NCJ Number
79109
Date Published
1981
Length
22 pages
Annotation
Efforts between 1975 and 1980 to construct a Federal research agenda to address the relationship between drugs and crime are described and analyzed.
Abstract
The most important component of a research agenda is a prioritized listing of the specific studies needed to understand the crime-drug nexus. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (NILECJ) have proceeded in somewhat different ways to develop this agenda. NIDA, which was created in 1975, used the traditional approach of convening a workshop group of experts to recommend the formation of a panel of experts, which would create an agenda for NIDA to follow in its research program. However, NIDA decided not to publish the panel report as a NIDA document, in part because of the panel's ambiguity regarding the causal connection between drugs and crime and NIDA suspicions about the author's possible ideological biases. The large size of the panel and NIDA's newness are among the reasons for the problems with the drug-crime panel. However, NIDA's peer review system regarding proposed grants provides a means of setting priorities. In contrast, NILECJ does not have institutionalized peer review for proposed research priorities and progams. Using an advisory panel approach, the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) presented recommendations for three types of research designs to investigate the drug-crime relationship. Despite their flaws, these designs were used by NILECJ as the basis for solicitation of research proposals. Nevertheless, the NIDA and NILECJ efforts have succeeded in identifying hundreds of research questions, although a prioritized agenda does not exist. The essay concludes that interagency collaboration in funding studies and in synthesizing findings from relatively independent research efforts is needed, rather than an effort to develop a master plan for research. Twenty-five references are listed.