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Building Collaborative Evidence-Based Frameworks for Criminal Justice Policy
Abstract
Researcher–policymaker/practitioner partnerships (RPPs) have emerged as a successful tool for translating research into policy and practice. However, the available research has focused on RPPs with law enforcement and correctional agencies. Notably absent are studies that describe and evaluate RPPs between researchers and legislative bodies. Specifically, questions remain about the establishment, unique constraints, best practices for effective implementation, and sustainability of partnerships between researchers and policymakers. This study contributes to the literature by describing a unique RPP between a university and a state legislature. Through this retrospective case analysis, we describe the steps taken to initiate the partnership, its implementation, and outcomes. Importantly, in the context of the prior research, we describe the lessons learned, next steps, and implications for partnerships with policymakers.
... Yet each could be used to describe the type of work Ed does. At their core, translational criminology, public criminology, and RPP are about making research findings accessible, practical, and useful (see Braga, 2013;Brancale et al., 2021;Piquero, 2019). But more than the dissemination of research, translational criminology entails institutionalizing effective practices and strategies through implementation and evaluation (Laub, 2012). ...
The importance of researcher-practitioner collaborations is at the core of Edward J. Latessa’s work. He has been at the forefront of this domain by creating and disseminating evidence-based tools and practices throughout his career. His work with agencies has undoubtedly changed the face of correctional practices in America and throughout the world. The current essay outlines the work that Ed did to propagate the “what works” movement by doing translational criminology work, and the lessons learned from him on the road.
This paper seeks to advance efforts to understand and extend translational criminology as a means by which to improve criminal justice research and policy, including laws, programs, and practices. To this end, it conceptualizes translational criminology as a collaborative activity, one that involves researchers and policymakers, practitioners, and communities, and is grounded in an evaluation research framework. Using this framework highlights that translational criminology can inform research, policy, and practice along five distinct dimensions: (1) Identifying the need for particular policies, (2) developing a strong theoretical and empirical foundation for them, (3) monitoring and improving implementation that aligns with the design of the policy and local context, (4) monitoring outcomes and assessing impacts, including potential harms, with a focus on identifying ways to increase effectiveness and minimize harms, and (5) creating accurate estimates of cost-efficiency and a foundation for informing assessment of whether policies should be terminated, continued, or expanded. Opportunities for translational criminology are substantial and hold the potential for advancing science and improving criminal justice policy creation and design, implementation, effectiveness, and cost-efficiency.
In recent years, gun violence has surged in many cities along with increasing demands for effective intervention and prevention. Researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) have been identified as a promising practice to effectively respond to a particular community’s gun violence with appropriately aligned intervention and prevention programs. However, recently, numerous sources have called for RPPs to include the perspectives of those with lived experiences as part of the RPP model, yet inclusion of these voices can present unique challenges for research translation. This case study contributes to the budding understanding of these specific RPPs by documenting the experienced procedures and challenges of a local community-engaged RPP. Specifically, we describe the development of this partnership, the research partner’s activities during the planning phase of this partnership, and, primarily, outline and assess the challenges encountered through the inclusion of community partners and voices during this phase and discuss the impact of these challenges on project progress. Documented challenges included weighing community perceptions of crime versus empirical data, putting the “cart before the horse,” and managing expectations. These challenges contributed to goals, roles, and expectations being misaligned with the focus of the partnership, competing priorities and recommendations for implementation strategies, and resistance to research translation. We conclude with tangible recommendations for the initiation of a community-engaged approach to RPPs, focusing on how to preemptively circumvent or more adeptly navigate these distinctive challenges.
This special edition of the Irish Probation Journal celebrates its excellent track record of publishing open access criminal justice research and building links among researchers, practitioners and policymakers on the island of Ireland. Both probation services have expressed strong commitments to partnership working
and to using research and evidence to inform their practices and decision-making, using the Journal to facilitate these discussions. With this in mind, it is important to consider how we can build on this open, collaborative approach to research, evidence-based policy and practice and publishing into the future.
