In recent years, a variety of novel digital data sources, colloquially referred to as “big data,” have taken the popular imagination by storm. These data sources include, but are not limited to, digitized administrative records, activity on and contents of social media and internet platforms, and readings from sensors that track physical and environmental conditions. Some have argued that such data sets have the potential to transform our understanding of human behavior and society, constituting a meta-field known as computational social science. Criminology and criminal justice are no exception to this excitement. Although researchers in these areas have long used administrative records, in recent years they have increasingly looked to the most recent versions of these data, as well as other novel resources, to pursue new questions and tools.
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Big Data and the Study of Communities and Crime
Daniel T. O'Brien
Article
Calculating Crime Rates
Rémi Boivin
Dividing the number of crimes in an area at a given time by the population of the same area at the same time has become the standard way to present the criminal phenomenon. Such a crime rate is obviously an appealing indicator: it is easy to calculate and based on readily available data. Consequently, crime rates allow much-wanted comparisons. However, there is growing empirical evidence that these advantages are accompanied by inaccuracies.
There are two main strategies used to control for population (size) when studying crime and three pillars of crime rates: that the level of crime activity is well measured, that the relationship of population to crime is both obvious and trivial, and that residential population size is sufficient to account for the impact of demographics on crime. Presenting crime rates rarely involve in-depth discussions of the dark figure of crime, “ambient” populations or the impact of demography on crime, even if those questions are implied.
Article
Covert Ethnography in Criminal Justice and Criminology: The Controversial Tradition of Doing Undercover Fieldwork
David Calvey
The role and value of covert ethnography in the fields of criminal justice and criminology, a controversial and somewhat marginalized tradition due to its association with deception. It is a transgressive approach with ethical baggage that runs counter to the received wisdom on informed consent. Despite this, it is a creative and innovative approach which can yield rich types of insider data and lived experience leading to nuanced analyses and understanding of crime and deviance in society. There is a classic fear and fascination with covert research. It is a methodological pariah, which has been routinely demonized, particularly in the current climate of ethical regimentation. It is typically associated with harm and risk to both the researched and the researched. The covert researcher has been seen as a belligerent figure in the criminological landscape, which marginalizes its worth.
My exploration and unpacking of this controversial tradition shall be undertaken in several ways: Firstly, by outlining the controversy surrounding deception, which covert ethnography is squarely associated with. This association is partly related to how the understanding of covert observation is deeply embedded in popular culture. Secondly, by exploring the rich diversity of covert ethnography in criminology and criminal justice, both classic and contemporary. Part of the logic here is to rehabilitate and celebrate the sociological aspects of criminology and criminal justice, partly by examining some heartland topics in the field as well as studying deviance across different settings and subcultures. Thirdly, by drawing on some of my own field experiences from a covert study of bouncers in the night-time economy of Manchester, which I compare to others in the field. Fourthly, by offering some brief reflections on the future directions of covert ethnography via a discussion of the revival in covert research. Lastly, by providing some concluding sentiments on covert ethnography.
Article
The Death Penalty in the 21st Century
Daniel LaChance
The dawn of the 21st century marked a turning point in the history of the American death penalty. Politically, the death penalty seemed vulnerable. A wave of abolitionism not seen since the Progressive Era took hold in the 2000s, as six states abandoned the death penalty, and governors in five others instituted moratoria, promising to use their executive power to stay all executions while they remained in office. While the Supreme Court remained committed to the constitutionality of the death penalty, it slowly chipped away at it in a series of decisions that narrowed the range of persons whom the state could execute.
Public support for the death penalty, already in decline during the late 1990s, continued to fall in the 21st century. A number of factors depressed support for the death penalty to levels not seen since the early 1970s: a decline in violent crime and fear of crime; highly publicized DNA-based exonerations of death-row inmates; and wariness of the cost of maintaining the death penalty, particularly during the great recession of the late 2000s.
The use of the death penalty was declining as well. The expansion of life without parole as an alternative punishment in the 1990s and 2000s gave juries in some states harsh alternatives to death sentences that they did not previously have. Longer-term changes to the judicial and penal administration of the death, meanwhile, continued to make the path between conviction and execution longer and more difficult for state officials to traverse. Most offenders sentenced to death since the 1970s were not (or have not yet been) put to death, and the average wait on death row for those who have been executed has grown to over a decade and a half. Growing problems with the practice of lethal injection, meanwhile, have posed new problems for states seeking to execute capital defendants in the 2000s, producing new legal battles and bringing executions nationwide to a temporary halt in 2007–2008.
