Agenda building in criminal justice: The case of determinate sentencing

An understanding of policy development, change and implementation is a necessary ingredient in analysis of criminal justice policy. This paper attempts to describe the process of policy formation in criminal justice within the framework, of “Agenda Building.” Through case studies of sentencing reform policy changes in two states, the applicability of the Agenda Building model to the study of criminal justice policy is demonstrated. The argument is advanced that, through the use of such approaches to the study of justice policy change, we will enhance our understanding of the diversity of specific policies and practices which can emerge from an apparently unified reform movement. Further, it is suggested that an enhanced understanding of policy development will allow reformers to better direct and control policy formulation.     

Educational saliency and careers in criminal justice: The case of Louisiana

While there is little consensus as to the exact form and structure of an academic criminal justice program, the traditional model of higher education, with its emphasis on qualified and productive faculty, has gained popular acceptance in the past decade. Concurrently, graduates of criminal justice programs have often found that prospective employers do not value their degrees. This article explores the relationships between student evaluations of their educational experiences, the structural characteristics identified as essential to an educational program, and the mechanisms used by ex-students to reduce dissonance caused by employer rejection or a poor job market.In 1980 a total of 411 recent graduates of eight criminal justice programs in Louisiana responded to a questionnaire designed to measure their attitudes toward and evaluations of their educations. Several key structural variables frequently associated with quality higher education failed to predict student evaluations. Two exceptions were ration of senior faculty and ratio of ex-police as faculty, and the effects of these variables on student evaluations were inverse. Overall, the best predictor of the saliency of one's educational experiences was the student's evaluation of the current job market in criminal justice. This variable was followed, in descending order by sex, ratio of faculty with senior rank, years since graduation, type of degree granted, and ratio of ex-police as faculty.     

The scholarly productivity of institutions and their faculty in leading criminology and criminal justice journals

This study extended the work of Sorensen and Pilgrim (2002) by examining the institutional affiliations of authors in leading criminology and criminal justice journals in the subsequent five-year period after their study. Additionally, this study replicated Fabianic's (2002) study, by assessing the average publications of the faculty at the most productive criminal justice graduate programs. The current study examined the years 2000-2004 and made comparisons to the previous studies, which assessed 1995-1999. Findings revealed the University of Cincinnati and the University of Maryland were the most productive institutions and had the most productive faculty.     

Measuring the relative impacts of criminology and criminal justice journals: A research note

Journals can be rated according to a number of subjective and objective criteria. The present paper uses citations of a journal as an index of objective rank. Previous work using this index has several flaws, including a reliance on a single source journal and a lack of adjustments for age and size to its raw citations scores. The present paper uses a longer list of source journals to tabulate citation counts and provides raw impact, age-adjusted impact, and impact factor scores for each of 26 criminal justice/criminology journals. In addition, this study found subjective ratings from previous research on criminology journals to be significant, although not strong predictors of the impact factor, one objective index of journal quality. Little evidence was found for the notion that journal rankings are a function of other variables, including age of the journal or sponsorship by a professional organization.     

Greenland criminal justice: The adaptation of western law

The conflict which many indigenous peoples experience with Westernized systems of law has precipitated a search for alternative models of criminal justice. While the process of colonization has most often resulted in the destruction of traditional practices of social control, in Greenland an attempt was made to adapt Western law to the indigenous culture. The Greenlandic justice system has several unique attributes which have attracted the attention of indigenous peoples and governments worldwide. This article traces the origins, development and evolution of the Greenlandic Criminal Code and criminal justice system, the factors which influenced its development, and the extent to which the objectives of the architects of the systems have been met. The discussion provides key insights into the potential and limitations of adapting Western law to indigenous cultures.     

Race, conventional crime, and criminal justice: The declining importance of skin color

Blacks in the United States are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the population. One explanation is that racial discrimination against Blacks pervades the American system of criminal justice. This study examined the nature and extent of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system by evaluating five propositions using data from extant literature. Little evidence was found to support the allegation that the criminal justice system systematically discriminates against Blacks.     

