An Introduction to Criminal Justice Inquiry

Lesson Overview

For over a century, law-abiding American citizens have repeatedly made the statement that "something needs to be done about crime." To this end, law enforcement, corrections, and a multitude of other agencies and groups have attempted strategies aimed at preventing crime, punishing criminals, rehabilitating offenders, and ameliorating social problems. Some of these strategies (e.g., problem-focused policing, diversion of offenders) have been successful and show promise for the future; others (such as juvenile "bootcamps") were perhaps well-intentioned, but never met their stated goals after implementation.

So how do we know "what works" and "what doesn't?" The only means to effectively gather valid and reliable knowledge about criminal behavior and methods of justice is to utilize techniques of scientific inquiry. The history of criminal justice is littered with programs and initiatives that were put into place on the basis of educated guessing, without empirical backing. The purpose of this lesson, therefore, is to give you a basic picture of the characteristics of scientific inquiry and the purposes of criminal justice inquiry so that you can consider and devise a much more economical strategy, i.e. test new ideas on a smaller scale before investing huge sums of money and time on a program destined to fail.

Lesson Objectives

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Differentiate between lay and scientific inquiry;
• Differentiate between the two general foundations of knowledge;
• Recognize the most common errors in everyday observation;
• Outline the major purposes of empirical research projects.

How do we know what we know?

The acquisition of knowledge is a curious idea -- we all have accumulated a great amount of it in our lifetime on a slew of topics. But very few people take the time to consider where their knowledge came from. There are the obvious answers of course: experience, parents, teachers, senior co-workers, etc., but aside from the source, we don't normally think about the soundness of our acquired knowledge. Just because someone tells us something, is it good information? How did they come by it? Should one file it into their own knowledge database? The answers to these questions are not simple, but we must begin by taking a critical look at our own knowledge bases, and how we acquired this knowledge. As we'll see when taking a closer look at native human inquiry, frequently the key to collecting sound information is to change how we observe the social world around us.

Scientific Method in Criminal Justice

One of the goals of this course is to detail one technique of acquiring knowledge in the areas of criminal justice/criminology: the scientific method. Our young field has a kind of uneasy history with utilizing scientific information. For years things were done, for example, in policing because they seemed to make common sense. Policing is one area where science refuted conventional wisdom and led to changes in practice.

Take the Kansas City Preventive Patrol Experiment as an example. Prior to this study, urban police departments almost exclusively used random patrol as their primary crime prevention strategy. It had been the primary strategy for years (tradition) and certainly made sense to those working in law enforcement (authority). But when tested empirically, random motorized patrol was no more effective than a police presence initiated by citizen calls for service.

Every field of study has of course been revolutionized to some degree by science (new methods, discoveries, technological advances), but our field is unique in that these changes are taking place before our eyes in a relatively short period of time. We are less encumbered by history in criminal justice, making the field more wide-open for scientific advancement. Not to say that science hasn't met resistance (science, after all, tends to bring change with it), but the potential for obtaining more valid information through science in criminal justice has just begun to be realized. On that note let's now look at the ways knowledge comes to us.

Realities

The term epistemology is used as a general label for "the science of knowing things or finding things out." But we must first acknowledge that the vast majority of what we know hasn't been "scientifically produced" at all. Much of what we know we have accepted from other sources with a modicum of supporting evidence to verify that knowledge as fact. In a general sense, all acquired knowledge can be broadly grouped into two realities:

1. Experiential Reality -- That which we learn through direct experience or using scientific methods.


2. Agreement Reality -- Knowledge taken from secondary sources. These secondary sources are either based in:
   1. tradition, or
   2. authority

Experiential Reality

Without doubt the most effective learning experiences are those one obtains first hand. Knowledge is absorbed more quickly and retained longer when an individual "learns by doing." Competency, therefore, is achieved through repeated and continual exposure and practice. For example, children will best learn how to hit a baseball by repeatedly swinging at a ball pitched their way. The child can certainly glean useful information by reading about the art of hitting a baseball or by watching professional baseball players bat, but mastery comes only from physically practicing the act of batting.

Agreement Reality

But as you can imagine, one would have to be learning-and-doing on an almost continuous basis for their knowledge base to be primarily experience-based. So we must rely, by default, on agreement reality. Many of our first learning experiences are authority based, coming from our parents. And as we mature, we certainly gain much valuable knowledge through our direct experiences, but we are still primarily educated from outside sources. It is impossible, of course, to classify either type of knowledge as inherently "good" or "bad," in fact, much of what we learn, regardless of source, has a positive impact on our lives. But as you probably know, secondary information has the potential to be erroneous. We all heard the saying "consider the source," but in most instances we fail to do so and simply file tidbits of information in our brains with little concern as to its veracity.