This article represents the first output from a National Open Research Forum-funded project that aims to embed a culture of interdisciplinary open research in the field of criminal justice. The setting for this project is Ireland. Its authors are among the many research, criminal justice and community-sector professionals who represent their organisations on the new Criminal justice Open Research Dialogue (CORD) Partnership, launched as part of the funded project. The article was developed collaboratively during the CORD Partnership’s first event in Maynooth in January 2024, and then subsequently via an open authorship process through which partners could become named authors. It contextualises the establishment of the CORD Partnership, outlining what we mean by a ‘culture of open research’ and situating our goals in Ireland’s research and criminal justice policy frameworks. The piece then outlines the Partnership’s agreed purposes and principles and provides some opening considerations as to the criminal justice sector’s open-research needs. It concludes by describing the CORD Partnership’s next steps. The views expressed here represent those of the named authors only, not of their organisations, nor of anyone who participates in the CORD Partnership but is not a named author on the article.
This project has received funding from Ireland’s National Open Research Forum (NORF) under the 2023 Open Research Fund. NORF is funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) on behalf of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS).
Over the last two decades, there has been growing momentum behind efforts to produce policy-related research that is both rigorous and theoretically informed. Yet despite broad disciplinary support for translational criminology and its attendant effects on bridging the gap between criminological research and practice, the movement has faced a number of challenges. Some of these have arisen within the discipline itself, including resistance by criminologists who claim that researchers should avoid making policy recommendations due to the causal uncertainty of our scientific knowledge. Others, however, emanate from the applied settings in which efforts to advance translational criminology and evidence-based criminal justice policy are being undertaken. Chief among these is the role of politics. In this article, we begin by tracing the development of criminology, including its focus on causality and more recent embrace of translational efforts. Then, drawing on examples from state and local translational initiatives, we discuss a range of political considerations and impediments, their potential effects on translational efforts, and promising practices for translational criminologists to consider. We conclude by underscoring the importance of establishing a more prominent role for translational criminology and ways in which we, as criminologists, must adapt to achieve this goal.
A longstanding divide between research and policy presents continuing problems for efforts to advance science and to improve public safety. The situation leads to poorly designed and implemented policies, little accountability, and limited effectiveness and cost-efficiency. Ripple effects of the divide include policies that proceed from ideology and guesswork, inadequate infrastructure for creating relevant and accessible data, and research that fails to systematically illuminate criminal justice operations or expand the boundaries of science. The solution? Put research at center stage in criminal justice policy. To do so will require overcoming a lack of awareness among policymakers and administrators about what research is, what it can be, and what is required to generate credible research-based evidence. It also will require integrating researchers into policy development, implementation, and evaluation. Bridging this divide will be essential for scientific progress and advancing policy.
The present study uses a mixed-methods research strategy to examine police practitioner-researcher partnerships. The study has two primary research objectives: (1) examine the prevalence of police practitioner-researcher partnerships in the United States; and (2) examine the factors that prevent or facilitate the development and sustainability of police practitioner-researcher partnerships. The subsequent goals to be accomplished through these objectives are as follows: (1) identify the current level of participation in partnerships with researchers among law enforcement agencies; (2) identify the characteristics of agencies who participate in these partnerships; and (3) gain an understanding of the important lessons learned from practitioners and researchers for forming these partnerships in order to inform future participants in these efforts. The study employs three data-collection strategies to accomplish these objectives and goals. First, a nationally-representative sample of law enforcement agencies was surveyed to capture the prevalence of police practitioner-researcher partnerships and associated information. Second, practitioner and researcher representatives from 89 separate partnerships were interviewed, which were identified through the national survey. The interviews were the primary data-collection effort for gaining insight into the barriers to and facilitators of the development and sustainability of these partnerships, as well as the benefits of partnering . Third, four case studies were conducted on model partnerships that were identified during interviews with practitioners and researchers. While these case studies provide a detailed look at sustainable partnerships, the primary purpose of the case studies is to support a multimedia component of this study. The videos that represent this multimedia component convey important information from one peer to another. This strategy is directed to the practitioner community in order to facilitate dissemination of these important relationships by credible sources.
