Informing Public Policy - Essay Example

INFORMING PUBLIC POLICY Introduction Criminal justice policy is not always grounded on scientific knowledge. Many biases and prejudices could implicitly and explicitly be present in the legal system. Informing public policy would be helpful for not only making it efficient but also legitimate. However, there is no readily acceptable model for informing public policy. An acceptable model of informing public policy must seek to combine research with advocacy, draw concrete policy formulations from the research and enhancing continuous and collective research and making of integrated criminal justice policy. Advocacy is the key to breaching the distance between criminal justice policy and policy-research and information. Effective popular control of criminal justice policy in a democratic manner would not be possible without substantial dissemination of relevant policy information and research data. Combining Research with Advocacy The importance of quantitative research in making criminal justice policy is crucial. However, qualitative research too has a significant role in keeping the criminal justice policy just and fair. There needs to be an adequate policy mechanism to develop both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of research. The theory and practice of criminal justice should be combined in order to breach the gap between policy research and criminal justice policy. The fact is that most of the actual criminal justice policy is seldom influenced by scholarly research, even if there is ample of relevant information and data. It means that criminologists must go to the world with their ideas in order to bring about actual changes in the making and application of criminal justice policy. At present, there is no way to disseminate the policy-relevant research in a user-friendly manner. Policy relevant research must not be done in a vacuum, it needs to be linked to the goal of meaningful policy changes with regard to crime and justice. Peer-review is something that is to ensure the credibility and integrity of original research, not to prevent the research from being detached from the social reality. Other than producing academic materials on criminal justice policy, scholars could engage in identifying the policy implications of their empirical research and its wide reaching discussion. Social networking among the criminologists and, between them and other relevant officeholders is necessary to disseminate the knowledge they gather to the wider society. What is being researched needs to be circumvented with its ‘obvious’ policy-relevance. The timing of the publication of research materials is also an important matter. Academic papers are not always published in accordance with the necessities of time due to the existing gap between policy and research. The problem is that both are practiced without looking at the dialectical relationship between them. In brief, academic publishing itself can be a form of concrete activism that aims real changes in the realm of criminal justice policy making. Certainly, criminological research is conducted in particular social setting so that it needs to be socially relevant and correspond to the needs of the society. Therefore, the dissemination strategy becomes pivotal, otherwise criminological research would be a vein exercise. The elimination of bureaucratic phases of publication such as revision and submission could be helpful in raising the relevance of study for the simple reason that it would be published on time. Not only we need policy journals to enhance the policy level of the society, but also different type of publishing norms. Media campaign too is integral to increasing the relevance of criminology as it ensures through and through dissemination of the research insights. It is necessary to encourage research ventures that have direct and obvious policy implications. Soliciting reaction essays has been proven to be an effective method in fully exploring the policy implications of scholars’ theoretical engagements. A policy relevant academic material cannot be validated unless it is empirically-based. Journals which publish such materials of high quality could only help to overcome the dichotomy between criminological research findings and criminal justice policy. Strictly speaking, the objective of policy research is to move the policy debates along. Here exactly comes the notion of policy advocacy through the medium of active policy research in contrast to passive research that is detached from actual policymaking process. One another matter of concern is the indefinite nature of criminological research finding that resist immediate approval or rejection. Criminological studies are rarely independent but constructed step by step from preceding studies. Drawing Concrete Policy Formulations from Research Findings Criminological research findings in themselves are not useful. It is important to correctly draw policy formulations from the gained wisdom on any topic. Academic scholarship often tend to be scattered and non-linear. Therefore, no research finding would immediately be malleable for policy formulation. Research findings are always abstract in nature while policy formulations are concrete in their immediate usefulness in the real world. The practice of drawing criminal justice policy formulations from criminological research would not be possible unless criminologists actively intervene in the arenas of policymaking. In other words, it is necessary for them to leave the comforts of academic world and address the outside world as it is in order to bring about the desired changes. There needs to be constant and continuous debates between criminologists and policy makers. The strength of criminologists’ resolve would be depended upon their ability handle the media for the dissemination of relevant policy literature. For realizing the task of drawing policy formulations from criminological research findings, it is necessary to reorient the policy research towards the policy implications. Theoretical undertakings that incorporate policy implication should be easy to disseminate through the media as media is interested in what is interested to the reader than what is academically strict or pure. Media has effective role in shaping the public discourse. Public discourse often leads to policy debates