Advancing Science: News from the NIJ Director

I’m excited that NIJ Day is returning to the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology in Philadelphia on Thursday of this week. In addition to our NIJ Day panels with grantees and NIJ staff, you can find me speaking at the following panels on Wednesday, November 15. I'll be sharing new information about NIJ's forthcoming FY24 program funding plan among other key updates from NIJ.

• Grant Opportunities, Funding Priorities, and Research and Data Updates from the Department of Justice’s Science Agencies | 12:30 - 1:50 p.m., Franklin Hall 1, 4th Floor
• Careers Outside the Academy: Opportunities for Service and Impact | 9:30 - 10:50 a.m., Room 302, 3rd Floor
• The First-Ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Building Upon and Strengthening Existing Research and Data | 11:00 a.m. - 12:20 p.m., Salon L, 5th Floor

NIJ PANELS

I recently joined the Justice Department in announcing $38M in FY23 funding for community and policing partnerships to investigate, prevent, and heal from hate crimes. As part of this investment, I’m pleased to share that NIJ awarded over $2.3M across three new research projects in response to our FY23 Research and Evaluation on Hate Crimes solicitation.

We also recently published a summary of the NIJ-supported evidence-based research initiatives that are helping to fill knowledge gaps in what constitutes a hate crime, understanding factors of hate crime underreporting, and providing recommendations to enhance hate crime reporting and investigations.

I was delighted to see so many of NIJ’s LEADS scholars presenting on evidence-based policing research as part of the IACP 2023 conference in October.

I also enjoyed joining the Research Advisory Group/Police Research Advancement Symposium and introducing a panel with NIJ’s Dr. Tamara Herold and policing leaders Chief CC Ashe, Chief Tarrick McGuire, DPA, and Director Henry Wang — all of whom are LEADS scholars!

NIJ invests considerable time and resources into setting and testing commercial body armor standards. This is of critical importance in support of officer safety. Keep an eye out for some important updates in the coming weeks that revise NIJ’s performance standards for ballistic resistant body armor, including improved test methods for armor designed for women, additional test requirements for soft and hard body armor, ballistic threat level standards, and more.

Subscribe to our policing email list to learn about these updates as soon as they’re released!