NCJ Number
215424
Journal
Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 17 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2006 Pages: 255-269
Date Published
September 2006
Length
15 pages
Annotation
In presenting a contextual approach for examining the criminal justice policymaking environment and its accompanying process, this article focuses on the policymaking process, the actors involved in that process (the public, professionals, and politicians), and the sites where participants interact and policy decisions are made.
Abstract
The article begins with the observation that the policymaking process has been largely neglected in studies of crime policy. In drawing on Laswell's (1936) call for policy researchers to analyze the entire complex, shifting policy universe, this article proposes a contextual approach to criminal justice policy analysis that examines all the variables that influence the policymaking procedure and policy content. Three steps are recommended for such an analysis. The first step involves identifying the various contextual features that are in some measure distinctive to the criminal justice policy environment. The second step consists of organizing this environment into a policy community with a subgovernment and an interested public that has strong opinions about what a policy should be. This step should expose patterns of power and influence that help shape policy. The final step requires the researcher to determine the networks and relationships that evolve within the policy community and to consider the implications of these patterns for the development of policy. Only by analyzing the context in which criminal justice policies are derived can criminologists understand why the findings of criminological research are or are not incorporated into criminal justice policy. 2 figures and 47 references