The federal Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 requires the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics to carry out a comprehensive statistical review and analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape each calendar. The act also requires the U.S. Attorney General to submit—no later than June 30 of each year—a report that lists institutions in the sample and ranks them according to incidence of prison rape. To implement requirements under PREA, the bureau developed a data collection strategy involving multiple measures and modes. This includes data collection efforts in 2024 to measure the incidence and prevalence of rape and sexual assault in adult correctional and juvenile justice facilities, including through three independent collections: the Survey of Sexual Victimization, the National Inmate Survey, and the National Survey of Youth in Custody. Estimates from these collections are not directly comparable.

States and territories differ in the specific structure of their vocational rehabilitation and corrections systems, and in the ways those systems interact. To explore some policy-level challenges that exist in providing vocational services to justice-impacted people with disabilities, this brief uses New York state as a case study. Employment is one of the strongest predictors of community readjustment, reduced recidivism, and quality of life for justice-impacted individuals. According to Rehabilitation Services Administration data for 2021, 36.0% of vocational rehabilitation recipients with prior convictions exited with employment, compared to 44.8% of participants without prior justice involvement. Additionally, 2.5% of justice-involved participants exited with measurable skills gains, compared to 5.4% of non-justice involved vocational rehabilitation participants. Movement between systems can create service disruptions for an individual as each system has its own goals, assumptions, rules, and processes. For an individual, moving between systems doesn’t always go smoothly. For instance, a reason for closing a vocational rehabilitation case is when an individual is “no longer available for services due to incarceration or residence in an institutional setting.” Additionally, different age requirements between systems, can create complexities in service delivery and coordination. For example, in New York, typically being at least age 18 is the qualification for being treated as an adult in a criminal justice context whereas the state’s definition of youth for VR eligibility purposes covers ages 14–24. Improving coordination between the critical government systems discussed can serve one primary goal: increasing the employment and self-sufficiency of the previously incarcerated. Employment is one of the strongest predictors of community readjustment, reduced recidivism, and quality of life for justice-impacted individuals.

The distribution of state funding to school districts has a tremendous impact on student learning opportunities. State leaders juggle different priorities, tradeoffs, and incentives when designing funding formulas with the goal of ensuring every student has the learning opportunities to succeed. This toolkit offers a strategic guide for reforming or redesigning state K-12 funding to ensure students and educators have the necessary resources to reach education goals. The toolkit allows readers to explore five guiding principles for state leaders to strive toward and examples of what these principles look like in practice. A well-designed K-12 funding formula is (1) transparent, (2) student centered, (3) adequate, (4) fair and (5) sustainable. This list is not exhaustive. However, it can serve as a place to begin conversations about reforms. Topic areas not fully discussed in this resource include student transportation, access to free and nutritious school meals and the availability of school-based mental health resources.

This latest round of findings from the School Pulse Panel examines family engagement, college and career readiness, and sources of information for decision-making, as reported by school leaders in U.S. K-12 public schools. Across all public schools, leaders estimate that 39% of students have families who are actively engaged with the school. Compared to the national estimate, a higher percentage of students had families who were characterized as actively engaged at schools with the following characteristics: elementary schools (45%), in rural areas (44%), with a student body made up of less than 25% students of color (44%). A lower percentage of students had families who were characterized as actively engaged” at schools with the following characteristics: in high-poverty neighborhoods (31%), with a student body made up of more than 75% students of color (31%), high/secondary schools (33%). Six in ten public schools (60%) reported that it was somewhat or very difficult to engage their students’ families with their school. For the 2024-25 school year, 39% of public schools have a parent/family engagement specialist or outreach worker at their school, a decrease from 44% during the 2023-24 school year.

Teachers' time is one of the most precious resources in schools. A teacher's day is a whirlwind of tightly scheduled tasks, from planning and preparation to delivering instruction and engaging with students. This review looks at how school districts expect teachers to use their time and how that compares across the country, and includes information such as the length of the workday and school year, required time on campus, allocated planning time, instructional time for specific subjects, and time dedicated for professional development. Most teachers in the research sample were contracted to work between 7.5 and 8 hours a day, generally aligning with the conventional 40-hour work week. Over 20% of districts do not address the length of the workday at all. Only six districts require significantly shorter workdays of 6.5 hours or less. However, contracted hours often do not reflect the full scope of a teacher's day. In fact, a 2024 RAND survey found that while 92% of teachers reported that their contract requires 21–40 hours of work a week, 88% reported working from 41 to more than 80 hours a week. For teachers, time allocated for planning is often considered a sacred part of the day. In fact, a recent survey in Arkansas revealed that 85% of teachers view their planning time as important. However, nearly 40% of teachers reported not receiving any planning time. Over half of districts (52%) offer extended sabbatical or developmental leave, typically available in half-year or full-year increments.

