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DC Public Safety Radio and Television won the Government Customer Service Community of Practice (Cgov) 2014 Overall Excellence Award. See conta.cc/1qiBV74  .

DC Public Safety won awards for best podcast and audio from the National Association of Government Communicators in 2014, see .

DC Public Safety Television won an award for public affairs television in 2014 from CTV.

Transcript available at http://media.csosa.gov/podcast/transcripts/2015/03/veterans-treatment-courts/ .

Welcome to “DC Public Safety” – Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system.

We received 195,000 visits in 2013.

Page views range from 633,000 to 1.4 million a year.

This is radio show 230.

The portal site for “DC Public Safety” is http://media.csosa.gov

Subscribe to “DC Public Safety” through iTunes.

Current Radio Program:

The program examined Veteran’s Courts, a component of the highly successful drug court concept. Veteran courts are growing rapidly throughout the United States with early indications of success. Guests include:

Greg Crawford is a Correctional Program Specialist, on the Community Services Division, at the National Institute of Corrections. Greg’s work at NIC includes Veterans, Children of Incarcerated Parents, and he also manages the Community Corrections Collaborative Network, a network that represents the leading national and international associations for pretrial, probation, parole and diversion programs.

Actor and activist Melissa Fitzgerald is the Senior Director for Justice for Vets.  Melissa may be best known for her 7-year role as Carol on the NBC smash hit The West Wing. Off-screen she is widely recognized as a courageous advocate for people in need; which includes her work as co-founder of Voices in Harmony, a mentoring outreach program that uses theater to work with at-risk teens. She co-executive produced the film Halfway Home that profiles several veterans and their struggles with PTSD which led her to be a champion for veterans and advocates for Veterans Treatment Courts throughout the country.

Bernard Edelman is Deputy Director for Policy and Government Affairs for Vietnam Veterans of America.  He edited the ENDURING Dear America:  Letters Home from Vietnam.  He was associate producer of the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning documentary feature based on his book; he was co-producer of the documentary short, “Memorial:  Letters from American Soldiers,” which was nominated for an Academy Award.

See http://www.nicic.gov  for additional information:

NIC will release a Veterans Treatment Court White Paper in December, 2014. See nicic.gov/library/029553 , please check back if not immediately available.

On January 14, 2015, The American Probation & Parole Association and the National Institute of Corrections will offer a Veterans Court Workshop highlighting the NIC White Paper;

There will be a Veteran’s Court Conference in conjunction with the Justice For Vets Conference at National Harbor, MD July 27-30, 2015;

NIC will sponsor a Veterans Court broadcast on August 26, 2015.

For additional information, contact  Greg Crawford at gcrawford@bop.gov .

Special Announcements:

A top priority for Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice is to invest in scientific research to ensure that the Department is both tough and smart on crime. The Office of Justice Programs’ CrimeSolutions.gov website shapes rigorous research into a central, reliable, and credible resource to inform practitioners and policy makers about what works in criminal justice.

A new website lists and evaluates prisoner re-entry programs nationwide. Launched by the Urban Institute, the Council of State Governments, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Prisoner Reentry Institute, the “What Works Clearinghouse” can be seen at http://nationalreentryresourcecenter.org/what_works.

The National Reentry Resource Center is a project of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, US Department of Justice. Please see the Center’s website at http://www.nationalreentryresourcecenter.org/. Please see “Federal Interagency Reentry Council Launches Website, Releases Myth-Buster Series” on the front page of the site (see announcements). CSOSA is a member of the Council. Several requesters have asked for national research on reentry.

The Office of Justice Program’s National Institute of Justice reentry research portfolio supports the evaluation of innovative reentry programs. To access these studies and NIJ’s entire reentry research portfolio visit www.nij.gov/nij/topics/corrections/reentry/welcome.htm .

The Office of Violence Against Women offers stalking response tips for corrections, prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, victims and victim advocates. They are posted on OVW’s website at www.ovw.usdoj.gov .

The National Institute of Corrections Information Center is one of the largest repositories for corrections research and information in the country. See  www.nicic.gov/Library.

Correctional Social Media: The Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project offers a video on research to reduce recidivism as well as brief but powerful overviews of reentry and sentencing research. See http://www.pewstates.org/projects/public-safety-performance-project-328068 .

The U.S. DOJ Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships recently held two successful webinars on Faith and Community Based approaches to Reentry and Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives. Click the links below to watch/listen to these informative webinars.

1. Faith and Community Based Approaches to Responsible Fatherhood and its Impact on Delinquency Prevention, see https://bjatraining.org/2012/04/10/faith-and-community-based-approaches-responsible-fatherhood-and-its-impact-delinquency
2. A Look at Faith & Community-Based Approaches to Offender Reentry, seehttps://bjatraining.org/a-look-at-faith-community-based-approaches-to-offender-reentry

The Louisiana Department of Corrections/Division of Probation and Parole is offering radio shows on offender reentry. Please visit their website at http://doc.la.gov/pages/reentry-initiatives/reentry-radio/ .

The New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services offers podcasts at http://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/pio/podcasts.html.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections offers a YouTube channel at http://m.youtube.com/user/minnesotadoc .

The Facebook page for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rhode-Island-Department-of-Corrections-Peer-Support/536649486352250 .

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Facebook Page is  http://www.facebook.com/cacorrections . The Twitter page is  http://twitter.com/cacorrections .

Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency:

We welcome your comments or suggestions at leonard.sipes@csosa.gov.

The website for the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency is http://www.csosa.gov/.

The program is hosted by Leonard Sipes. The producer is Timothy Barns.

Comments offered on “DC Public Safety” television and radio programs are the opinions of participants and do not necessarily represent the policies of CSOSA or other government agencies.