Evidence of Criminology’s Impact on Policy and Practice

• In Event: Advancing Criminology and Criminal Justice Policy

Abstract

Over the past two decades, a growing recognition of the importance of evidence-based criminal justice policies has emerged. This recognition has been demonstrated through a series of federally sponsored initiatives that include funding assistance for the implementation of particular policies that have been designated as “evidence-based.” Despite governmental and professional association efforts to promote the role of criminological research in criminal justice policy, an important question that remains is how will criminologists be able to successfully combine their traditional research role with a criminal justice policy role? This presentation will identify strategies for informing criminal justice policy from research findings that are largely uncertain; apply the identified strategies to a comprehensive series of criminology research and related criminal justice policy areas and; and assess the utility of the identified strategies for simultaneously advancing criminology and criminal justice policy. Despite causal uncertainty, research-driven criminal justice policies can effectively ameliorate the alterable conditions of the problem in question rather than eliminate its uncertain causes.

Author

• Thomas G. Blomberg, Florida State University