Sustainable, collaborative partnerships provide a dynamic and fluid environment for studying and implementing policy and practice in justice agencies. However, these relationships take work to develop, grow, maintain, and sustain. Bridging the gap between academics and criminal justice practitioners requires solid partnerships built on access, agreement, goal setting, feedback, and relationship maintenance. When these components merge, both groups benefit from a resilient partnership with the potential for dramatically improving outcomes. A researcher–practitioner partnership is a challenging and complex process requiring careful attention to detail and an endless supply of energy and determination. This paper highlights some of the many successful researcher–practitioner partnerships our research team at the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE!) has with criminal justice agencies. We detail four specific partnerships with federal, state, and county criminal justice organizations spanning from probation and parole to problem-solving courts.
Research Summary
Supermaximum‐security prisons—or “supermaxes”—symbolize the “get tough” criminal justice policies that have developed over the past three decades in the United States and in other countries. Proponents believe that they effectively address critical prison system problems; opponents believe that they do not and that they create substantial harm. This essay examines the available evidence about supermaxes.
Policy Implications
A range of considerations are relevant to determining whether supermaxes constitute effective policy. These include (a) definitional problems in discussing supermax incarceration; (b) five critical dimensions along which evidence for policies is desirable and along which supermaxes fall short, including demonstration of policy need, credible policy theory, high‐quality implementation, impact, and benefits that exceed costs and do so more than other policies; (c) the challenge of assessing causal claims related to supermaxes; (d) legal and ethical issues; (e) policy and political challenges confronting states; (f) policy options other than supermaxes; and (g) research gaps that remain to be addressed. The essay argues that causal uncertainty about supermax incarceration makes it difficult at present to claim credibly that it achieves intended goals. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed.
Consistent with the current models of governance in public sector organizations, there have been an increasing number of advocates within the law enforcement community calling for agencies to participate in partnerships with researchers. Despite this support, little is known about the prevalence of police practitioner–researcher partnerships, nor has there been any examination into which agencies participate in partnerships with researchers or the reasons why agencies do not participate. The present study addresses these gaps in knowledge by reporting on findings from a national survey of law enforcement agencies on research partnership participation. The results reveal nearly one third of responding agencies reported they had participated in a research partnership within the last 5 years. The most common reason provided for not participating in these relationships was a lack of funding resources. Discussion on the future expansion of police practitioner–researcher partnerships in light of these findings is provided
Operation Ceasefire is a problem-oriented policing intervention aimed at reducing youth homicide and youth firearms violence in Boston. It represented an innovative partnership between researchers and practitioners to assess the city's youth homicide problem and implement an intervention designed to have a substantial near-term impact on the problem. Operation Ceasefire was based on the “pulling levers” deterrence strategy that focused criminal justice attention on a small number of chronically offending gang-involved youth responsible for much of Boston's youth homicide problem. Our impact evaluation suggests that the Ceasefire intervention was associated with significant reductions in youth homicide victimization, shots-fired calls for service, and gun assault incidents in Boston. A comparative analysis of youth homicide trends in Boston relative to youth homicide trends in other major U.S. and New England cities also supports a unique program effect associated with the Ceasefire intervention.
The present-day interest in linking police practitioners and researchers in the USA finds its roots in a 40-year old recommendation made by the 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. Specifically, the Commission called for the use of social science to assist law enforcement agencies in their efforts to understand better and address the problems they face in their related communities. This advocacy spawned the rapid growth of empirical research intended to provide support to the law enforcement community. Moreover, these research endeavours found important support in federal grant funding initiatives from the US Department of Justice through the National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance and Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Despite this tremendous effort to link the police practitioner and research communities, there has been little knowledge on whether the resulting empirical knowledge is utilized by the law enforcement community in the USA. The article explores the degree of this utilization through the findings of a national survey of approximately 850 law enforcement agencies in the USA. The survey explored whether law enforcement executives utilize research to inform their decisions on policy development and operations, to what areas of agency operations they have applied this research and the sources they rely upon to find this empirical knowledge. The findings show that reported use of research findings may not necessarily reflect a connection with the empirical work of the research community.
