Research and Policy Development

Research and Policy Development

CJA/345

Introduction

In this Research and Policy Development Paper I will be describing the importance of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Also identifying the purpose and types of policies within the field of criminal justice. Describe the relationship between research and policy development. Provide examples of how research can assist policy makers by informing their policy decisions. Identify two examples of policies that were developed within the past 10 years that resulted from research within the field of criminal justice.

Identify the purposes and types of policies

Research methods are procedures for obtaining information on individual and/or aggregate phenomena for the purpose of (1) creating a general explanation or theory to explain a phenomenon; (2) testing the applicability of an existing theory to a subgroup of the population; or (3) testing the effectiveness of an existing social policy or program. Topics (1) and (2) are critical to the dialectic of scholarly knowledge in criminology and criminal justice. Somewhat unique to the field of criminal justice, however, is a heavier emphasis on (3) as a product of research. The phenomena of primary interest to criminologists include juvenile delinquency, adult criminality, and victimization, at both the individual and aggregate levels. The interests of criminal justice researchers appear more eclectic, only a few of which include police practices and effectiveness, the dynamics of criminal case processing, sentencing discrimination, inmate violence, and correctional program effectiveness.

Criminology can edify society’s understanding of the myriad of factors which lead to criminal activity and those that can prevent it. Criminology influences legal perspectives, criminal deterrent and punishment methods, and policy decisions. Through criminology, experts can measure the rate of crime, the effectiveness of current policy, and what changes or improvements might be beneficial to society. Like any area of academic endeavor, numerous criminology theories have been developed in an attempt to explain the root of deviant human behavior in order to better understand criminals and criminal behavior.

Criminology’s demonic theory is arguably one of the oldest perspectives on criminal behavior and deviance. The demonic theory provides religious explanations for criminal behavior. All major religions have developed explanations about human nature, deviance, evil, and suffering. Religion’s notable responses to crime include karma, divine providence, and dualism. Demonic criminology theory has had great historical significance in terms of societal beliefs and criminal justice policies.

The classical school of criminology believes that crime is primarily a product of free will and places emphasis on punishment that is certain, swift, and proportional. This criminology theory rests on the principle that the benefits of crime should never outweigh the potential pain of punishment. Classical and neo-classical criminology theorists are more apt to support measures like determinate sentencing (mandatory minimums, habitual offender statutes, etc.); full sentences served; the death penalty; and “good faith” exceptions for due process violations made by law enforcement.

Other criminology theories include the positivist theory, biological theory, ecological theory, conflict theory, functionalist theory, and more. Some criminology fields focus more on explaining the causes of criminal behavior. Some causes that are given include biology, social forces, economic resources, psychological development, personal choice, and more. Other theories focus on the implications of crime and crime control policies.

Criminology can be thought of as the intellectual pool from which individuals and groups develop their perspectives on crime. This perspective will inevitably shape the creation of laws, policies, and other facets of the criminal justice and law enforcement systems.

The relationship between research and policy development.

Policy research Social scientific research which has non-university groups as its main intended audience (although the results may in practice also interest academic audiences). For the most part such research attempts to apply social scientific findings to the solution of problems identified by a client. The term ‘applied sociology’ is also given to such exercises. For example, the development of game theory was funded by the US Department of Defense with reference to its relevance to military strategy, but it has also made a fundamental contribution to social science theory.

Policy research may be descriptive, analytical, or deal with causal processes and explanations; it may evaluate a new or existing policy programmer, describe examples of best practice, measure social change, develop projections on the basis of large-scale modelling exercises, or consist of large-scale experimental research in real-life settings running for years and even decades. Most policy research espouses a multi-disciplinary approach and avoids narrowly disciplinary jargon. Thus policy research is rarely explicitly sociological, even if sociology contributes more than any other discipline to the theoretical foundations, design, and methodology of a study.

