Toward a Systematic Foundation for Identifying Evidence-Based Criminal Justice Sanctions and Their Relative Effectiveness

• NCJ Number: 231752
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 38 Issue: 4 Dated: July/August 2010 Pages: 702-710
• Author(s): Daniel P. Mears; J.C. Barnes
• Date Published: July 2010
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview; Instructional Material
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands

Annotation

After noting the importance of basing criminal justice sanctions in research that shows their cost-effectiveness in achieving intended goals, this article identifies research gaps that remain to be filled and proposes the next steps for placing criminal justice sanctioning on an evidence-based foundation.

Abstract

"Sanctioning," as defined in this article, refers to "any punishments, interventions, programs, services, and treatments - whether in isolation or conjointly - that are used to punish, control, manage, help, or treat convicted offenders." If local context and constraints played no role in judges' sanctioning (sentencing) calculations, under evidence-based sanctioning they would want a list of all sanctioning possibilities relative to costs. The task would then be to select the sanction, based on available research ("evidence base") that would achieve the goal of maximizing impacts across a range of outcomes for the least costs. Without such a list, any decision about particular sanctions would necessarily reflect non-evidence-based considerations, such as personal punishment philosophy, a preference for certain types of interventions, or the ability of some programs to market their offerings better than others. In considering research gaps that inhibit evidence-based sanctioning, this article first discusses the importance of research that compares the relative effectiveness of multiple sanctioning options. This is followed by a discussion of the importance of similar research that examines effectiveness along a range of relevant outcomes. Such research should involve evaluations of various sanctioning options in general and of these options as implemented in specific jurisdictions. In addition, other steps recommended in developing evidence-based sanctions are the creation of standards for defining a sanction so that improper inferences are not drawn, as well as designing criteria for determining when a sanction's effect is an improvement over some alternative. 1 table and 92 references