Published by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), these three NIJ supported evaluation studies offer key insights and recommended practices to examine the effectiveness of initiatives to prevent and counter violent extremism. Over the past decade, NIJ has solicited cross-disciplinary studies to help understand the effectiveness of policies, programs, and initiatives to prevent and counter violent extremism. This article discusses NIJ-supported evaluations of three programs: the World Organization for Resource Development and Education’s countering violent extremism program, the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Safe Spaces Initiative, and the Peer to Peer Challenging Extremism Initiative. Our goal is to help address long-standing challenges and inform future, locally led, and community-based program design and evaluation practices.

Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Council of State Governments (CSG) recently published this brief, which was written to support law enforcement leaders seeking to prepare their agencies for embedded clinicians and ensure successful collaborations. Even as jurisdictions begin implementing the national 988 lifeline to directly connect people to trained crisis counselors during emergencies, law enforcement agencies still have an important role to play to ensure that mental health calls receive appropriate responses. Departments across the country are enhancing their responses by establishing police-mental health collaborations and embedding clinicians in their programs. This brief provides three tips for ensuring a successful collaboration.

Published by the Office of the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), this guide is intended to present police leaders with a framework for institutionalizing community engagement strategies to improve their personnel’s willingness to increase proactive, positive interactions with the community. It draws on the discussions from law enforcement focus groups at every rank, from 14 police departments, sheriffs’ offices, and state police organizations, synthesizing the results into three themes: (1) defining expectations for proactive community engagement; (2) engaging leaders in proactive community engagement; and (3) establishing proactive community engagement accountability. To illustrate how these concepts can be applied, the final section presents how a specific proactive community engagement strategy—community walks—can be holistically implemented in a neighborhood experiencing high victimization.

The United States Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) is pleased to offer new opportunities to attend live virtual presentations on preventing targeted violence. In this presentation, NTAC researchers highlight the key findings and implications from our research on school violence prevention. You will learn about the background, thinking, and behavior of school attackers and how some schools discovered and stopped plots before violence occurred. This training will provide guidance on how schools may develop or improve on existing violence prevention programs, utilizing a behavioral threat assessment model. The training is being held on three separate days.

Dates: Friday, March 8; Wednesday, May 8; Thursday, July 4, 2024
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., ET

Hosted by the Justice Clearinghouse and the National Policing Institute, this webinar discusses why law enforcement-based victims services are most effectively incorporated into agencies. To effectively incorporate victim services, agencies need to establish clear roles and responsibilities. These depend on models of service provision and partnerships—both internal and external to the agency. Jurisdiction-specific statutes can affect protections that victim services personnel can and cannot offer when serving victims and co-victims.

Information from this webinar can help participants understand the following:

• Service provision models
• Victim services personnel role parameters
• Legal statutes related to communication with victims and co-victims

Dates: Thursday, February 29, 2024
Time: 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m., ET