Suchergebnisse

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO appeared before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, House Committee on the Judiciary to discuss the results of our review and assessment of case-related workload measures for district court and courts of appeals judges. Biennially, the Judicial Conference of the United States, the federal judiciary's principal policymaking body, assesses the judiciary's needs for additional judgeships. If the Conference determines that additional judgeships are needed, it transmits a request to Congress identifying the number, type (courts of appeals, district, or bankruptcy), and location of the judgeships it is requesting. In assessing the need for additional district and appellate court judgeships, the Judicial Conference considers a variety of information, including responses to its biennial survey of individual courts, temporary increases or decreases in case filings, and other factors specific to an individual court. However, the Conference's analysis begins with the quantitative case-related workload measures it has adopted for the district courts and courts of appeals--weighted case filings and adjusted case filings, respectively. These two measures recognize, to different degrees, that the time demands on judges are largely a function of both the number and complexity of the cases on their dockets. Some types of cases may demand relatively little time and others may require many hours of work."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the Customs Service's acquisition and deployment of radiation detection equipment and assistance provided by the United States to foreign countries to combat nuclear smuggling. GAO found that observations concerning the acquisition of radiation detection equipment have not changed. The Customs Service's primary radiation detection equipment--radiation pagers--have certain limitations and may be inappropriate for the task. Further, there is still no comprehensive plan in place for installing and using radiation detection equipment at all U.S. border crossings and ports of entry. Regarding U.S. efforts to help other countries combat smuggling, a number of U.S. agencies, including Customs, have provided assistance to foreign countries--mostly in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. The agencies have provided a range of assistance including radiation detection equipment and training as well as other equipment and training to generally improve countries' ability to interdict nuclear smuggling."

After the Branch Davidian standoff in 1993, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began to systematically make contacts with religion scholars. On the FBI side, most of these links were established by the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG), a crisis management unit formed after Waco. On the academic side, the contacts were facilitated by the American Academy of Religion (AAR). While the value of these relationships was demonstrated during the Freemen standoff in MT in 1996, it is too early to assess their overall influence. Due to organizational compartmentalization, the CIRG-AAR contacts took place separately from the drafting of the pre-2000 "Project Megiddo" report. J. W. Parker

During the 1990s, the drug problem in Sweden stabilized in spite of a heroin wave on the European continent & in the UK. The preconditions for this control policy are discussed, as are the advantages of the Swedish drug control model with its massive programs for prevention, treatment, & repression. In the 1980s, focus was on zero tolerance & dissociation of harm reduction activities in connection with the economic crisis. This resulted in a lessening of preventive measures & treatment in favor of strengthening police power in the drug control model. The change in focus toward an even more pronounced zero tolerance approach did not yield any visible results regarding drug use. Experimenting with drugs & heavy drug use increased considerably during the 1990s. 1 Figure, 28 References. [Copyright 2002 Sage Publications, Inc.]

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses prisoner releases and reintegration programs and provides some perspectives on the particular challenges posed by the District of Columbia offenders. Nationally, the total inmate population in federal and state prisons increased almost fourfold during the last two decades. Consistent with the trend of larger prison populations, the number of inmates who complete their sentences and return to communities has also risen significantly in recent years, surpassing the half-million mark in 1998. After being released, many individuals--about 40 percent historically--later return to prison for new offenses or parole violations. The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) most recent nationwide survey of prison inmates showed that 40 percent of federal inmates and 55 percent of state inmates in prison in 1997 had served prior sentences. BJS data showed that D.C. offenders, in particular, had more extensive criminal histories than the national averages. For example, 98.3 percent of all adult probationers in D.C. had prior convictions, almost twice the national average of 50 percent. BJS' 1997 survey also showed that the bulk of inmates in prison were drug abusers. The National Institute of Justice noted that 69 percent of D.C. offenders arrested in 1999 tested positive for at least one type of drug. GAO found deficiencies in some reintegration programs for D.C. prisoners. For example, few D.C. inmates had the benefit of a transitional period in a halfway house before being released to the community. Although acknowledging that much progress has been made, the Corrections Trustee for the District of Columbia said that a shortage of halfway house beds persists. Several national and D.C. reintegration initiatives exist to assist offenders who are returning to the community. The Young Offender Initiative, the Reentry Grant Program, and the Demonstration Grant Program are among the programs that focus on reducing recidivism, developing job skills, and treating drug abuse problems. This testimony summarizes a June report (GAO-01-483)."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the role of the Department of Defense (DOD) in reducing the supply of illegal drugs entering the United States, focusing on: (1) the decline in DOD's aerial and maritime support allocated to counterdrug activities from fiscal years 1992 through 1999 and some of the consequences and reasons for the decline; (2) the obstacles DOD faces in helping foreign governments counter illegal drug activities; and (3) DOD's counterdrug strategy and the need for performance measures to judge its counterdrug program effectiveness."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO discussed the usage of the Social Security number (SSN), focusing on: (1) the ways that the federal government uses SSNs and current restrictions on these uses; (2) the nonfederal purposes for which the number is used; and (3) what businesses and state governments believe the effect would be if federal laws limiting the use of SSNs were passed."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the usage of the social security number (SSN), focusing on: (1) federal laws and regulations directing the number's use; (2) the non-federal purposes for which the number is used; and (3) what businesses and state governments believe the impact would be if federal laws limiting the use of SSNs were passed."

Examines theories about causes, motivations, and consequences of violence and crime in Mexico, as well as government efforts to improve public safety.