RAND

Three Cases Link Terrorists to Piracy Profits

March 3, 2009 -- Organized crime increasingly is involved in the piracy of feature films, with syndicates active along the entire supply chain from manufacture to street sales of pirated movies, according to a new RAND Corporation report.

While crime syndicates have added piracy to criminal portfolios that include drugs, money laundering, extortion and human smuggling, the profits from film piracy also have been used on occasion to support the activities of terrorist groups, according to researchers.    » read more »

February 11, 2009 -- As the U.S. military continues to rely on the National Guard and Reserve for overseas deployments, making sure their families are adequately prepared for those missions is critical, according to a study issued today by the RAND Corporation.

"How the families of National Guard and Reserve members handle deployment may influence their plans to stay in the military," said Laura Castaneda, one of the lead authors of the study and a management scientist with RAND, a nonprofit research institution. "This means that understanding and addressing the needs of these families is not only key to ensuring their well-being, but potentially affects the health of the Guard and Reserve as well."    » read more »

February 5, 2009 -- The first multi-dimensional effort to quantify the disparities faced by African-American and Latino boys and men in California across a broad spectrum of health and social factors provides a disquieting outlook for their lives.

Compiled by RAND Corporation researchers at the request of The California Endowment, the report compares how well men and boys of color have fared relative to their white peers across the realms of health, safety, socioeconomic characteristics and readiness to learn.    » read more »

February 4, 2009 -- The economic cost of methamphetamine use in the United States reached $23.4 billion in 2005, including the burden of addiction, premature death, drug treatment and many other aspects of the drug, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The RAND study is the first effort to construct a comprehensive national assessment of the costs of the methamphetamine problem in the United States.

"Our findings show that the economic burden of methamphetamine abuse is substantial," said Nancy Nicosia, the study's lead author and an economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.    » read more »

February 4, 2009 -- While al Qaeda is the primary terrorist/extremist threat in East Africa, the region suffers more broadly from a danger of radical Islamist groups and organizations that the United States and its allies must address to reshape the region's security environment, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.

"The internal conflict and corruption enveloping weak African governments make it easy for terrorists to move, plan and organize," said Angel Rabasa, the report' author and a senior policy analyst at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "The United States and its allies in the region need an effective, long-term solution to rid the area of the extremist and terrorist elements that reside there."    » read more »

April, 2008 -- Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Soldiers on patrol in Samarra, Iraq

In addition, researchers found about 19 percent of returning service members report that they experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed, with 7 percent reporting both a probable brain injury and current PTSD or major depression.    » read more »

March 18, 2008 -- Although advances in genomic medicine for common adult chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer hold promise for improved prevention, diagnosis and treatment, health professionals and the public are not prepared to effectively integrate these new tools into practice, according to a study released today by researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the RAND Corporation.    » read more »

The inability of the United States to monitor insurgent trends in Iraq and apply new counterinsurgency tactics led many Iraqi civilians to side with sectarian groups, propelling the country to the brink of civil war, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

The study, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq: 2003-2006," is the latest in a series examining insurgency and counterinsurgency, and details how the United States should improve its capabilities for future conflicts. The capstone report of the series, "War by Other Means," was released in February by RAND, a non-profit research organization.    » read more »

In 2005, the Army Reportedly Suppressed RAND's Postwar Iraq Study from Congress

February 11, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent the following letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, calling on him to immediately release an unclassified study of the postwar planning for Iraq prepared by the RAND Corporation in 2005. According to press accounts, the Army suppressed the RAND study after it concluded that the Bush Administration failed to address the enormity of Iraq's reconstruction challenges.    » read more »

January 29, 2008 -- While California has basic tracking system architecture in place to allow the state's educators to closely follow the progress of students from kindergarten to post-secondary education, officials must overcome political and financial barriers, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.    » read more »

November 28, 2007 -- Planning a successful Olympics in London in 2012 will require organizers to learn from the successes and problems of past games in the areas of transportation, infrastructure and security, according to a report issued today by the RAND Corporation.

Researchers from RAND Europe analyzed 13 policy areas that will be critical to the London games and outlined a research agenda for transport and infrastructure, as well as a method for evaluating complex security needs.    » read more »

November 14, 2007 -- International cooperation is needed to keep a new generation of advanced conventional weapons now under development from falling into the hands of terrorists, according to a RAND Corporation report issued today.

Such efforts should focus on making security forces aware of the emerging threats posed by the weapons and developing safeguards that would render the most potent of the weapons inoperable to anyone other than intended operators, according to researchers.    » read more »

November 8, 2007 -- Cars and light trucks powered by advanced diesel technology or hybrid technology can provide larger societal benefits than traditional gasoline-powered automobiles, according to a RAND Corporation working paper presented today.

The research by RAND, a non-profit research organization, also found that light trucks and cars continuously fueled by a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline – known as E85 – compare unfavorably with the other two alternatives.    » read more »

November 8, 2007 -- California's sizeable achievement gaps in English-language arts and mathematics in second and third grades have early roots, with the same groups of children that lag in academic performance in elementary school trailing in measures of school readiness when they enter kindergarten, according to RAND Corporation research issued today.    » read more »

October 29, 2007 -- An examination of the types of human trafficking occurring in two of Ohio's largest cities found that child prostitution is more common in Toledo while forced labor is more likely to be identified in Columbus, according to a new RAND Corporation report.    » read more »