American Criminal Justice Policy
American Criminal Justice Policy
American Criminal Justice Policy examines many of the most prominent criminal justice policies on the American landscape and finds that they fall well short of achieving the accountability and effectiveness that policymakers have advocated and that the public expects. The policies include mass incarceration, sex offender laws, supermax prisons, faith-based prisoner reentry programs, transfer of juveniles to adult court, domestic violence mandatory arrest laws, drug courts, gun laws, community policing, private prisons, and others. Optimistically, Daniel P. Mears argues that this situation can be changed through systematic incorporation of evaluation research into policy development, monitoring, and assessment. To this end, the book provides a clear and accessible discussion of five types of evaluation - needs, theory, implementation or process, outcome and impact, and cost-efficiency. It identifies how these can be used both to hold the criminal justice system accountable and to increase the effectiveness of crime control and crime prevention efforts.
- Provides a critical assessment of a wide range of prominent criminal justice policies
- Provides an accessible description of evaluation research and how it can contribute to accountable and effective criminal justice policy
- Identifies specific strategies that can be taken to increase and improve the use of research to create more accountable and effective criminal justice policies
Product details
June 2010Paperback
9780521746236
334 pages
234 × 156 × 19 mm
0.48kg
17 b/w illus. 8 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Irrational criminal justice policy
- 3. A solution for improving criminal justice policy: evaluation research
- 4. Needs evaluations
- 5. Theory evaluations
- 6. Implementation evaluations
- 7. Outcome evaluations and impact evaluations
- 8. Cost-efficiency evaluations
- 9. Conclusion.