Criminologists bemoan their lack of influence on U.S. crime policy, believing that the justice system would be improved if
their research findings were more central in decision making. I had an opportunity to test that notion as I participated in
California’s historic attempt to reform its prisons over the past 4years. I became an embedded criminologist, where I was able to observe and contribute to the inner workings of state government. This article reports on my accomplishments
with respect to fostering research activities and shifting the department’s focus towards prisoner reintegration. It discusses
some of the lessons I learned, including the personal toll that such work entails, the importance of the timing of policy
initiatives, and the power of rigorous methodology and clear communication. I conclude by recommending that other policy-oriented
criminologists seek out similar experiences, as I believe our academic skills are uniquely suited and ultimately necessary
to create a justice system that does less harm.
Over the past century, criminology has evolved as both an applied and increasingly recognized scientific discipline. Although criminology has experienced a number of ideological shifts in focus, the discipline is now poised to effectively combine both of its purposes, namely the ongoing search for the causes of crime and advancing the use of empirical research in policy and practice decisions. One of the most promising best practices in this simultaneous pursuit is researcher and policymaker/practitioner partnerships. This paper traces the “making a difference” movement in criminology since 2000. It begins with an assessment of the rise of and resistance to the making a difference movement, followed by a discussion of some of the challenges and prospects for criminologists in their efforts to apply research to policy and practice through researcher and policymaker/practitioner partnerships. The paper concludes with discussion of the future potential of researcher and policymaker/practitioner partnerships in successfully confronting our major crime and criminal justice system challenges.
Over the past two decades, criminologists have attempted to better understand the process through which research is used by practitioners and policymakers to identify the conditions that facilitate its policy and practice use. As part of this effort, the current study examines the translational research process and the use of researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) in two state correctional agencies. The methods include interviews with leading national researchers, Florida legislative personnel, and state-level decision makers in adult and juvenile corrections. The findings document barriers, facilitators, and mechanisms involved in the translation process and reveal the effectiveness of RPPs to translate research into policy and practice.
Bringing researchers and practitioners together in partnerships has substantial benefits. Partnerships can inform research questions and provide researchers with data to further their academic dialogues. Collaborative research provides practitioners with a better appreciation for research, and its integration into the provision of service. Published examples of successful partnerships in the criminological field offer insight into navigating the relationship building and maintenance process. The current paper discusses a partnership between researchers and practitioners at a corrections institution. The benefits and challenges to partnerships and recommendations for building and sustaining researcher-practitioner partnerships are discussed.
The translation of knowledge from research to policy and practice is a varied, dynamic, and sequential process in criminal justice. This translational process can often involve competing ideologies, fear, public pressure, media scrutiny, bureaucratic resistance, and other influences. As a result, how and under what specific mechanisms research is acquired, interpreted, and effectively employed by policymakers and criminal justice practitioners remains unclear. The growing mandate for evidence-based policies and practices makes it imperative to identify and understand the specific mechanisms of knowledge translation within criminal justice.
This report provides findings from a case study on translational criminology in Florida. It describes the process of knowledge translation and implementation of research evidence by state-level decision-makers in the fields of juvenile and adult corrections. The case study involved gathering and analyzing data from multiple sources that included: (1) an extensive review and coding of the relevant prior literature on research and public policy in criminal justice, (2) open-ended interviews with key state agency and legislative practitioners and policymakers, (3) interviews with well-established academic researchers in adult and juvenile corrections, (4) close-ended web-based surveys of the participating researchers, policymakers and practitioners, (5) a review of relevant legislative and state agency documents, and (6) observations of archived legislative public hearings and committee meetings.
