New Report: Vermont Crash Data Resource Book 2009: Final Edition

A new report has been posted on the VCJR website – Vermont Crash Data Resource Book 2009: Final Edition

This edition of the Crash Data Resource Book marks the twenty first annual report of motor vehicle crashes in Vermont and continues efforts to provide and widely distribute a highway safety resource book as well as historical trends in crashes. Information about the characteristics and dynamics of motor vehicle crashes has proven to be an important element in policy and planning initiatives to make Vermont’s highways safer.

Center Publishes a Directory of Vermont Criminal Justice Service Providers

The Center has published on it’s website a Directory of Vermont Criminal Justice Service Providers, organized by the intercept points of the GAINS Sequential Intercept Model (SIM). This directory is one of the products from the War on Recidivism (Act #41), passed by the Vermont Legislature during its 2011 session. This Act provided for a recidivism reduction study to be conducted by the VCJR with one of the objectives being the compilation of this directory.

For any corrections or additions to the directory, please contact the Center for Justice Research.

CENTER AWARDED EVALUATION GRANT

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) at the Department of Justice has awarded the Center a grant to develop a plan to increase the statewide capacity in Vermont to conduct cost effective criminal justice evaluation research.  Funding will begin in October, 2012.

This past fall the Center completed a report entitled Evidence-Based Initiatives to Reduce Recidivism  which was commissioned by the War on Recidivism Act (Act #41).   Survey data from the report indicated that only about 33% of innovative programs designed to reduce recidivism in Vermont had been evaluated;  of that 33%, only 48% had been the subject of an outcome evaluation based on a recidivism measure. 

Major hurdles to conducting evaluation research to support evidence-based programming include the lack of sufficiently experienced criminal justice researchers in Vermont and the cost of evaluations.  In the grant the VCJR proposed to develop a plan to increase the statewide evaluation capacity by:  1) developing a strategy to enhance collaborative criminal justice evaluation research among social sciences researchers statewide; and 2) training and providing technical assistance to criminal justice practitioners to assist them to collect and analyze program data for evaluation purposes.

The principal vehicle for developing a strategy to enhance collaborative criminal justice evaluation in VT is to convene a day-long conference of researchers and criminal justice practitioners to examine the issues and develop a model for building cost effective evaluation capacity statewide.  The conference agenda will be developed with stakeholders in the early fall but it is likely to  focus on the following topics:  1) Identification of Evaluation Research Being Conducted Throughout the State; 2) Identification of Specialized Evaluation Skill Sets Among Researchers;  3)  Developing a Model for Collaborative Evaluation Research;  4)  Developing A Model for Providing Evaluation Training And Technical Assistance For Criminal Justice Agency Personnel; and  5) Developing a Steering Committee and Next Steps.

New Report: Vermont Department of Corrections Work Camp Outcome Evaluation

A new report has been posted on the VCJR website — Vermont Department of Corrections Work Camp Outcome Evaluation

In Act 41, this body tasked the Vermont Center for Justice Research (VCJR) with evaluating the recidivism rates of defendants assigned to the Northeast and Southeast Work Camps as compared to defendants sentenced to prison/jail without the benefit of work camp. This report provides the principal findings of this evaluation.

New Report: Evidence-Based Initiatives to Reduce Recidivism

A new report has been posted on the VCJR website — Evidence-Based Initiatives to Reduce Recidivism

This report was commissioned by the Vermont Legislature pursuant to Act 41 during the 2011-2012 Legislative Session. The study involved two parts: 1) a literature review of “innovative programs and initiatives, including local programs and prison-based initiatives, best practices, and contemporary research regarding assessments of programmatic alternatives and pilot projects relating to reducing recidivism in the criminal justice system (Act 41, Section 10); and 2) a survey of Vermont criminal justice service providers to identify innovative programs and assess the level of evidenced-based programming in the state.

New Report: Bennington County Integrated Domestic Violence Docket Project: Outcome Evaluation

A new report has been added to the VCJR website — Bennington County Integrated Domestic Violence Docket Project: Outcome Evaluation

The Bennington County Integrated Domestic Violence Docket (IDVD) Project was initiated in September, 2007, as a special docket within the Bennington County Criminal/Family Division Courts. The goal of the IDVD project was to provide an immediate response to domestic violence events by coordinating Family and Criminal Division cases. Dedicated to the idea of One Family, One Judge, the IDVD Project was designed to allow a single judge, one day each week, to have immediate access to all relevant information regardless of the traditional docket and to gather all appropriate players at the table regardless of any traditionally limited roles.

New Report: Domestic Assault Recidivism in Vermont: 2004-2008

A new report has been posted on the VCJR website — Domestic Assault Recidivism in Vermont: 2004-2008.

There are over 1,000 domestic violence incidents reported to the police each year in Vermont. It is one of the more prevalent crimes in the state. For men who are convicted of battering women, the Vermont Department of Corrections provides several batterer intervention programs aimed at changing the batterers’ behavior. This study did not evaluate the efficacy of specific programs. Rather, this study examined the rate of recidivism and criminal history typology of offenders in an effort to inform policy
makers about who is likely to recidivate.