Research and Evaluation on Desistance from Crime, FY 2022

Overview

<p>With this solicitation, NIJ seeks proposals for rigorous evaluations of desistance-based interventions to advance understanding of strategies that might aid in the process of desistance, including programs targeting intimate partner violence. This may include proposals to expand prior evaluation efforts to extend follow-up periods.</p> <p>NIJ’s efforts to advance desistance research are extensive and long standing. Specifically, NIJ’s recently published six-chapter volume, Desistance from Crime: Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice, explores critical questions about the process of desistance from crime and how the desistance framework can move the criminal justice field forward. Although desistance is generally understood as the process of individuals ceasing engagement in criminal activities, the field lacks a uniform definition. The lack of a consistent definition has led to various operationalizations of concepts central to understanding desistance, including variations in follow-up periods. The length of follow-up period has important implications for desistance studies. Short follow-up periods, less than nine to 10 years, may not capture the entire process of desistance and may indicate false desistance, though they may help to identify early stages in the process. Long follow-up periods may limit the value of studies to policymakers and practitioners particularly if attempting to assess the impact of an intervention.</p> <p><strong>The theoretical knowledge base of desistance identifies and provides a rich understanding of key components related to the mechanisms of desistance, including:</strong> </p> <ul> <li>Biological mechanisms such as those associated with the aging process.</li> <li>Psychological factors such as temperament, personality traits, and impulse control.</li> <li>Identity transformation such as de-stigmatization.</li> <li>Social processes, such as religion or marriage, that serve as “turning points” correlated with the end of criminality.</li> <li>Human agency to make rational, calculated choices to end criminal careers.</li> </ul> <p>Although desistance is widely viewed as a part of the normal criminal career, there are challenges in integrating the principles of desistance into criminal justice policy and practices.</p> <p>NIJ is also interested in building on prior evaluation efforts of desistance-based interventions that showed promise at aiding desistance by adding additional waves of data collection to extend the follow-up time frame. Extension efforts must include prospective data collection.</p> <p><strong> Applications to build on prior evaluation efforts should include:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Description of the desistance-based program including a discussion of the theory of change.</li> <li>Description of the evaluation effort that would be extended under this solicitation, with discussion of the sample, data sources and access agreements, data collection to date, study variables and measures, data analysis, findings to date, and associated publications.</li> <li>Discussion of how the expansion/extension effort would enhance understanding of the dynamic processes of desistance.</li> </ul> <p>NIJ encourages applicants to propose a rigorous outcome evaluation. NIJ will only fund projects that evaluate well-developed programs. Applications should include, and append, supplementary materials necessary to describe the level of program development. Supplemental materials may include copies or links to logic models, program guides and materials, policies and procedures, manuals, prior evaluation findings, program staffing, and funding information.</p> <p>Applications proposing research involving partnerships with criminal justice or other agencies, are to include a strong letter of support, signed by an appropriate decision-making authority from each proposed, partnering agency. A letter of support must include the partnering agency’s acknowledgement that de-identified data provided through this project will be archived by the awardee in the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) at the conclusion of the award (see Goals, Objectives, Deliverables, and Expected Scholarly Products below).</p> <p>In rare circumstances, for example where law prohibits the archiving of agency data, NIJ may agree to a successful applicant creating and archiving an appropriate synthetic dataset. Those circumstances will be rare, decided by NIJ on a case-by-case basis, and will require extensive documentation and justification for exceptions to be made.</p>