Fostering Innovation Across the U.S. Criminal Justice System

Book excerpt: The three central sections of the criminal justice system-law enforcement, the courts, and corrections agencies-work together toward the common goal of addressing the challenge of criminal behavior. Because of the wide variety of issues and incidents to which the criminal justice system responds, the system faces many challenges. Such challenges include new types of technological crime facing the police; new demands complicating court operations; and, in the corrections context, such practical challenges as managing aging offender populations and dealing with drones used to smuggle contraband over prison walls. Moreover, as society changes, the challenges facing the criminal justice system can be expected to continue to shift. In this report, the authors focus on common needs that apply to all three sections of the justice system. Starting with the deep pool of feedback and input collected from the practitioner community across the five-year Priority Criminal Justice Needs Initiative project, the authors abstracted insights about innovation needs for the justice system as a whole.