Crime Solutions: Challenges Facing the Evidence Registry for Criminal Justice Programs

• In Event: Roundtable: Improving the Quality and Utilization of Evidence-Based Registries

Abstract

Crime Solutions is the primary evidence registry for the US Department of Justice run out of the National Institute of Justice. While it has been operating for a number of years, it is facing many of the issues similar to other registries currently available. There is a serious need to expand the visibility, relevance, and user base for Crime Solutions and this raises a number of challenges including: how to make it more user friendly to both practitioners and policy makers; how to market the registry more widely with criminal justice practitioners; how to make it more relevant to practitioners by providing information even around programs that fall along the evidence spectrum but do not meet the rigorous standards that define the greatest certainty with respect to effectiveness, and how to better integrate other smaller registries with different inclusion criteria so as to better offer a one stop shopping site. This presentation will offer a window into the current discussions and decisions being made to address these challenges and improve the return on investment required to maintain and continue to build the registry.

Author

• Howard Spivak, National Institute of Justice