Criminal Justice Research

Given the current state of affairs in criminal justice research, we can divide applied research projects into two general categories:

1. Program Evaluation -- looking at the outcomes or results of a given program, policy or strategy and determining if specified goals are being met.

2. Policy Analysis -- trying to ascertain what policy or strategy will produce the best outcome if put into practice. Sometimes called a series of "what if" statements.

Mangan Clouser's article "Intensive Probation: An Alternative to Replacement" discussed an intensive probation program from both of the perspectives of program evaluation and policy analysis. It is a good example of how an applied research project addresses its purposes.

We will be looking in much greater depth at the above two ideas later in the semester, but suffice it to say that the latter part of the 20th century has seen much greater cooperation between the research and the practitioner communities. This means that the strategies put into place have some empirical backing and are scientifically evaluated after they are in place. And this is something that was very rare, if not unheard of, prior to the 1950s.

To Sum Up

The purposes for research point out how the scientific model and replication work to refocus research projects based on the current state of the knowledge into a given topic. Techniques and results become more refined with the more knowledge that is accumulated, and of course, knowledge is a keystone of science. As stated at the beginning of this lesson, the four purposes outlined above are not mutually exclusive -- an evaluation study can be exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, and applied simultaneously. Having a defined purpose going in serves as the framework for how the project will be designed and undertaken.