Population growth in U.S. metro areas as a whole was faster between 2023 and 2024 than in the previous year and outpaced that of the nation. Additionally, some metro areas that experienced population declines during the COVID-19 pandemic are now observing population gains. All of the nation’s 387 metro areas had positive net international migration between 2023 and 2024, and it accounted for nearly 2.7 million of the total population gain in metro areas — up from 2.2 million between 2022 and 2023. These trends were measured using an improved method that combines survey data and administrative data from other federal agencies. Key takeaways include that between 2023 and 2024, the number of people living in a U.S. metro area increased by nearly 3.2 million (or around 1.1%) to 293.9 million. In comparison, the total U.S. population increased by nearly 1.0% to more than 340 million people. The population in metro areas also grew faster from 2023 to 2024 than between 2022 and 2023 (when it increased by 0.9% or 2.6 million people) largely due to higher levels of net international migration. The population in nearly 90% (341 of 387) of U.S. metro areas grew from 2023 to 2024, up from 317 between 2022 and 2023. The collective increase in population across metro areas was largely attributable to net international migration — approximately 2.7 million, with an additional 0.6 million from natural increase (excess of births over deaths). Some metro areas that experienced population declines earlier in the decade, such as New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, experienced population gains from 2023 to 2024.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) relies on contractors for thousands of parts for the nuclear weapons stockpile. However, the NNSA faces risks to its industrial base—the supply chain, facilities, transportation, and workforce that combine to maintain the stockpile. NNSA uses its Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan to communicate required information about these risks to Congress. However, the research team found that this plan does not clearly communicate what NNSA needs or its priorities for ensuring that the nation has a robust nuclear stockpile. The NNSA uses a coordinated but decentralized approach to manage risks to the nuclear security enterprise (NSE) industrial base. The NSE industrial base includes four elements—supply chain, operations and facilities, logistics and transportation, and workforce. The Office of Systems Engineering and Integration, within NNSA's Office of Defense Programs, serves as the focal point for managing NSE industrial base risks at the enterprise level, including by attending working group meetings and participating in interagency processes. Contractors and working groups across the NSE are primarily responsible for managing industrial base risks. They use a variety of tools and processes that are often interlinked and cross-cutting. For example, some working groups use third-party software to identify, assess, and monitor risks. NNSA has identified several key risks and taken steps to address some of them. For example, to address the insufficient supply of specialized equipment, NNSA established a working group that created two initiatives to expand capacity and increase supply. However, NNSA's primary method of communicating NSE industrial base risks to external stakeholders—the annual Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan—does not completely and clearly communicate risk priorities or resource needs. For example, the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires NNSA to report on identified risks and how they are prioritized. However, the GAO found that the plan discusses some key risks in limited detail and did not describe any as priorities. The Fiscal Year 2022 NDAA also requires NNSA to report its resource needs to mitigate industrial base risks. NNSA officials said that additional resources or tools would be useful to address some risks. However, the plan did not identify such resources.

Health insurance coverage provides access to and reduces the cost of medical care. Among adults ages 18–64, private health insurance is the most common type of coverage, with most adults obtaining their private coverage through employer benefits. However, about 9% of adults younger than age 65 purchase private health insurance directly from insurance companies or through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace or state-based health insurance exchanges (exchange-based coverage), which are available in all states. Health insurance exchanges provide access to affordable healthcare plans and offer subsidies to reduce health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for people with low incomes or those with health problems. Medicaid expansion is another way for people with low incomes to receive health insurance coverage, but not all states have opted to expand Medicaid eligibility. By January 1, 2023, 38 states and the District of Columbia had expanded eligibility for Medicaid (expansion states), and 12 states had not expanded eligibility for Medicaid (non-expansion states). e. In 2023, 6.0% of adults ages 18–64 purchased health insurance coverage through an exchange, up from 4.8% in 2019. The percentage of adults with exchange-based coverage increased in Medicaid expansion states from 4.2% in 2019 to 5.1% in 2023, and in non-expansion states from 5.7% to 8.0%.

Multicomponent interventions, which include psychoeducation, self-care skills, behavioral problem management, behavioral activation, mindfulness-based intervention, and social support group components, for informal caregivers of people with dementia are urgently needed, but evidence regarding which components are most effective is lacking. To examine the effects of 5 psychosocial components of an intervention designed to support informal caregivers o this trial included 250, mostly (68.4%) female caregivers. A mindfulness-based component significantly improved multiple caregiver outcomes, with reduced depressive symptoms and increased mindfulness, perceived social support, and active dementia care management at 12 months. Synergistic interaction effects were noted for the mindfulness-based component, which enhanced the benefits of self-care skills and behavioral problem management on depression. The combination of the mindfulness-based and social support group components also synergistically improved social support. Further research is required to validate the efficacy of this optimized intervention package.