Publications on Crime Victims

The Moving to Opportunity program targeted families living in some of the nation's poorest, highest-crime neighborhoods and offered them a chance to move to lower poverty areas. One hope was that, away from concentrated poverty and the risks associated with it–including poor physical and mental health, risky sexual behavior and delinquency–families would fare better. This brief examines how adolescent girls benefited from moving out of high poverty and discusses why girls might have fared so much better than boys.

New crime statistics from the FBI show violent crime increased in 2005 and 2006, and an Urban Institute analysis offers evidence that the concurrent explosion in iPod use may have triggered the spike.

The recent increase in violent crime defies easy explanation, and many hypotheses have been put forward for debate. In this brief, we propose that the rise in violent offending and the explosion in the sales of iPods and other portable media devices is more than coincidental. We propose that, over the past two years, America may have experienced an iCrime wave.

This report provides a comprehensive review of the acute and lasting impact of Hurricane Katrina on the criminal justice system of New Orleans. Using interviews with criminal justice stakeholders living and working in greater New Orleans, the authors examine the state of the criminal justice system before the storm, the impact of the storm on each branch of the system, and how those branches operate today. The final sections of the report discuss policy considerations and how lessons learned from Katrina can be applied to assist jurisdictions across the country should they be confronted with natural or man-made shocks to the systems charged with keeping residents safe.

An Urban Institute study of New Orleans's criminal justice system calls for clear, precise disaster plans, sustained support for essential personnel, top-of-the-line equipment and technology, and a commitment to interagency coordination.