Findings suggest that government sponsored or conducted research, peer networking, and evidence provided by intermediary policy and research organizations were more frequently accessed ways of transferring research knowledge than academic peer-reviewed publications and expert testimony. In addition, this study found that the process and model most often associated with successful research knowledge translation in corrections was the interaction model. We found that successful research knowledge translation in corrections is more likely to occur when researchers and practitioners regularly interact. The study also yielded policy implications; among them was that academics could do more to reach out and work with policymakers and practitioners.
Purpose
The study of racial disparity in the formal application of punishment (i.e., criminal sentencing) is widely recognized as an important area of research. Hundreds of studies have weighed in to determine whether race influences sentence outcomes (e.g., imprisonment and sentence length) and the current work attempts to summarize key aspects of this expansive literature.
Methods
The present assessment relies on 1) prior reviews of the race/sentencing literature and 2) the latest research published since the year 2010 to answer a series of important questions about the race/sentencing relationship.
Results
The preponderance of evidence indicates that race and ethnicity often play a small to moderate role in key sentence outcomes. Relative to white offenders, those who are African American, Latina/o, and Native American often receive harsher sentences, while those who are Asian often receive similar or more lenient sentences. These findings, however, are not universal and tend to be context specific.
Conclusion
The process of criminal sentencing strives for race neutrality but does not always achieve this goal.
Recent calls for police to focus more on integrating research into practice require paying closer attention to how receptive frontline practitioners are to using research. Officers in four U.S. municipal agencies (n = 992) were surveyed to assess their exposure to research, knowledge about the evidence base, view of science, and willingness to evaluate interventions. Multivariate results show that officer awareness of evidence-based policing and willingness to work with researchers are influenced by education and prior research exposure. These factors strongly predict more specific indicators of receptivity. Results also suggest substantial variation in attitudes across agencies, emphasizing the importance of organizational context. The most receptive officers in our sample vary significantly from all others on multiple experience variables.
At no time in history, and certainly in no other democratic society, have prisons been filled so quickly and to such capacity than in the United States. And nowhere has this growth been more concentrated than in the disadvantaged-and primarily minority-neighborhoods of America's largest urban cities. In the most impoverished places, as much as 20% of the adult men are locked up on any given day, and there is hardly a family without a father, son, brother, or uncle who has not been behind bars. While the effects of going to and returning home from prison are well-documented, little attention has been paid to the impact of removal on neighborhoods where large numbers of individuals have been imprisoned. In the first detailed, empirical exploration of the effects of mass incarceration on poor places, this book demonstrates that in high doses incarceration contributes to the very social problems it is intended to solve-it breaks up family and social networks; deprives siblings, spouses, and parents of emotional and financial support; threatens the economic and political infrastructure of already struggling neighborhoods; and destabilizes the community, thus further reducing public safety. Especially at risk are children who, research shows, are more likely to commit a crime if a father or brother has been to prison. Demonstrating that the current incarceration policy in urban America does more harm than good, from increasing crime to widening racial disparities and diminished life chances for youths, the book argues that we cannot overcome the problem of mass incarceration concentrated in poor places without incorporating an idea of community justice into our failing correctional and criminal justice systems.
This paper describes the genesis, development, unanticipated complications, and short- and long-term value of a researcher–practitioner partnership between the Florida Department of Corrections and the Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Collaborations between criminal justice agencies and researchers are infrequent and, we argue, should be encouraged as a means to generate quality policy-relevant research and engender mutually beneficial relationships between researchers and practitioners. This results from the reality that practitioner agencies have a strong desire and need for quality empirical research to inform their policies and practices, have in-depth knowledge of their programs, and massive amounts of data. However, agencies are not funded adequately to devote dedicated resources to complex and time-consuming research. In contrast, non-practitioners such as universities have the expertise and ability to devote considerable dedicated time to conducting comprehensive research important to agencies and policy-makers with the benefit of independence from the agenda of an agency. We use our own experiences forming and maintaining a successful partnership through a grant by the National Institute of Justice to inform future partnerships of the many benefits of such collaborations as well as some potential obstacles that were encountered along the way.