The 2016 election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States, however, may portend a slowing or reversing Americans’ 21st-century turn away from the death penalty.
Article
Electronic Monitoring Around the World
Mike Nellis
Since its operational beginnings in the United States in 1982—where its prototypes were first experimented with in the 1960s and 1970s—the electronic monitoring (EM) of offenders has spread to approximately 40 countries around the world, ostensibly—but not often effectively—to reduce the use of imprisonment by making bail, community supervision, and release from prison more controlling than they have hitherto been. No single authority monitors the development of EM around the world, and it is difficult to gain fully comprehensive accounts of what is happening outside the Western and Anglophone users of it. Some countries are secretive. Standpoints in writing on EM are varied and partisan. Although it still tends to be the pacesetter of technical innovation, the United States remains a relatively lower user of EM, in part because the exceptional punitiveness of its penal culture has inhibited its expansion, even when it has itself been developed in various punitive ways. Interprofessional and intergovernmental processes of “policy transfer” have contributed to EMs spreading around the world, but the commercial bodies that manufacture and market EM equipment have been of at least equal importance. In Europe, the Confederation of European Probation (CEP), a transnational probation advocacy organization, took an early interest in EM, and its regular conferences became a touchstone of international debate. As it developed globally, the United Nations reluctantly accepted that it may be of some value even in developing countries and set out standards for its use. Continuing innovations in EM technology will create new possibilities for offender supervision, both more and less punitive, but it is always culture, commerce, and politics in particular jurisdictions which shape the scale, pace, and form of its development.
Article
Epidemiological Criminology
Ali Rowhani-Rahbar and Haylea Hannah
Health and crime are interrelated in numerous ways. Criminal offending can influence health outcomes, while health and well-being can change the likelihood of criminal offending. In addition, tools of the criminal justice system can affect health, while health policy may influence criminal offending. Notably, the tools of the public health and criminal justice system can work synergistically or antagonistically to impact both health and crime outcomes. Epidemiological criminology (EpiCrim) has been viewed as a paradigm linking the methods of public health with those of the criminal justice system and integrating epidemiological theories and practices with their corresponding theories and tools in criminology. The specific contribution of this framework is toward the development of strategies and interventions that address multiple factors underlying health and criminal behavior at different biopsychosocial levels. The overarching premise of this paradigm is that sustained and intentional efforts toward applying the principles of EpiCrim could improve health and well-being and reduce criminal behavior in manners that exceed the contribution of each field separately.
Article
The Eurogang Program of Research
Finn-Aage Esbensen and Cheryl L. Maxson
The Eurogang Program of Research is a loosely knit network of researchers and policymakers with an interest in better understanding troublesome youth groups. While the group is guided by a steering committee, that is the extent of the organizational structure. Members of the network volunteer to host the website, maintain the electronic mail service, organize workshops, and engage in research that adopts the Eurogang definition, instruments, and methodologies.
The Eurogang Program has as its primary goal the fostering of multisite, multi-method, comparative research on street gangs. Since 2000, this group of more than 200 scholars has convened 21 international workshops in Europe and the United States. The Eurogang Program does not have a steady funding source; however, over the years various network members have written proposals for funding to government agencies, sought support from non-profit organizations and foundations, and requested funding from their universities. Through a series of workshops from 1998 through 2004, the Eurogang group developed common definitional approaches, an integrated research design, and model research instruments. From 2005 through 2023, the group has continued to host substantively focused workshops that examine research informed by the Eurogang framework. Since its inception, this Eurogang group has spawned several retrospective cross-national studies, articles in professional journals, six edited volumes of scholarship, and a manual that provides a history of the group and its guiding principles as well as information on the development and use of the five Eurogang research instruments (i.e., city-level descriptors, expert survey, youth survey, ethnography guidelines, and prevention/intervention program inventory). The Eurogang Program Manual and instruments are available on the Eurogang website. While much has been accomplished, much remains to be learned.
Article
Evidence-Based Policing
Renée J. Mitchell
Evidence-based policing (EBP) by its original definition is “the use of the best available research on the outcomes of police work to implement guidelines and evaluate agencies, units, and officers.” Since then, the definition of EBP has been evolving, with academics adjusting the definition to better fit how police and researchers apply research in the field. EBP is best described as an approach to law enforcement and public safety. It involves the application of empirical research, scientific methods, and data-driven decision-making to policing practices, strategies, and policies. The term “evidence-based” is borrowed from the field of medicine and has been adapted to various disciplines, including education, social work, and, in this case, policing.
