Linking Evidence and Criminal Justice Policy

AuthorAlfred Blumstein
Date01 November 2013
Published date01 November 2013
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12040
AFTERWORD
CRIMINOLOGY, CAUSALITY, AND
PUBLIC POLICY
Linking Evidence and Criminal Justice
Policy
Alfred Blumstein
Carnegie Mellon University
Introduction
We have seen widespread acceptance of the concept of “evidence-based policy,”
even in the U.S. Department of Justice, with strong reinforcement by the U.S.
Office of Management and Budget (2012). Thus, it is most appropriate for
Criminology and Public Policy (CPP) to have organized this special issue with initiative from
and a lead paper by outgoing editor, Tom Blomberg. We have also seen careful analysis by
Sampson, Winship, and Knight (2013, this issue) of the many possible subtle interpretations
of the simple phrase “X causes Y” and the many ways in which its simplest demonstration
could be misleading and the necessity for attention to dealing with the more complex
aspects. Then we have seen three papers examining carefully the evidence in three very
different domains, both substantively and in terms of the methods of proving the causal
links:
rCrime prevention with a focus on various forms of early-age home visitation (Fagan,
2013, this issue) where there has been a considerable amount of careful research consis-
tently showing not only a clear effect, but a cost-beneficial effect, but only with limited
implementation, at least in part because expenditures in those areas would lead to results
on “someone else’s watch,” thus highlighting the complexity inherent in policy decision
making
rSupermax prisons (Mears, 2013, this issue), where there is an inherent tension between
some presumptions of greater effectiveness in prison control and the concern over psy-
chological damage to the individuals assigned to such forms of solitary confinement, but
there has been very little strong research addressing either of these issues, although a
Direct correspondence to Alfred Blumstein, Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue,
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (e-mail: ab0q@andrew.cmu.edu).
DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12040 C2013 American Society of Criminology 721
Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 12 rIssue 4

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