NCJ Number
85089
Date Published
1981
Length
30 pages
Annotation
The ethics of criminal justice researchers and evaluators should take into account humanistic values, human rights, civil rights, and legal restrictions as well as the scientific need to build knowledge.
Abstract
Social scientists should not use their professional skills in any study or investigation that holds the potential for harm to persons, and criminal justice researchers and evaluators should be prepared to present recommendations for alternative courses of action guided by ethical perspectives, outlining potential consequences evident from research or evaluation results. Further, evaluations, whether conducted by inhouse staff or outside firms, should provide objective evidence for findings; where personal bias may have an influence in interpreting findings, this should be made explicit. Evaluators should provide timely feedback on progress to permit correction or modification of objectives. Also, researchers and evaluators should not predict the rare event but should predict a person's tolerance for lowered controls. This ensures that classification errors will be in the direction of increased freedom rather than on unwarranted deprivation of liberty. In developing computerized management information systems or decisionmaking models, underlying assumptions should be explicit, and there should be administrative understanding of the data collection system, the method of summarization, the system of analysis, and the limitations of the system logic. To the extent possible, individual consent should be obtained for access to data. Finally, in the planning of research and evaluation projects, care should be taken to identify all pertinent laws, regulations, and rules that deal with information controls so as to develop appropriate safeguards. Twenty-four footnotes and 19 bibliographic entries are provided.