An EBP approach emphasizes the following:
1. Use of research and data: Implementing strategies and practices shown to be effective through rigorous research.
2. Evaluation and adaptation: Continuously assessing the effectiveness of policing methods and making adjustments based on empirical evidence.
3. Scientific methodology: Applying the principles of scientific inquiry to test the effectiveness of different policing strategies.
EBP is a practical approach that integrates scientific research into police work to improve outcomes, decision-making, and policy development in law enforcement. This approach has slowly begun to create a shift in both academics’ and practitioners’ points of view. When a paradigm shift occurs in a scientific discipline, there is always a period before the shift occurs where the definitions and parameters of the discipline are ambiguous. A paradigm shift refers to a fundamental change in the underlying assumptions or dominant methodologies within a given scientific discipline or more broadly in any intellectual field or approach. This concept was popularized by philosopher and historian of science Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Paradigm shifts can initially face resistance until the new paradigm becomes widely accepted and mainstream.
In essence, a paradigm shift is not just a small modification or improvement, but a complete overhaul of the foundational principles and methods in a particular field, leading to a new way of thinking and understanding. As EBP developed from evidence-based medicine, it has followed the same developmental trajectory of changes in definition and application, resistance to adoption, advocates and critics of the approach, and the development of societies to assist with incorporation of practices by police departments. EBP is different from other disciplines such as criminology or crime science, as the core of EBP is to use rigorous research methodologies to test policing practices in the field. The reason for this approach is to determine whether policing practices “work” under real-life circumstances rather than just theoretically. Additionally, EBP advocates argue that rigorous testing is a better approach to serving the public than having officers use anecdotes to drive practices. EBP is an approach that not all academics or practitioners agree with, but it is one way of determining the causal effects of a policing practice.
Article
Experimental Design in the Study of Crime Media and Popular Culture
Cara Rabe-Hemp and John C. Navarro
In the study of crime media and popular culture, researchers have a wide range of research methodologies at their disposal. Each methodology or standardized practice for producing knowledge involves an epistemological foundation and rules of evidence for making a claim, as well as a set of practices for generating evidence of the claim. The research methodology chosen is contingent upon the question being studied, as each methodology has strengths and weaknesses.
As the most stringent research design, experiments are unique because they are the only methodology able to establish causality. This is because experimental design’s major advantage is that researchers can control the environment, conditions, and variables that are being studied. However, experiments suffer from a major disadvantage as well: the precision and control utilized in experiments make it difficult to apply the findings to the real world, referred to as generalizability. This is especially poignant in crime media and popular culture studies where researchers are often interested in exploring how the criminal justice system, participants, and processes are socially constructed and how the mediated images impact our conceptualization of criminality and appropriate criminal justice system responses.
Article
Experimental Methods in Criminology
Rylan Simpson
Experimental methods have been a hallmark of the scientific enterprise since its inception. Over time, experiments have become much more sophisticated, complex, and nuanced. Experiments have also become much more diverse, and their use within research settings has expanded from the physical sciences to the social sciences, including criminology.
Within criminology, experimental methods can manifest in the form of laboratory experiments, field experiments, and quasi-experiments, each of which present their own strengths and weaknesses. Experimental methods can also be applied in the context of between-subject and within-subject paradigms, both of which exhibit unique characteristics and implications. Experimental methods—as a research method—are unique in their ability to help establish causal relationships among variables. This article introduces the topic of experimental methods in criminology, with a specific focus on the subfield of policing.
Article
Gangs and Globalization
Alistair Fraser and Elke Van Hellemont
It has been a century since Frederic Thrasher researched his pioneering text on youth gangs in Chicago. In it he depicts gangs as a street-based phenomenon that emerged from the combined forces of urbanization, migration, and industrialization—with new migrant groups seeking to find a toehold on the American Dream. Gangs were discrete and highly localized, drawing on names from popular culture and the neighborhood, seeking ways to survive and thrive amid the disorganization of the emerging city. In the 21st century, street gangs have been identified in urban contexts all over the world and have become increasingly viewed as a transnational phenomenon that is qualitatively different from Thrasher’s neighborhood groups. Processes of globalization have created a degree of flow and connectedness to urban life that is unlike any other stage in human history. Yet a close reading of Thrasher shows that some of the key themes in the study of gangs in a global context—urban exclusion, grey economies, human mobility, and cultural flow—were presaged in Thrasher’s work. In a global era, however, these processes have intensified, amplified, and extended in ways that could not have been predicted.
