Administration of Justice Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years 1996-98 (Letter
Report, 05/01/96, GAO/IAP-96-14).
GAO presented its Administration of Justice issue area plan for fiscal
years 1996 through 1998.
GAO plans to: (1) assess federal progress in implementing major crime
control initiatives and enforcement programs; (2) identify ways to
improve federal, state, and local enforcement efforts; (3) analyze
enforcement budgets and identify opportunities for resource
consolidation and cost savings; (4) focus on future incarceration
trends; (5) ensure that prison construction standards are developed and
implemented; (6) ensure that the Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) is addressing management weaknesses and improving its enforcement
activities against illegal and criminal aliens; (7) recommend actions
that INS can take to improve alien services; (8) determine the
effectiveness of Customs' drug interdiction and trade enforcement
efforts; and (9) determine if Customs is maximizing its opportunities to
reduce costs and generate revenue.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: IAP-96-14
TITLE: Administration of Justice Issue Area Plan--Fiscal Years
1996-98
DATE: 05/01/96
SUBJECT: Law enforcement
Illegal aliens
Correctional facilities
Government facility construction
Crimes or offenses
Customs administration
Immigration and naturalization law
Intergovernmental relations
Cost control
Federal aid for criminal justice
IDENTIFIER: NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement
Customs' Cargo Compliance Measurement Program
******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a **
** GAO report. Delineations within the text indicating chapter **
** titles, headings, and bullets are preserved. Major **
** divisions and subdivisions of the text, such as Chapters, **
** Sections, and Appendixes, are identified by double and **
** single lines. The numbers on the right end of these lines **
** indicate the position of each of the subsections in the **
** document outline. These numbers do NOT correspond with the **
** page numbers of the printed product. **
** **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but **
** may not resemble those in the printed version. **
** **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed **
** document's contents. **
** **
** A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO **
** Document Distribution Center. For further details, please **
** send an e-mail message to: **
** **
** **
** **
** with the message 'info' in the body. **
******************************************************************
Cover
================================================================ COVER
General Government Division
May 1996
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE ISSUE
AREA PLAN - FISCAL YEARS 1995-97
GAO/IAP-96-14
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
FOREWORD
============================================================ Chapter 0
As the investigative arm of Congress and the nation's auditor, the
General Accounting Office is charged with following the federal
dollar wherever it goes. Reflecting stringent standards of
objectivity and independence, GAO's audits, evaluations, and
investigations promote a more efficient and cost-effective
government; expose waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in federal
programs; help Congress target budget reductions; assess financial
information management; and alert Congress to developing trends that
may have significant fiscal or budgetary consequences. In fulfilling
its responsibilities, GAO performs original research and uses
hundreds of databases or creates its own when information is
unavailable elesewhere.
To ensure that GAO's resources are directed toward the most important
issues facing Congress, each of GAO's 32 issue areas develops a
strategic plan that describes the significance of the issues it
addresses, its objectives, and the focus of its work. Each issue
area relies heavily on input from congressional committees, agency
officials, and subject-matter experts in developing its strategic
plan.
The Administration of Justice issue area covers the Department of
Justice, the Department of the Treasury's investigative agencies, the
judicial branch of the federal government, and several independent
agencies. GAO's work in the justice area generally seeks to improve
the efficiency and effectiveness of the justice system. The
principal issues in the justice area are
-- federal law enforcement's response, in partnership with state
and local governments, to violent crime, drugs, and other major
threats facing society;
-- the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal judicial and
corrections systems, as well as federal aid to state courts and
prison systems;
-- the Immigration and Naturalization Service's ability to support
its enforcement and service delivery missions; and
-- the U.S. Customs Service's effectiveness in implementing its
drug interdiction mission, fulfilling its trade enforcement
mission, and collecting appropriate revenues.
In the pages that follow, we describe our planned work relating to
these issues.
Events in the justice area tend to move swiftly. Therefore, we
designed a flexible planning process that will allow us to respond
quickly to emerging issues. If you have any questions or suggestions
about this plan, please call me at (202) 512-3610.
Norman J. Rabkin
Director, Administration of
Justice Issues
CONTENTS
============================================================ Chapter 1
FOREWORD
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1
1
TABLE I: KEY ISSUES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:2
4
TABLE II: PLANNED MAJOR WORK
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:3
6
TABLE III: GAO CONTACTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4
7
TABLE I: KEY ISSUES
============================================================ Chapter 2
Issue Significance
---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------
Law enforcement: How can Crime has become one of the foremost concerns of
federal law enforcement, the American public. To address this concern,
working with state and local Congress has made federal offenses of many crimes
governments, more involving drugs and firearms and increased the
efficiently and effectively Department of Justice's (DOJ) and the Department
respond to violent crime, of the Treasury's budgets to investigate and
drugs, and other major prosecute them. Congress also has made billions of
threats facing society? dollars available to states and localities to help
them combat violent and other crime in their
communities. In addition, the President in his
1996 State of the Union message cited violent
crime, gangs, and drugs as major challenges facing
America; proposed several strategies; and called
for a federal, state, and local partnership to
address the crime problem.
