officials. The authors recommend that FDA finalize and document an implementation plan for the traceability rule.

Tipping Point is a nonprofit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area that finds, funds, and strengthens the most promising poverty-fighting solutions. The Tipping Point Community invested in the Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool to pilot a scattered-site supportive housing program in San Francisco intended to create new housing units and increase placements of people experiencing chronic homelessness into permanent housing throughout the city. The program aimed to house 200 people experiencing chronic homelessness by June 2022. In this report, the authors detail the program model, participants’ characteristics and their experiences in the program, and successes and challenges in implementation. By housing 187 people formerly experiencing chronic homelessness, the Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool pilot contributed to reported reductions between 2019 and 2022 and made progress toward the initiative’s overall goal of reducing chronic homelessness. Stakeholders across San Francisco interviewed as part of the overall evaluation have lauded the program’s implementation as a major milestone for the city. The pilot successfully demonstrated the feasibility of bringing more supportive housing units to the permanent housing stock through scattered-site permanent supportive housing in San Francisco. Additionally, the expansion of the Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool through ongoing local funding shows the effectiveness of leveraging philanthropic funding to jumpstart approaches that are new or innovative to a community.

This report provides a comprehensive look at the financial, physical, and mental health of veteran single parents; explores the differences across these factors by race, ethnicity, and gender; and includes recommendations on policies and programs that can better support veteran single parents and their children. There were over 2.5 million veterans between the ages of 18 and 59 who identified as a parent of a child under 18 years of age between 2016 and 2020; nearly 300,000 identified as a single parent. Among veteran single parents, 42.8% identify as female, compared with only 13.9% of veteran coupled parents. Demographic data also show that 24.0% of veteran single parents identify as Black, compared with only 11.9% of veteran coupled parents. Veteran single parents face greater financial insecurity than veteran coupled parents but have greater financial security than nonveteran single parents, as measured by median personal income, receipt of public assistance, food security, and home ownership. Veteran single parents reported poorer mental health and physical health than other groups. Veteran single parents are using their G.I. Bill benefits to pursue higher education; Black and Hispanic single mothers report the highest rates of school enrollment across all veteran single parents. However, veteran single parents enrolled in higher education reported significant barriers to using their G.I. Bill benefits and achieving academic success. The authors recommend creating transition services that target single parents as a unique group; providing federal financial support for child care for veterans; develop targeted outreach to connect single mothers with mental health care and encourage single fathers to seek out primary care. The authors also recommend rethinking elements of the G.I. Bill to better support veteran single parents (and parents in general) who are pursuing higher education, such as in-person attendance requirements and part-time attendance disincentives, which are key barriers for single parents.

Alzheimer disease or other dementias are among the most common chronic conditions of adult day services center (ADSC) participants. This report compares prevalence of these conditions (referred to collectively as dementia) among participants in ADSCs that provide specialized care for dementia with other ADSCs, by census region, metropolitan statistical area status, chain affiliation, and ownership type. This report uses data from the ADSC component of the 2020 National Post-acute and Long-term Care Study. The results are based on survey responses from about 1,800 eligible ADSCs from a census of 5,500 ADSCs collected from January 2020 through mid-July 2021 and are weighted to be nationally representative. In ADSCs that provide specialized dementia care, 42.2% of participants had dementia, while 22.7% of participants also had dementia in ADSCs that do not specialize in dementia care. The overall prevalence of dementia was similar across regions, with a slightly lower percentage in the West. Dementia was more prevalent in ADSCs in metropolitan statistical areas, non-chain centers, and non-profit centers. In general, for each of the selected characteristics, the prevalence of dementia was higher in specialized centers than in non-specialized centers.

Rates of suicide and overdose deaths peaked during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and have remained high, leading government officials to declare a mental health crisis in the United States. More people than ever are seeking treatment, yet gauging need and responding to demand — by adjusting treatment supply accordingly — remains difficult for providers, treatment facilities, and policymakers. Inadequate supplies of treatment beds can lead to boarding in emergency departments, detention in correctional facilities, and use of unhoused services. Recent federal grants in 2022 and 2023 to fund behavioral health services and the availability of billions of dollars in opioid settlement funds have presented a unique opportunity to consider how best to expand treatment options. Key findings include that federal, state, and local policymakers need estimates of psychiatric and substance use disorder treatment bed shortages to determine how many and what types of beds to build and where to build them. Researchers have led four California-based analyses on this topic— generating estimates of state- and county-level bed shortages—by triangulating several approaches. Bed shortage estimates varied throughout California, underscoring the need for these estimates at local levels. Bed shortage estimates at different levels of care have helped inform California policy recommendations on strategies for improving behavioral health service availability. Given surpluses in some areas and levels of care, one possibility for expanding bed capacity would be to convert existing beds to a different (higher or lower) level of care. Across all the studies, the results suggested a need to improve the eligibility of psychiatric and substance use disorder treatment bed placement for hard-to-place populations.

To address racial and ethnic disparities in adult vaccination rates, particularly for COVID-19 and influenza immunizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the Partnering for Vaccine Equity (P4VE) program in 2020. An important feature of the P4VE program is the inclusion of national organizations to serve as intermediaries and provide funding, oversight, and targeted supports to community-level health care, advocacy, and social services organizations that otherwise may not have the infrastructure or capacity to apply for or meet federal grant program requirements. In 2021, the P4VE program allocated $156 million to more than 500 national, state, local, and community-based organizations (CBOs) to improve equity in adult COVID-19 and influenza vaccination coverage. The organizations participating in P4VE receive funding and technical assistance from skilled intermediary institutions to implement activities that promote equitable access to COVID-19 and influenza immunization in communities disproportionately affected by vaccine disparities. This report describes and assesses Urban Institute’s technical assistance and grant management support delivered to CBO awardees to help them implement program activities, comply with federal grant requirements, and grow organizational capacity to promote vaccine equity in the first year of the P4VE initiative. Based on analysis of program management records and surveys of CBOs, awardees took advantage of Urban Institute-provided supports and found them valuable. Findings suggest that coupling federal funding with enhanced grant management and technical assistance provided by skilled intermediary organizations is a promising strategy for including hyper-local, grassroots, and often lower-resourced CBOs in national public health initiatives. In addition, the intermediary-facilitated participation of local CBOs enables the federal government to “keep an ear to the ground” and respond swiftly to current developments and CBO feedback. Future research could provide a better understanding and evidence on the impact of this strategy, which will be informative not only for ongoing vaccine equity efforts but also for broader public health and health equity initiatives aiming to engage underserved communities.