Is There a Gap to Bridge? Assessing the Parallel Worlds of Prosecutors’ Experiential Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge on Legal Punishment

• In Event: Crime prevention and criminal justice

Abstract

Is there truly a gap between legal practice and social science about law? Debates about the use of social science in law assume so. This study addresses this question by analyzing the extent to which prosecutorial experiential knowledge is aligned with scientific knowledge about the effects of punishment on crime. This study is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with prosecutors on how they believe they can prevent future crime. Using a combination of inductive and deductive coding, it analyzes their answers about the effects of legal punishment on crime prevention. The study finds a surprising level of alignment between prosecutors’ experiential knowledge and the existing scientific knowledge. It shows that their experiential knowledge exists as complementary collective knowledge and is not spread equally amongst individual prosecutors. This study concludes that the story about the alignment between law and social science may be more nuanced than typically assumed. Instead of a gap between social science and legal practice, we see parallel worlds between the collective knowledge of prosecutors and scientific knowledge on the effects of punishment. We draw out the implications of these findings for enhancing evidence-based practice and the debates about social science and law.

Authors

• Malouke Kuiper, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Benjamin van Rooij, University of Amsterdam

• Christopher P. Reinders Folmer, University of Amsterdam