We elaborate the spatial, economic, social, cultural, and technological implications of globalization for gangs across five principle areas: (1) Gangs in the Global City; (2) Gangs, Illicit Markets, and the Global Criminal Economy; (3) Mobility, Crimmigration, and the “Transnational Gang”; (4) Gangs and Glocalization; and (5) The Gang Mediascape. Taken together, these themes seek to offer both a conceptual vocabulary and empirical foundation for new and innovative studies of gangs and globalization. Empirical evidences from Europe, the United States, and beyond, emphasize the uneven impacts of globalization and the ways in which national and cultural dynamics are implicated in the study of gangs in the 21st century.
Article
Group-Based Trajectory Modeling
Thomas W. Wojciechowski
Group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM) is a variant of growth mixture modeling that has risen to prominence in the field of criminology as a useful method for understanding heterogeneity in developmental patterns of outcomes of interest. The method entails identification of a trajectory model that best fits a set of longitudinal data and is comprised of a set number of trajectory groups of varying complexity that participants are assigned membership to. Following identification of a best fitting model, extensions of the method can then be used to better understand nuances of the developmental outcome of interest. The use of particular extensions of the method then relies on the research question. These extensions may be used to identify predictors of differential development, understand how differential development predicts a later outcome, or understand how development of another outcome predicts concurrent development of the outcome of interest. While the GBTM method has been demonstrated to have a high degree of utility for modeling criminological outcomes of interest, there remain a number of notable gaps in the manner in which it has been applied in the field.
Given the general shift toward a life-course understanding of criminology, there remain numerous areas where GBTM may be useful for advancing existing criminological theories within this paradigm. While not an exhaustive list, social control theory, social learning theory, general strain theory, and the dual systems model are all examples of criminological theories which may be particularly amenable to the use of GBTM to better understand nuances of development of constructs of interest and advance the perspectives on criminogenic processes that these theories currently offer. These issues indicate the continued need for examination of relationships of interest using GBTM and related extensions of the method within the field of criminology.
Article
Higher Education in Law Enforcement and Racial Disparity in Arrests
Thaddeus L. Johnson, Natasha N. Johnson, Sarah Sepanik, and Maria H. Lee
Raising the educational standards for police officers represents a perennial police reform theme in the United States. Among other benefits, proponents herald college degree requirements as key to improving the quality and fairness of policing outcomes, including the chief formal response to crime: arresting suspected lawbreakers. However, the evidence base regarding college education requirements’ consequences for agency arrest behaviors is formative for various reasons, namely, the absence of studies examining whether these policies contribute to racially equitable arrest outcomes.
The presented data show steeper decreases in the racial gap in Black and White people arrested for degree-requiring agencies compared to nondegree-requiring agencies between 2000 and 2016. Albeit encouraging news, the disparity rate for agencies with a college standard remains relatively higher. While what is implied is that college degree requirements alone will not resolve racial disparities in police arrests, it is premature to draw concrete conclusions about this often taken-for-granted association until more rigorous research is conducted.
Article
Historical Methods in Criminology
Paul Knepper
The history of historical methods in criminology reveals a variety of possibilities. Before the 1970s, legal history represented historical research in criminology, although it had more to do with the development of legal doctrine than the study of crime and criminal justice. In the 1970s, the new social history emphasized alternatives to traditional archival research, including oral history, material culture studies, and statistical analyses. Oral history and material culture methods have been used for some historical studies in criminology but are less common than statistical analyses of time-series data. Historians and criminologists have produced innovations in modeling long-term crime trends. The cultural turn of the 1980s brought “histories of the present” and expanded the range of sources beyond legal documents and crime statistics to include a wider range of texts, including newspapers and novels. The digital revolution of the 1990s, as well as the construction of digital archives, has enabled research completely online and made sources for transnational history accessible. Within the past decade, criminologists and historians have started to think about historical criminology, a method that bridges history and criminology, and is well positioned to pursue several projects, including plural time, memory, and microhistory. The choice of historical method depends in part on whether “history from below” is important, as envisioned decades ago, when the new social history began to influence historical research in criminology.
