EXTERNAL FACTORS THAT MAY AFFECT GOAL ACHIEVEMENT

A number of external factors could affect our ability to achieve our strategic goals and objectives. Many of these revolve around the sweeping developments in technology that are rapidly changing our everyday world. As mentioned earlier, these developments are providing both new opportunities and new risks for Justice agencies. Clearly, a major challenge for the Department is both taking advantage of, and ensuring the security of, the information technology infrastructures on which both the Department and the nation as a whole increasingly depend. A number of other external factors relate to the changed international arena in which economies are increasingly interdependent; people, goods and capital cross national borders with relative ease; and new security concerns emerge. Here, too, the Department faces the challenge of both anticipating and responding to a radically altered global context.

Social and demographic factors also may affect our success in meeting our goals. Much of what the Department of Justice does is impacted by societal attitudes and behaviors over which we have little direct influence, such as attitudes toward drugs and alcohol. Finally, the Department's ability to meet its goals could be significantly affected by unpredictable events or emergencies that demand our attention and skew our priorities, by shifts in public attitudes toward crime and justice, and by changing statutory responsibilities.

These and other external factors are summarized in the table that follows.