Wednesday January 8 Criminal Justice and Public Policy Notes The purpose of public policy o Addresses problems that impact public safety health and the welfare of society o Valuable only if effective o Important to be evaluated before implemented The purpose of Criminal Justice Policy o Protect members of society from others who may cause them harm o Maintain social order o Improve reintegration success o Reduce recidivism Mainstream CJ Public Policies o Truth in sentencing guidelines o Three Strike Laws o Sex Offender Registries o D A R E Program o Scared straight programs o Supermax Prisons o Private Prisons o Faith Based reentry programs Are CJ policies effective o To Date there is little empirical support for many mainstream policies o More irrational than rational policies o Consequences Waste of resources Persistence of problems Potential danger to members of society The need for Evaluation Research o Systematic way of evaluating a policy o Accounts for important factors that may impact policy effectiveness o Failure to prepare is preparing to fail John Wooden Evaluation Hierarchy View these as a pyramid o Cost Efficiency Was this a cost efficient night o Outcome and Impact Did my strategy get me what I wanted o Implementation Am I following through with my strategy o Theory Has this strategy worked before o Needs I need a night out Evaluation Hierarchy o Policymakers risk wasting resources if one level of the hierarchy is not sufficiently satisfied o Seems to be a common practice in criminal justice policy making Ineffective CJ Policies o D A R E Hundreds of evaluation studies across different sites report little to no deterrent effect on drug use o Scared Straight Reviews suggest no effect and sometimes and increase in juvenile Factors that influence CJ Policy offending o Politics Policymakers want to do what will get them reelected Sometimes this means backing unevaluated criminal justice policies Running on the Get Tough platform has been successful o Social Climate Well Covered Stories Murder of Meghan Kanka Meghan s Law Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings o Public Opinion to do so policymakers Many policies are created by policymakers who feel a public demand What the public wants however is often misinterpreted by Another problem is that most of the public is misinformed when it comes to understanding the criminal justice system o Systematically investigate the effectiveness of programs under certain political and social conditions that are designed to improve the welfare of society o Overall objective is to empirically assess every essential element of a policy in order to assess how effective it may be Evaluation Research Friday January 10 Evaluation Hierarchy o Systematic way of evaluating the important elements of a policy o Similar to building a house higher levels rely on lower levels o Doing so improves accountability effectiveness and efficiency o Increases transparency between evaluation research and policymakers Needs Evaluation Theory Evaluation o Is there a need for the policy o If not what is the reason for creating a given policy o If a need exists then the next step is to logically evaluate how a created policy will have an impact on crime o According to prior research what important factors may cause an increase in crime o This builds the foundation for a policy Example General Strain Theory GST o According to Robert Agnew s GST 2002 crime is most likely the result from anger which is caused by the failure to achieve positive goals the loss of positive stimuli and or the introduction of negative stimuli o Community Crime Rates What can buffer the influence of strain on community members and reduce crime Employment opportunities Health Care services Mental health programs o More employment less crime Direct Effect Indirect Effect Implementation Evaluation o Employment Sustainable income less need to commit crime o Evaluate how well a policy is implemented o Important to uncover aspects of a policy that may be difficult to implement For example attracting employers to lower income neighborhoods o Create alternative solutions to implementation issues o Helps hold the government and other agencies accountable Impact Evaluation o Evaluate whether the policy produces expected outcomes o Does the policy impact the problem the way it is designed to What factors account for variation o Would a change take place without the policy Cost Efficiency Evaluation o Is the amount of resources spent on a given policy worth the expected o Important to have a reliable estimate of how much bang you get for your returns buck o This may become tricky when you cannot assign a value for certain returns Importance of policy evaluation o As government funds have dwindled over time there has been a demand that funded policies show promise o Is there really a need for the policy o Is the policy based on theoretical evidence o Has the policy been implemented well o Has the policy impacted the problem o Is the policy cost efficient Benefits of an Evaluation Framework o Could help promote more rational criminal justice policies o Invalidate quick fix policymaking o Break the barrier between tough and soft on crime approaches o Create a line of communication between researchers and policymakers Influences on Evaluation Research o Interest Groups Lobbyists Policymakers Evaluation Efforts Political Interest Groups and what they donate to o National Rifle Association NRA Gun Policies o The Christian Coalition Faith Based reentry programs o National Organization for Women Domestic Violence Intervention Programs o Corrections Corporation of America CCA Private vs public prisons Sentencing Guidelines Consequences of Political Interests on Criminal Justice Policy o Encourage policymakers to support certain policies that have not been evaluated be effective o Continue to endorse certain get tough policies that have been shown to not Consequences of Social Climate on Criminal Justice Policy o Lead to Silver Bullet solutions o Increase the severity of current policies rather than consider more nuanced approaches which may be more effective o Policymakers risk reelection if the public demand is not satisfied o Political career vs best policy for crime problem Lack of Criminal Justice Policy Evaluation Research o Criminology is still a relatively new science o Most criminology research examines the potential causes of crime rather than the solutions to it Micro level criminologists