Department of Justice status of achieving key outcomes and addressing major challenges.


Book Description

This report responds to your request that we review the Department of Justice's (Justice) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) to assess agencies progress in achieving selected key outcomes that you identified as important mission areas for the agencies. 1 These are the same outcomes we addressed in our June 2000 report 2 on Justice s fiscal year 1999 performance report and fiscal year 2001 performance plan to provide a baseline by which to measure agencies performance from year to year. These selected key outcomes are less drug- and gang-related violence; reduced availability and/or use of illegal drugs; timely, consistent, fair, and high-quality services provided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); and U.S. borders secure from illegal immigration. As agreed, using the selected key outcomes for Justice as a framework, we (1) assessed the progress Justice has made in achieving these outcomes and the strategies the agency has in place to achieve them and (2) compared Justice s fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan with the agency s prior year performance report and plan for these outcomes. Additionally, we agreed to analyze how Justice addressed the major management challenges, including the government wide high-risk areas of strategic human capital management and information security, that we and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identified. Appendix I provides detailed information on how Justice.




Department of Justice


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Month in Review ...


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Department of State status of achieving key outcomes and addressing major management challenges.


Book Description

This report reviews the Department of State's (State) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) 1 to assess the department's progress in achieving selected key outcomes that you identified as important mission areas. Our review includes a discussion of State's past performance and future performance targets for counterterrorism and other key foreign policy efforts, which were developed prior to the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. We recognize the events of that day and subsequent days may greatly alter State's approach to its strategic goals and objectives in many of the areas we examined for this review, particularly those involving counterterrorism. We hope that this report provides the department and others with insights that will assist them when developing new efforts to counter terrorism and protect American citizens, assets, and interests, both at home and abroad.




The Criminalization of Medicine


Book Description

Medical doctors have been made political scapegoats for the financial crisis of healthcare and the failed war on drugs in the United States, says author Ronald Libby. In order to combat health fraud and abuse, the government launched tough new laws and guidelines designed to battle rising urban violent crimes, illegal drugs, and terrorism. But, by eliminating safeguards to protect the innocent, those same laws and guidelines also made it far easier for agents and prosecutors to arrest, charge, fine, convict, and imprison physicians. Current witch hunts for doctors now include wiretaps and whistleblowers who get 35 percent of the fines, even before conviction. Under a new doctrine of harmless error a doctor receives no protection against false testimony, Libby explains all of this, offering cases from media reports, personal interviews, and records of trial as examples in this compelling book. Huge law enforcement bureaucracies have been created to target doctors for alleged fraud, kickbacks, and drug diversion. Federal, state, and local police are rewarded for prosecuting doctors and other healthcare professionals, while investigators and prosecutors receive pay raises and promotions, and law enforcement agencies seize the assets of doctors charged with felonies. Libby explains that doctors are prosecuted for billing mistakes, for referring patients to clinics, or treating pain patients with pain-relieving drugs. They receive large fines and long prison sentences, some even harsher than those given common criminals who've committed the most violent offenses. Join Senior Research Fellow Libby, who is also a Professor of Political Science, as he shows us why doctors have been demonized as corrupt and greedy entrepreneurs, how media sensationalizes doctors' arrests, and what unjust prosecution could mean for the future of healthcare.