by John Newell (NJC)
The Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM) at the Center for Effective Public Policy and the National Judicial College (NJC) are heading an Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART) funded Comprehensive Approach to Sex Offenders (CASOM) project aimed at improving the way sex offense cases are handled by judges and other criminal professionals. CSOM and NJC are joined in this project by several national groups, including the American Probation and Parole Association, the Center for Court Innovation, Fox Valley Technical College, the National Center for State Courts, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
In order to improve the handling of sex offender cases and increase the chances that communities will form a strong, sustainable team to adapt and implement the CASOM model in their jurisdictions, CSOM and NJC have targeted three goals for this project:
- Provide CASOM focused educational opportunities to a national audience of judges and other criminal justice professionals. Educational programs under this project will be delivered through a variety of means to maximize accessibility to a wide range of participants.
- Provide technical assistance (TA) to jurisdictions throughout the United States in order to address demonstrated need to improve the functioning of their sex offender management systems.
- Create and provide nationally accessible resources for judges and criminal justice professionals to use in improving the manner in which they handle sex offense cases.
The first phase of the project includes convening a National Project Advisory Board and revising and enhancing the CASOM curriculum developed by COSM and NJC in 2010. Once the revised curriculum is finalized, CSOM and NJC will conduct three regional judicial conferences on CASOM. To recruit participants in these regional conferences, CSOM and NJC will work with state chief justices, chief/administrative judges, and state judicial educators.
For more information on this project, please contact the National Judicial College at 1- (800) 25-JUDGE.