Administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the Public Safety Officers' Benefits (PSOB) Program provides death benefits to eligible survivors of public safety officers who are fatally injured in the line of duty, disability benefits to public safety officers catastrophically injured in the line of duty, and education benefits to eligible spouses and children of fallen and catastrophically injured officers. With the recent outbreak of COVID-19, America’s law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other first responders face a new health risk as they continue to selflessly serve their communities. BJA has released a memo regarding how the Act may cover conditions caused by the virus.

Crime-scene bullets are often deformed from collisions, which can make direct comparison difficult. Now, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new algorithm that makes this matching more accurate by dividing the markings on deformed bullets into segments and correlating those segments with reference bullets.

Though the use of computer forensics in criminal investigations has expanded in recent years, there is little empirical evidence about the prevalence of the use of digital evidence in the court system and its impact on prosecution outcomes. This study, published by The Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, examines criminal cases before the United States Courts of Appeal in which legal issues were related to digital evidence. The purpose of this research was to determine the most common legal basis for appeals relating to the introduction or exclusion of digital evidence, the frequency with which cases involving an appeal regarding digital evidence affirmed or reversed for the defense, whether certain challenges to digital evidence are more prevalent than others, and whether there are trends or areas of the law as applied to computer forensics and digital evidence needing further attention by the criminal justice system.

State attorneys general have been on the front lines in responding to COVID-19 scams, frauds, and price gouging. To assist victims of these crimes, the U.S. Department of Justice has asked all personnel to visit the Consumer Resources website and share it widely within their jurisdictions. The site contains information on a wide range of scams, has a page dedicated exclusively to attorney general consumer protection and price gouging actions related to COVID-19, and, most important, allows consumers to file fraud/scam complaints directly with the offices of their state attorneys general.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has released the 2020 edition of Drugs of Abuse, A DEA Resource Guide, which is designed to be a reliable resource on the most commonly abused and misused drugs in the United States. Because education plays a critical role in preventing substance abuse, this comprehensive guide is intended as a tool not just for medical practitioners and law enforcement officials but also for educators, families, and communities.