Adjudication and Increasing the scope of federal crimes and DOJ's
corrections: What can be resources to investigate and prosecute them has
done to improve the created tremendous demands on the federal
efficiency and effectiveness judiciary and corrections systems. For example,
of federal courts and the criminal trials in district courts have increased
corrections system, as well 24 percent since 1989. While both the Judiciary
as federal aid to state and Bureau of Prisons (BOP) have received more
courts and prison systems, resources, including 85 more federal judges and
given the increasing demands 39,000 more prison beds since 1989, questions are
placed on them in an era of being raised about how efficiently the courts and
budget constraints? prisons are operating. The overall costs of our
correctional systems, as a result of our "get
tough on crime" policies, has become a significant
issue.
Immigration: What actions Reflecting the increased public concern over
can strengthen the increasing legal and illegal immigration, criminal
Immigration and activity by these illegal aliens, and INS'
Naturalization Service's apparent inability to effectively enforce
(INS) ability to enforce immigration laws, the federal government is
immigration laws and enhance increasing INS' resources. The President's fiscal
service delivery? year 1996 budget of $2.6 billion for INS was
almost a 25-percent increase over 1995. However,
INS' past management record raises questions about
its ability to properly spend these funds. For
example, backlogs of applications continue to
grow.
Customs: Is the U.S. Customs The U.S. Customs Service enforces the nation's
Service effectively trade laws and generates the second highest amount
performing its drug of revenue annually--about $26 billion in fiscal
interdiction mission, year 1995. Customs faces increased demands from
fulfilling its trade recent trade agreements (NAFTA and GATT), its
enforcement mission, and involvement in drug interdiction activities, and
collecting appropriate pressure from domestic and foreign businesses to
revenues? facilitate the movement of goods and people across
U.S. borders. Customs has undertaken a major
reorganization effort to more efficiently and
effectively satisfy these competing demands and is
investing in a $100 million modern information
system.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Objectives Focus of work
---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------
Assess federal progress in Assess progress of DOJ's major crime control
implementing major crime initiatives, including violent crime and drug
control initiatives and enforcement.
enforcement programs. Evaluate efforts to stem money laundering and the
illegal possession of firearms.
Identify ways, such as Assess federal support for community policing and
"best practices," to improve other local crime control efforts.
federal assistance to and Analyze DOJ/Treasury enforcement budgets to
cooperation with state/ identify potential savings.
local enforcement efforts to
combat serious crime.
Develop approaches/
methodologies for analyzing
enforcement budgets and
identify opportunities for
resource consolidation and
cost savings.
Report periodically to Analyze budgets to identify major drivers of
Congress on the judiciary judiciary and BOP workload and cost growth, and
initiatives to increase assess initiatives to reduce cost.
efficiency and "best Assess impact of criminal cases on judiciary
practices," including workload, resource needs, and civil case
automation reforms. processing.
Assess state practices that may be applicable to
Focus attention on future federal court and prison operations.
incarceration trends. Describe the projected costs of prisons to house
the future inmate population.
Ensure that the 1994 Crime
Bill prison construction
standards have been
developed and implemented.
Ensure that INS is Assess INS' management system and organizational
addressing previously changes
identified management Evaluate the process for identifying and removing
weaknesses. criminal aliens.
Assess the implementation of border control
Identify ways INS can initiatives.
improve its enforcement Evaluate initiatives to enforce Immigration
efforts against illegal and Reform and Control Act work provisions.
criminal aliens. Evaluate INS' provision of services to legal
aliens and effectiveness in denying benefits to
Recommend steps INS can illegal aliens.
take to improve services to
the aliens entitled to them.
Determine the effectiveness Evaluate Customs' drug interdiction and
of Customs' drug investigative efforts.
interdiction and Assess Customs' cargo compliance measurement
investigative efforts. program, in-bond transfers, and trade enforcement
versus facilitation efforts.
Determine the Assess the adequacy of Customs' current user fee
effectiveness of Customs' system.
cargo and trade enforcement
efforts.
Determine if Customs is
maximizing its opportunities
to reduce costs and generate
fee revenue.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE II: PLANNED MAJOR WORK
============================================================ Chapter 3
Issue Planned major job starts
---------------------------- --------------------------------------------------
Law enforcement Justice and Treasury policies, procedures, and
controls for developing and approving arrest and
search warrants
Community policing "best practices"
Reauthorization of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' efforts
to detect criminal sources of firearms
Survey of Justice and Treasury law enforcement
budgets to identify programs and activities
involving potential unnecessary duplication and
overlap
Adjudication and Follow up on judiciary initiatives to reduce
corrections costs and spread best practices
The Judiciary's ability to manage growth in
supervised release
Judiciary implementation of automation fund
reforms for fiscal year 1997 reauthorization
Issues, such as costs and accountability,
involved in prison privatization
Trends in federal and state incarceration costs
Immigration Institutional Hearing Program to deport criminal
aliens after incarceration
Border enforcement activities at ports of entry
Efforts to implement employer sanctions
Efforts to establish a verification system to
determine employment eligibility
Efforts to improve processing of aliens'
applications
Customs Analyze Customs' efforts to interdict drugs,
including its air and marine programs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE III: GAO CONTACTS
============================================================ Chapter 4
DIRECTOR
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:0.1
Norman J. Rabkin (202) 512-3610
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:0.2
Laurie E. Ekstrand (202) 512-8787
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:0.3
James M. Blume (202) 512-8643
Danny R. Burton (214) 777-5741
Darryl W. Dutton (213) 346-8086
Daniel C. Harris (202) 512-8720
William O. Jenkins, Jr. (202) 512-8757
Weldon McPhail (202) 512-8644
Evi L. Rezmovic (202) 512-2580
*** End of document. ***