Such is the case with "tradition" and "authority." Agreement reality based on tradition incorporates ideas like customs, norms and values, mores, etc. It is knowledge that we have because it has "always been that way." Authority is information told to you by someone deemed to be knowledgeable about the particular subject at hand. This is the point at which erroneous information tends to blend with valid information. While we obtain a great deal of information from these authorities, this is also where stereotypes, misinterpretations, and just plain falsehoods appear as well. If someone believes a piece of information to be "true," even if it isn't, it becomes ingrained in one's behavior. Take for example the concept fear of crime. Some people, especially the elderly, have been "informed" through the media or acquaintances that they are prime targets for violent crime. Because of this, they are fearful of being outside their homes alone, and thus don't go outside as much as others. This in turn can lead to neighborhood decay along with a host of other problems, and all because someone believed something erroneous from what they thought was an authority source.

Use of Empirical Research

While it is not blatantly harmful to collect some erroneous information in an individua's everyday life, it can be a major problem if we base policy or strategy on false information. Thus, we try to base important decisions on experience. And experience incorporates empirical research, that is, information based on observations using scientific evidence. In other words, if we want to really know the extent of serious crime in a community, we collect information about it in a logical scientific fashion.

This use of empirical research is sometimes very enlightening and can lead to significant changes being made in standard operating procedures, as happened in policing after the Kansas City Experiment previously discussed. However, accumulating knowledge via scientific examination is typically a time-consuming process, where initial results must be repeatedly tested to ensure validity. Ignoring this rule of science can have unintended (or even harmful) results, as was the case when policymakers used results from the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment as the sole basis for reforming arrest procedures for domestic violence incidents in many U.S. states. Later tests of the findings from the Minneapolis study demonstrated that the original findings could not be universally applied. Thus, we see how experiential reality can demonstrate how even popularly held ideas may be invalid.

Perhaps the most important aspect of empirical research is the use of a scientific model. We will be looking at the Traditional Model of Science. One of its main purposes is to help alleviate the common errors humans make in acquiring and evaluating information in general. What follows is a listing and brief discussion of eight of the most commons errors in native human inquiry. If information is gathered in a manner that helps to eliminate these common errors (namely through the scientific method), then that information already has more validity than information which has not been tested in this way.

Common Errors in Native Human Inquiry

The difference in quality of information gleaned from experiential reality versus agreement reality can readily be seen in the criminal justice system. The testimony of eyewitnesses to criminal events in court is viewed as the most compelling evidence available. In the absence of eyewitness (experiential) reality, agreement reality is settled for, however this information is not viewed in the same way. This circumstantial evidence can illustrate, for example, the capability of someone to have done a crime, or can put an individual in the same time and space as a victim, but it cannot be seen as convincing unless witnesses can document what they've seen from a firsthand basis. Information from a secondary source must always be viewed with caution. However, even firsthand information can be questionable if the safeguards used by science are omitted. The safeguards used be science go a long way toward eliminating the following common errors in everyday human inquiry.

To Sum Up

The above examples of common errors in everyday inquiry are the first hurdle in social scientific inquiry. We can go a long way in eliminating these common errors simply by observing more carefully, in a conscious manner. But as we've seen, a person cannot always be observing in this way, so knowing when to be a careful, conscious observer is key. What makes it easier is using the scientific method as a guide; the scientific method assures more careful observations and frames research in a way as to maximize the validity of results.

The Purpose of Research

If someone were asked why he or she was undertaking a social research project, the obvious answer would be: "to find something out" or "to answer a question." But in a larger sense, the purpose(s) behind any research project is guided by the topic of inquiry itself -- a research project can only be as specific as the research which came before allows. For example, before knowledge can be refined about a given topic it needs to be explored and described. As such, the traditional model of science depends upon a systematic building of knowledge and re-evaluation of ideas before results can be inferred with a great degree of confidence. Therefore, any one research project takes on a general purpose, or framework. These are outlined below and it is important to understand that these general research purposes are NOT mutually exclusive, meaning that a project may in fact have more than one purpose set forth in proposal form.

[Notes: The following is a flash movie. Please click here for a text file.]

We will be looking in much greater depth at two of the research purposes, i.e. explanation and application, later in the semester, but suffice it to say that the past 25 years have seen much greater cooperation between the research and the practitioner communities, so 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 , 50 years ago.

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.

To Read

• Read Chapter 1 "Crime, Criminal Justice, and Scientific Inquiry"

To Discuss

• Participate in the Lesson 1 Common Errors discussion forum. Share those common errors in your everyday observations.

[Notes: You can also access the Lesson 1 Common Errors discussion forum by in the Week 1 folder under the Lessons tab.]

To Apply

• Read an article on prison education, "How Schools in Prisons Help Inmates and Society," and define its purpose. Submit it to the Lesson 1 Research Purposes drop box.

[Notes: You can also access the Lesson 1 Research Purposes drop box in the Week 1 folder under the Lessons tab.]

To Prepare for Your Research

• Please go over the paper requirements, and start to think about a topic.