Research With Considerations of Use

• Author: C. Ronald Huff
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12171
• Date: 01 February 2016
• Published date: 01 February 2016

VOLLMER AWARD ADDRESS

VOLLMER AWARD

Research With Considerations of Use

Problem-Driven Research and Attempts to Improve Public

Policy and Practice

C. Ronald Hu

University of California, Irvine

The Ohio State University

The August Vollmer Award Address is intended to focus on contributions to justice

and the recipient’s research and policy experiences. This is a story of one person’s

career focusing mainly on research with “considerations of use.” After receiving a

formal education in psychology, social work, and sociology, as well as experience as a

practitioner, the author’s academic career has primarily focused on the link between

research and criminal justice policy and practice. This is the story of that journey and

how it was aided by events that could not have been foreseen.

As a long-time admirer of the Vollmer Award and what it represents, it is a special

honor to receive it. The award is accompanied by an invitation to contribute

this article focusing on my contributions to justice and my research and policy

experiences. Writing an article focused on one’s own contributions is a unique experience,

and it certainly results in a very different list of references! The researchthat I have undertaken

during my academic career has largely been problem driven and designed to address some

major public policy challenges confronting our criminal justice system. I prefer to think

of this as “research with considerations of use,” an elegant term I borrowed from a friend,

the late Donald E. Stokes, former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and

International Affairs at Princeton University. In his influential book, Pasteur’s Quadrant

(1997), he compared and contrasted pure basic research, pure applied research, and use-

inspired basic research, which he defined as follows:

Direct correspondence to C. Ronald Huff, Department of Criminology, Law and Society, University of

California, Irvine, 2340 Social Ecology II, Irvine, CA 92697-7080 (e-mail: rhuff@uci.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12171 C2015 American Society of Criminology 5

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 1