and thereby, policy formulations or modifications. Therefore, criminologists would directly link their research with the burning issues of the day and seek their share media. The very nature of research must be modified in order to make it malleable for policy drawing. The research must be undertaken and conducted without loosing the sight on its policy applications. Networks of pressure groups and interest groups must be established which could generate the environment for the policy debates on matters that remain unnoticed. Once intense policy debates sprout on a criminal justice concern, the criminologists could come up with their research findings and draw effective policy from them along with scholars from other areas and eminent personalities from different sectors. Since criminologists are part of the intelligentsia and ideologically less oriented than the politicians and criminal justice officers, they could play a vital role in exploring the causality of crime, i.e. the social conditions in which crimes take place. When criminology becomes more attached to criminal justice praxis and embedded in the real life settings, it would be easy to make it more relevant in terms of concrete policy formulations. It is necessary to have a paradigm shift in the world view of criminologists to make them think of a type of criminology which accepts the nuisance of the real world than the ‘purity’ or ‘cleanliness’ of the confined academic world. In brief, criminology must be reincarnated as a ‘social science of policy’. Criminology must be able to put forward necessary policy suggestions which are short, immediate, specific and concrete. It necessitates criminology to be definitive in its research orientation. Making of definite police propositions through definitive criminological research would lead to extending criminal justice and make the criminal justice system more fair and just. Collective research too is important in making criminology a social science of policy. Independent researches in criminology would often be insufficient for the purpose of drawing concrete policy as it is fragmented and does not address the issue involved as whole. Criminological research findings are in general not focused on special issues. Collective research is tool to address both of these issues since it could help to examine an issue in its totality. Collective research also helps to shed light on all the aspects of the issue under consideration. Moreover, collective research encourages the convergence of contesting viewpoints and the building uniform policy proposals and prevents the diversion of the intellectual capacities of criminologists to unrelated topics. Continuous research is necessary not only for making new policy recommendations but also proposals for policy modifications. No criminal justice has ever been founded without drawbacks and shortcomings. Unless criminology undertakes the task of continuous research, the possibility of criminal justice reforms would be fully under the control of politicians and bureaucrats. Continuous research is a social necessity whatsoever the topic. Continuous research ensures legal and rational control over the criminal justice reforms and keeps the vested interests out. Making of Integrated Criminal Justice Policy An integrated criminal justice policy could only be created through a multidisciplinary criminological praxis. The quality of public debates over criminal issues has a determining role in the perception of criminality, legality and punishment by the public. Furthermore, in modern social democracies, the electorates needs to be informed since they have decisive powers in many counts in determining the criminal justice policy content. Criminologists have the moral responsibility to ensure that the voters will not be misled by false propaganda or half truths. Criminologists can certainly influence the quality of information on which the general public has to inevitably rely upon for formulating their opinion. An integrated criminal justice policy must sought the co-operation from and between the government, media and, criminologists and other researchers. There are a number of prejudices and false beliefs which could significantly affect the criminal justice policy. For instance, Lacey (2001) argues that “[t]he development of a criminal justice policy which is genuinely integrated with broader social policies presents, however, a complex challenge to any government whose electorate not only cares deeply about crime but has been encouraged to think that it can be solved by punishment”. At this juncture, informing public policy by criminologists and researchers would be an act of curtailing the activities of forces that try to consolidate their benefits through the misrepresentation of crime or illegitimately challenging the criminal process. An integrative framework of crime and its wider social context could be established through extensive criminal justice policy research which is attached with and embedded in the prevailing social reality. An integrated criminal justice policy would consider many factors such as economic, cultural and political ones while designing criminal justice policy. Conclusion Informing public policy is a complex activity which necessitates systematic and practical approaches in an equilibrium in order to bring the desired results. Informing public policy pertinent to criminal justice policy is task of criminologists and researchers who are attached to criminal justice reforms. Through writing and propaganda based on criminological research findings, they try to influence the the process of criminal justice reforms. It means that they combine research with advocacy. The new role of criminologists that is not confined to the academic world enables them to make definite policy proposals drawn from criminological research findings. Finally, the making of an integrated criminal justice policy is the need of the day there are multidisciplinary researches and the increasing causal complexity of events. REFERENCE Clear, T., & Frost, N.(2007). Informing Public Policy. Criminology & Public Policy, 6, 4, 633-640. Lacey, N. (2001). Social Policy, Civil Society, and the Institutions of Criminal Justice [online]. London. LSE Research Online. Availble at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/archive/00000164 accessed on- 20th Nov 2008. Read More