In principle, policy research will focus on actionable or malleable social factors to a greater extent than theoretical research. For example, the family may be the most important source of sex-role or racial stereotypes, but policy research would focus on the role of the public educational system in changing children’s perceptions in directions considered desirable. Policy research has created some multi-disciplinary hybrid fields of study, such as industrial relations and social policy.

Criminology theories focus on personal and societal causes of poverty and crime. Criminal justice policy is geared toward controlling social dysfunction. The cause of dysfunction, our various theories propose, are internal and external factors such as lack of political power, poverty mentality, lack of economic viability, lack of educational achievement, single female head of household families, absent fathers, and so on. Regardless of how these factors are viewed and explained, they all have moral connotations attached to them. More significantly, criminal justice policy is a subject the general public can easily relate to and develop opinions about (at least in regard to causation) without immersion and education in our discipline. Terms of art in criminal justice are much more easily integrated, without explanation, into the general political discourse than are terms such as “polygenetic theories of living organisms.” Criminal justice policy development on the first level of policy making has political, ideological, and moral assumptions.

How research can assist policy makers by informing their policy decisions.

Policy-makers interviewed for this study were unequivocal in their support for health research and the high value they attribute to it. However, they stated that there were structural and informal barriers to research contributing to policy processes, to the contribution research makes to knowledge generally, and to the use of research in health decision-making specifically. Major findings regarding barriers to evidence-based policy-making included poor communication and dissemination, lack of technical capacity in policy processes, as well as the influence of the political context. Policy-makers had a variable understanding of economic analysis, equity and burden of disease measures, and were vague in terms of their use in national decisions. Policy-maker recommendations regarding strategies for facilitating the uptake of research into policy included improving the technical capacity of policy-makers, better packaging of research results, use of social networks, and establishment of fora and clearinghouse functions to help assist in evidence-based policy-making.

Criminal justice policy making is the result of a dynamic horizontal and vertical power decision-making system. Policy makers make decisions in a dynamic process in which various factors influence how, when, and what decision is made and what policy is instituted. Policy is made on an incremental basis and it is developed on at least two levels, the first being the establishment of broad policy parameters and the second being the translation of policy parameters into policy programs.

Identify two examples of policies that were developed in year 2006

High rates of incarceration in the United States and the great numbers of people held in U.S. prisons and jails result substantially from decisions by policy makers to increase the use and severity of prison sentences. At various times, other factors have contributed as well. These include rising crime rates in the 1970s and 1980s; decisions by police officials to emphasize street-level arrests of drug dealers in the “war on drugs”; and changes in prevailing attitudes toward crime and criminals that led prosecutors, judges, and parole and other correctional officials to deal more harshly with individuals convicted of crimes. The increase in U.S. incarceration rates over the past 40 years is preponderantly the result of increases both in the likelihood of imprisonment and in lengths of prison sentences—with the latter having been the primary cause since 1990. These increases, in turn, are a product of the proliferation in nearly every state and in the federal system of laws and guidelines providing for lengthy prison sentences for drug and violent crimes and repeat offenses, and the enactment in more than half the states and in the federal system of three strikes and truth-in-sentencing laws.

The increase in the use of imprisonment as a response to crime reflects a clear policy choice. In the 1980s and 1990s, state and federal legislators passed and governors and presidents signed laws intended to ensure that more of those convicted would be imprisoned and that prison terms for many offenses would be longer than in earlier periods. No other inference can be drawn from the enactment of hundreds of laws mandating lengthier prison terms. In the federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, for example, a state applying for a federal grant for prison construction was required to show that it:

(A) has increased the percentage of convicted violent offenders sentenced to prison; (B) has increased the average prison time which will be served in prison by convicted violent offenders sentenced to prison; (C) has increased the percentage of sentence which will be served in prison by violent offenders sentenced to prison.

Conclusion

Working at the interface between knowledge, policy and practice, RAPID occupies a unique place in ODI’s range of expert teams. We are dedicated to improving the integration of local knowledge and research-based evidence into policy-making. We work with researchers, think tanks, civil society, donors and governments to develop capacity for policy influence and evidence-informed policy-making.