Article
Life Events Calendar Method
Jennifer Roberts
The calendar methodology facilitates data collection across multiple life domains, events, and time to assess how dynamic changes influence criminal offending, victimization, and criminal justice contacts. Building upon knowledge of the structure of autobiographical memory, calendar methodologists use a variety of cues to aid recall of transitions into and out of a variety of life events during a specified time frame. Past studies have created highly specialized calendars for data collection, altering the life domains and events studied, type of calendar used (paper or calendar), time unit and reference period, and mode of administration. Overall, the calendar method performs similar to or better than a standard interviewing or survey procedure. However, more studies using criminological samples and topics are needed.
Article
Measuring Homicide by Police
Matthew Renner
When police officers end a human life, the social ramifications can be immense. Recent high-profile instances of homicide by police in the United States have served as a reminder of their potential impacts. Beyond the tragic loss of life and their acute effect on the people directly involved, these incidents have become a source of broad social conflict. At many points throughout American history, homicides by police have sparked protest and civil unrest, as well as catalyzed major social movements and countermovements that have profoundly altered the direction of the nation’s politics. Social scientists have long recognized the importance of studying homicides by police to understand their causes and consequences. Efforts to do so have historically been hampered by the poor quality of data on the phenomenon. Traditional methods of measuring homicides by police that rely on voluntary reporting by law enforcement agencies or information from death certificates have been shown to be inadequate for most empirical research applications. New and improved methods of measurement began emerging around 2010. They involve compiling information on homicides by police reported by news media and/or combining multiple sources of information to measure the phenomenon, and represent a tremendous improvement. These new methods have led to the production of data that have deepened people’s knowledge of homicide by police. Even so, these data are not perfect. Researchers should be aware of the various measurement issues that may arise when employing them. Finally, as measurement of homicide by police has improved, the ability to measure nonfatal police violence has not done so correspondingly. Poor measurement of nonfatal police violence continues to limit scientific understanding of homicide by police and police violence more generally.
Article
Measuring Violent Crime
Joanne Savage
There are a variety of considerations related to the measurement of violence. Concerns regarding collection of primary data include the fact that violence is rare, and typical samples would yield very low variability. Self-report data may provide rich detail, but asking questions about violent behavior may result in social desirability biases. Techniques such as life history calendars have enhanced data collection in some studies. Children may be too young to respond to surveys; measuring their physical aggression can be done with ratings. Aggregate measures of violence are typically derived from government reports. The primary source of official crime data in the United States has been the summary Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), collected from police departments by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for many decades, but it has been replaced by the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), a change made nationwide as of 2021. Considerable gaps in the data are expected to be narrowed as local jurisdictions and states adapt to the new system. To complement UCR and NIBRS official estimates of reported crime, the Bureau of Justice Statistics also fields the annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to understand victimization in more depth. Researchers wishing to use these sources of data should be aware of the many published discussions of limitations and caveats for each data set.
Those interested in studying specific forms of violent crime, including homicide, rape, robbery, and assault, should be aware of idiosyncrasies in the measurement of those crime types. For homicide, there are a variety of additional sources of official data, such as the Supplemental Homicide Reports, the National Vital Statistics System, and the National Death Index. Changes in the collection of assault data, including a move away from the “aggravated assault” category commonly used in the past by UCR and NCVS, deserve particular attention. Cross-national data are limited, and most investigators rely on World Health Organization data for homicide or the International Crime Victimization Survey. These have limited reach and scope compared to Interpol reports that were available in the past.
Researchers interested in individual-level data should also be aware that there are many large-scale, secondary data sets available for analysis. These are sometimes restricted and require approval of an application to access sensitive data. Data include those derived from longitudinal studies of children and teenagers such as AddHealth and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the Social Development Project, the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, and the Pathways to Desistance study. There are several other categories of violence that deserve special attention. Because family violence is underreported to police, and official sources of data are thought to be inadequate, researchers have been systematically working to measure and track domestic violence for a long time. The data and reports generally come from noncriminal justice agencies. Many studies use the Conflict Tactics Scale and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale(CTS2) to gauge intimate partner violence. This index includes subscales that account for severity of violence and context (e.g., fighting in self-defense). The CTS2 has been adapted for a variety of family and dating relationships. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fields the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, and researchers may access those data. In the early 21st century, the public and researchers have expressed growing interest in violence by and against the police, and there are now several sources of data for researchers to use. These include the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted data collection program and nongovernment sources such as The Washington Post’s police shootings database. Similarly, for those interested in gun violence, government sources are limited, and many investigators turn to nongovernment sources such as the Gun Violence Archive, which has no government or advocacy affiliation. Finally, those interested specifically in mass violence will also find the National Mass Violence Resource Center. The magazine Mother Jones publishes data on mass shooting events, by year, dating back to 1982, and The Washington Post and USA Today also publish an archive of mass violence events.