Funding agencies now generally require that projects include an evaluation component as part of their grant proposals, but there are no clear guidelines to help researchers and practitioners work together once funding is awarded. The authors of this article have experience working together as the evaluators and program manager on a recently completed four-year demonstration project designed to provide multiagency services to youth on probation in South Oxnard, California. We believe that our experiences can help other researchers and practitioners to understand practical and philosophical components of collaboration. We first discuss our differing perspectives on key issues and resulting tensions that arose. Next, we discuss strategies that we used to create a good working relationship, as well as the benefits that we gained from this partnership.
This chapter explores the history of social science knowledge utilization in America. Four main functions that social science serves for government officials are discussed. The chapter suggests characteristics for making research more useful for decision makers.
Policy-oriented research often has little immediate impact upon decisions. Part of the reason lies in the diffuse character of policy making in which the moves of actors in many offices accrete over time into what later is stamped as policy. Research often has significant effects by informing the negotiations and altering the agenda.
Drawing on our experiences as researchers and community-based providers, this paper outlines several key components of successful practice/research collaboration: forming equal partnerships, bilateral communication, ensuring nonhierarchical collaborations, and appropriate dissemination of outcomes. Many concrete benefits can result from collaborative research projects, including additional services, program development, and training for service agency staff. Building partnerships takes time and a good amount of planning and negotiation prior to writing proposals. However, these collaborations can result in more effective efforts to solve common problems and reach common goals.
Many respondents to opinion surveys say that the citizen's race influences how police officers treat the public, yet recent expert social-science panels have declared that research findings are too contradictory to form a conclusion on whether American police are biased against racial minorities. We perform a meta-analysis of quantitative research that estimates the effect of race on the police decision to arrest. Screening nearly 4,500 potential sources, we analyze the results based on 27 independent data sets that generated 40 research reports (both published and unpublished) that permitted an estimate of the effect size of the suspect's race on the probability of arrest. The meta-analysis shows with strong consistency that minority suspects are more likely to be arrested than White suspects. Depending on the method of estimation, the effect size of race varied between 1.32 and 1.52. Converting the race effect size to probabilities shows that compared with the average probability in these studies of a White being arrested (.20), the average probability for a non-White was calculated at .26. The significant race effect persists when taking into account the studies’ variations in research methods and the nature of explanatory models used in the studies. Implications for future research are presented.
Three decades ago, it was widely believed by criminologists and policymakers that “nothing works” to reform offenders and that “rehabilitation is dead” as a guiding correctional philosophy. By contrast, today there is a vibrant movement to reaffirm rehabilitation and to implement programs based on the principles of effective intervention. How did this happen? I contend that the saving of rehabilitation was a contingent reality that emerged due to the efforts of a small group of loosely coupled research criminologists. These scholars rejected the “nothing works” professional ideology and instead used rigorous science to show that popular punitive interventions were ineffective, that offenders were not beyond redemption, and that treatment programs rooted in criminological knowledge were capable of meaningfully reducing recidivism. Their story is a reminder that, under certain conditions, the science of criminology is capable of making an important difference in the correctional enterprise, if not far beyond.
The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.
We examine here some of the interactions of research and policy over the past several decades. The “rehabilitation period”
was effectively terminated by nulleffect evaluations of various rehabilitation techniques. The “just deserts-utilitarian period”
was fed by research estimates of the deterrent and incapacitative effects of criminal justice activities. The more recent
“overt politicization period” saw the earlier attempt to bring rational and theory-based perspectives to policy development
replaced by much stronger emphasis on political concerns. We explore possible ways to reestablish the research-policy connections.