We have already seen a nearly 20 percent decline in opioid prescription rates nationwide in 2017 and 2018, and we are cutting opioid production by an average of 10 percent for next year.

~Attorney General Jeff Sessions, U.S. Department of Justice

In 2017, more than 72,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses, an increase from the 64,000 overdose deaths in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of these deaths can be attributed to opioids, including illicit fentanyl and its analogues.

At the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) National Opioid Summit on October 25, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced $35 million in funding to support law enforcement agencies in combating the illegal manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine, heroin, and prescription opioids and another $35 million to establish new programs to provide services to child victims of the opioid crisis.  DOJ also recently announced a total of almost $320 million in unprecedented funding to combat the opioid crisis in America.

In the course of executing their duties, law enforcement agencies are vulnerable to costly lawsuits by officers and community members for claims of misconduct, harm, or violation of rights—lawsuits that can undermine not only the financial security of the agencies but also the well-being of the officers and the public they serve. To help law enforcement identify and minimize these risks, the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and Strategic Applications International convened a forum that included representatives of labor unions, local government, law enforcement agencies, and the community.

This report, which details the discussions of the forum, covers all aspects of risk management, including departmental leadership's role, recruitment policies, and police-community relations.

The Alerting Tactics, produced by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, is designed to provide recommendations on effective combinations of alerting tactics for various incident types based on lessons learned from practitioners. This report examines:

• Nationwide alert originator best practices for reaching communities.
• Effective combinations of current and emerging alerting tools and practices to improve overall public response.
• Considerations for integrating future technologies (e.g., advanced sensor alerting) and technology platforms (e.g., Next Generation Television [Next Gen TV]) to address current alerting gaps and challenges. 

The Library of Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Promising Programs contains examples of promising programs in all 50 states and Washington, DC, funded by Byrne JAG in calendar year 2016. This library demonstrates how JAG is invested in other jurisdictions to help users generate ideas and potentially replicate promising programs in such focus areas as law enforcement, drug treatment and enforcement, prevention and education, and mental health.

Each library entry contains a program description and links to related agencies, program information, and other resources. Users can browse the full library, search by keyword, or filter entries by purpose area, project type, or state.

This report is intended to serve as a road map to effective homicide investigations, based on policies, practices, and strategies that police departments have found successful.

~Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, Police Executive Research Forum

With support from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Police Executive Research Forum conducted a multiyear project to assess homicide investigation practices in five cities:  Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston, Miami, and Pittsburgh. The project sites were chosen based on criteria that included a recent rise in homicide rates, homicide clearance rates that were decreasing and/or below the national average, and a commitment by the police departments’ leaders to improving homicide investigation procedures.  This report summarizes the lessons learned from those studies.