Article
Methodological Issues in the International Study of Victimization
Anna Alvazzi del Frate and Gergely Hideg
Victimization studies, which became popular in the 1970s, are largely based on surveys of the population. As of the late 1980s, the potential for internationally comparable surveys emerged with the first round of the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS). Starting from early international studies and using the ICVS as a prominent example, an examination of the characteristics of victimization surveys is given, both in terms of content and methodology, their potential and limits, which make them suitable for international use. Multi-country surveys can provide indications from different countries about major crime problems, the most vulnerable population groups at risk of victimization, and perceptions and opinions about fear of crime and the performance of delegated authorities. Victimization surveys initially covered several types of conventional crime directly experienced by respondents and progressively expanded and specialized to measure bribery and corruption, both among individuals and businesses, as well as violence against women through dedicated surveys.
Considering that surveys are an effective tool to measure crime and victims’ perceptions where institutional capacity is weak, the possibility to bridge knowledge gaps and engage developing countries has been identified as a major potential. Despite some methodological challenges, further use and expansion of victimization surveys is in progress (e.g., for measuring some indicators for Sustainable Development Goals [SDG]).
Article
Organizational Factors Affecting Evidence-Based Practice Implementation in Community Supervision
CJ Appleton and Danielle S. Rudes
The evidence-based approach uses scientific evidence to influence decision-making. Evidence-based practices (EBPs) are practices, programs, or interventions found to be effective through scientific evaluation. Community supervision as a field is shifting toward an increased use of EBPs when working with clients. Implementing EBPs is no simple task, and supervision departments must navigate a host of potential barriers in order to be successful. Taking a macro-level approach, supervision organizations are open systems capable of self-maintenance through reaction to their environment. Considering the connection between society and criminal justice approaches, understanding the changes in supervision is best done through a sociohistorical approach. Throughout the history of the United States, there have been philosophic shifts between rehabilitative and punishment approaches to crime control. Community supervision was developed as a rehabilitative institution popular in part due to its alignment with the rehabilitative ideal. During the 1960s and 1970s, the rehabilitative ideal fell out of favor, being replaced with retributive, incapacitation, and deterrence models. Supervision, even with its rehabilitative origins, was able to withstand this shift by adjusting its purpose to surveillance, monitoring, and risk management.
During the past 30 years, supervision has been experiencing another shift in philosophy. With the empirical foundation being rebuilt through the development of EBPs and evidence-based supervision models (e.g., the risk–need–responsivity model), rehabilitation is being established as the most effective way to reduce recidivism. In order to properly implement these new rehabilitation-focused practices and models, supervision organizations must structure themselves in particular ways. Specifically, it is important that supervision organizations develop sound dissemination strategies to introduce and support their staff in order to transfer scientific technology into the field. Furthermore, organizations need to develop processes that effectively connect new practices to old processes in a way that displays the ease and utility of the new practices to ensure fidelity. When done correctly, these processes and support strategies can create an organizational climate that supports the change and makes it permanent.
On the other hand, when done incorrectly, the scientific technology will not be transferred correctly, which has been shown to increase the chances of recidivism for clients. Supervision officers are justice actors who have a great deal of discretion in their work and who need to navigate a host of institutional barriers to do their job as directed. These barriers come in the form of conflicting or ambiguous job duties and working in an environment lacking resources. In the event that officers do not believe they are being supported or their prescribed duties are unachievable, they will reject the formal prescription and create their own standard. This is evidenced through the variety of reasons officers reject use of EBPs. Considering specifically the use of risk assessments, officers are known to not trust the risk assessment, not use the assessment results in case planning, manipulate the results of the assessment to overclassify their client’s risk, and reject using the assessment due to conflict with their occupational philosophy.
Article
Participatory Action Research
Tara M. Brown
Participatory action research (PAR) is a methodological approach to social science research in which members of the study population participate as co-researchers, usually in collaboration with university-based researchers. As a form of action research, direct interventions into the problems under study are central to the research process. PAR is aimed at giving local community members control over “official” knowledge produced about their lives and social problems that directly impact them. PAR projects typically focus on socially marginalized groups and how structural and institutional inequalities shape their everyday lives. PAR also has a pedagogical dimension in that local, co-researchers are trained in all aspects of the research process. With a focus on social justice, PAR outcomes include sociopolitical action, individual and community capacity-building, as well as knowledge creation and theory-building.
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