What Could a New Crime Commission Accomplish?

Abstract

Even though the crime rate in the United States has dropped since the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under PresidentJohnson issued its report in 1967, the total number of serious crimes in the nation has increased, and public concern about the subject remains high. The 1960s Commission did not fully consider several major subjects that have emerged after it reported, including mental illness, immigration, cybercrime and other white collar crimes, indigent defense, crime victims, and evidence-based crime policy. Many observers believe that the need to deal with these subjects in addition to those discussed by other researchers in this volume warrants an examination of crime and justice by a new commission. Congress has considered proposals for such a study for nearly a decade, but they are yet to be acted on amid ideological disputes over other criminal justice issues. If Congress fails to establish a new commission, it is still possible that one could be formed with the support of state, county, and local governments, as well as with the support of private foundations.

Progress and Prospects—The 50th Anniversary of the 1967 President's Crime Commission Report in Today's Criminal Justice Environment

“…The evidence on police, courts, and corrections, while still growing, is substantial, enough so that policy makers and practitioners can feel comfortable using that research to make serious decisions. Although some areas of justice are still under‐researched (like mental illness and cybercrime, as Blumstein [] and Gest [, , this issue] discuss), or with difficult and confounding questions (like racial disparities as Fernandes and Crutchfield [, this issue] suggest), we have made great progress, so much so that members of our field are also regularly consolidating existing research, as in the Campbell Collaboration, as MacKenzie and Lattimore (, this issue) point out.…”