Criminal Justice

What is Criminal Justice?

Criminal justice refers to the detection, apprehension, detention, pretrial release, post-trial release, prosecution, adjudication, correctional supervision or rehabilitation of accused persons or criminal offenders. The administration of criminal justice includes criminal identification activities and the collection, storage and dissemination of criminal history records.

NPC Research and Criminal Justice

NPC Research has research and evaluation projects in many areas of criminal justice, particularly in the areas of specialty courts. These include evaluations of jail diversion programs, in-jail treatment programs, juvenile justice programs, Breaking the Cycle and over 45 drug treatment courts located in Oregon, California, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Vermont, and Guam. Evaluations in a criminal justice setting typically involve a variety of jurisdictions and agencies and service delivery domains. The resource commitments and outcomes of the criminal justice system span many components, including the courts, police, probation, parole, treatment agencies, transitional housing and community programs. The NPC Research team of experts understands this complex world and possesses the capability to apply the research methods and analytic approaches needed to fully evaluate it.

NPC provides a rigorous research methodology while maintaining a strong commitment to working collaboratively with program staff and other key stakeholders. In addition, we report our findings and present our recommendations in ways that are designed to be used in policy development, program implementation, program management, and service delivery.