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Firearms and crime --- Violent crimes --- Firearms --- Social aspects

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Hate crimes --- Victims of hate crimes

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Although alcohol-related impaired driving continues to be the primary cause of fatal automobile accidents in the United States, drug-impaired driving has emerged as a growing threat to public safety. Identifying and prosecuting cases of driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) requires the engagement of three important actors within the criminal justice system: law enforcement, forensic toxicologists, and prosecutors. Each of these actors plays a crucial role in gathering, interpreting, or presenting evidence of drug-impaired driving to build a successful case. Meticulous observational and chemical evidence collection and skilled, simple interpretation of this evidence is particularly important in a DUID case because such cases can be more complex and difficult to prove than alcohol-related impaired driving cases. Although blood alcohol concentration levels have been established and accepted as reliable and valid evidence of alcohol-impaired driving, no equivalent technique yet exists that correlates an amount of a drug in the body with the degree of drug-related impairment. To examine this issue, RTI International and the RAND Corporation convened a two-day workshop. The participants discussed the challenges, opportunities, and complexities faced by law enforcement, forensic toxicologists, and prosecutors in their roles collecting, interpreting, and presenting evidence in cases of driving under the influence of drugs. Using these discussions, the panel members identified and ranked needs for law enforcement, forensic toxicologists, and prosecutors to successfully identify and prosecute DUID cases. This report provides the prioritized list of needs and accompanying context from the discussion that resulted from this effort.

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Congress enacted the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013 (DCRA) to address the lack of reliable information about law enforcement-related deaths and deaths in correctional institutions. The U.S. Department of Justice has conducted several activities designed to respond to the provisions specified in the DCRA legislation, as well as their own federal mandates, toward a comprehensive understanding of the prevalence and characteristics of deaths that occur in law enforcement custody. Despite these efforts, no national data collection program currently describes all deaths that occur in law enforcement custody. These data are critical to support strategies to reduce such deaths; to promote public safety through appropriate responses to reported crimes, calls for service, and police-community encounters; and to build trust with communities. To better understand the needs around developing and leveraging data from a national data collection of law enforcement-related deaths, RTI International and the RAND Corporation, on behalf of the National Institute of Justice, convened a panel of experts to discuss the challenges to conducting a national data collection, to recommend potential solutions to those challenges, and to recommend research and other applications for the collected data. Through a three-session virtual workshop, participants identified 19 high-priority needs to support a comprehensive and robust data collection program on law enforcement-related deaths. These high-priority needs address challenges related to scope, definition, and detail of the collection; data collection elements and reporting needs; and the utility of the information to inform law enforcement training, programs, and policies.

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Substance use disorder (SUD) is common among victims of sex trafficking. Traffickers may exploit individuals' existing opioid use or other SUDs to coerce them into sex trafficking, or they may facilitate substance use to keep trafficking victims from exiting. Additionally, trafficking victims may use substances to cope with trauma. The intersections of sex trafficking and SUD complicate both legal responses and victim advocate responses to sex trafficking cases. Victim SUD can lead to challenges for law enforcement and prosecutors in developing cases against traffickers. On the provider side, traditional victim services are often insufficient for victims of trafficking with SUDs, who face substantial barriers to accessing services. A better understanding of the nexus between sex trafficking and SUDs is critical for implementing victim-centered and trauma-informed responses to this vulnerable population. In this report, RAND researchers describe an online panel, convened in April 2021 by RTI International and the RAND Corporation on behalf of the National Institute of Justice, in which subject-matter experts and criminal justice practitioners discussed how SUDs and sex trafficking complicate the identification and screening of victims and victims' ability to access treatment and legal remedies. The panel participants identified 21 high-priority needs to support a better understanding of sex trafficking and SUDs and a variety of solutions for addressing these intertwined issues.