Book Review: American Criminal Justice Policy: An Evaluation Approach to Increasing Accountability and Effectiveness

• Author: Michelle Kilburn
• DOI: 10.1177/0887403412472052
• Date: 01 May 2014
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

400 Criminal Justice Policy Review 25(3)

Mears, D. P. American Criminal Justice Policy: An Evaluation Approach to Increasing Accountability

and Effectiveness. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 321 pp. $36.99

(paperback).

Reviewed by: Michelle Kilburn, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau,

MO, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0887403412472052

The field of criminal justice is saturated with policies, procedures, and programs. Case

law, criminal law, statutory law, administrative law, procedures manuals, departmen-

tal policies, deterrence-focused initiatives, and rehabilitation programs are but a very

few of the many policies and programs that can quickly come to one’s mind. Initiatives

that impact various aspects of law enforcement, courts, and corrections are developed

and implemented by a wide variety of constituents (e.g., politicians, judges, bureau-

crats, experts in various fields of research/education, community activists, religious

leaders, etc.). The need for developing policies, procedures, and programs to address

the codification of criminal behavior, the administration of justice, and the acknowl-

edgement of the multifaceted purpose and goals of corrections, is grounded in the

framework of our criminal justice system.

In American Criminal Justice Policy: An Evaluation Approach to Increasing

Accountability and Effectiveness, Daniel Mears asserts that where policy and program

administrators fall short is providing evidence of accountability and effectiveness.

Developing and implementing policies, procedures, and programs is commonplace.

Assessment and accountability, however, are often neglected or completely ignored.

When a policy goes too long without assessment or evaluation, it can lose account-

ability, efficiency, or even veer from its original, primary goal. Lack of assessment and

evaluation may also stem from policy maker’s own expectations, assumptions, and

biases (which can sometimes be conflicting with the actual outcome of the policy,

program or procedure; Philipe, 2003). Mears purports that the public and policy mak-

ers expect evidence of accountability and effectiveness. Criminal Justice administra-

tors need to focus more on communicating the need for, and success of, their programs

to the public. A major goal of the book is to “make the argument that, in fact, many of

our most prominent criminal justice policies lack a solid, evidence-based foundation.

. . . Evaluation research should be much more and better integrated into criminal jus-

tice policy making and practice” (p. 4).

In this text, Mears does not go into specific detail regarding how to actually conduct

evaluation research (i.e., question formulation, methodology, results presentation).

The purpose of the text is to apply evaluation research approaches to criminal justice

policies. Performance monitoring versus evaluation research is also addressed.

“Performance monitoring involves the ongoing analysis of process and outcome indi-

cators. It does not establish the effectiveness of policies, or various services and activi-

ties, in achieving particular outcomes. Rather, it simply documents trends over time”