The availability,accessibility, and level of computerization of criminal justice data: An interstate comparison

As a result of the decentralized system of American criminal justice, state information systems have developed in a fragmented manner. Thus, the availability of justice data, which is one product of these systems, varies greatly between states. Although these disparities are widely acknowledged, very little information exists on the extent of the disparities. This article compares data availability across states as well as the level of computerization of these data, and the facility with which criminal justice agencies share the data with other state justice agencies. These variables are important because thorough data availability, a high level of computerization, and a willingness to share existing data can increase the quality and timeliness of criminal justice policy making.     

The application of social impact assessment to the study of criminal and juvenile justice programs: A case study

This article focuses on the utility of social impact assessment as a method for the study of criminal and juvenile justice programs. Social impact assessment is a relatively new research approach which has most often been used not in the field of criminal and juvenile justice, but to predict the many possible impacts of public construction programs on individuals, organizations, and the community. To illustrate the method of social impact assessment, a case study of one of the few applications of social impact assessment in a juvenile or criminal justice setting is provided. The case study is of a nationally acclaimed program model, the Community Arbitration Project (CAP), which was designed to improve the screening of juvenile delinquency cases before court. The case study compares CAP with a traditional screening program. It shows the procedure used to identify many types of possible impacts that may differ between the two programs, including those which are desired and not desired, and those which are intended and unintended. Furthermore, the case study demonstrates the process used to document selected impacts throughout the social system, in the case of CAP and traditional screening, on offenders, victims, police, the juvenile court, and the local community. The article concludes with a discussion of the feasibility of using the results of a social impact assessment as input into the modification of innovative model programs during their formative stage, and as input into the decision making that leads up to the choice of a model program for replication.     

The quality of doctoral programs in deviance,criminology, and criminal justice: An empirical assessment

While information regarding the doctoral programs in any discipline is of obvious and considerable relevance both to those in the discipline and to those seeking access to the best possible sites for graduate training, our knowledge about the quality of doctoral programs continues to be based on little more than speculation and highly ambiguous measures of institutional or departmental prestige. This study attempts to fill this gap for those who have special interests in the related fields of deviance, criminology, and criminal justice by ranking the thirty-six most significant doctoral programs in the nation by means of data derived from the Social Science Citation Index. Perhaps the most striking of our findings—and certainly to us the most distressing finding—is that those departments ranked by our measures as being the highest quality are consistently those which exist within the broader structure of departments of sociology. Given our firm conviction that the discipline of criminology is far, far more than that aspect of it which is closely related to issues of substantive significance to the field of sociology, we can only speculate that those in leadership positions in the growing number of independent schools or departments of criminology or criminal justice are not meeting their obligations to the discipline whose vitality and prospects depend so heavily on the quality of their judgment.     

The outcome of our lives: a commencement address to criminal justice students

On May 18, 2003, Tom Dexter (d. April 15, 2004) delivered the commencement address to the graduates of the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Albany, State University of New York. Mr. Dexter had worked in and administered various agencies of criminal justice for over 40 years, always searching for the most human way possible for himself and his staff to treat those ‘treated’ by the system. Always open to new ideas himself – indeed, to the outcomes of his own behavior – he was instrumental in bringing together faculty from the School of Criminal Justice and staff from the St. Anne Institute and La Salle School in Albany, New York, for a decade‐long research project, the Service Outcomes Action Research (SOAR). The focus of the project is on the impact or effect of those institutions on the young people they are ordained to serve.     

Service utilization in a cohort of criminal justice-involved men: implications for case management and justice systems

In the era of re-entry, a great deal of attention has been paid to the ‘risk-need-responsivity’ model. Most attention to the utilization of services designed to meet need has focused on post-release behaviors. However, little attention has been paid to the pre-incarceration utilization of services that might influence receptivity to post-release utilization. Using constructs borrowed from health services utilization, the current paper examines the associations among CJ-involvement, social and health services utilization, and health status in a cohort of CJ-involved men living in the community. Results from the current cohort, combined with those of previous research, suggest that follow-through on services by released individuals’ remains problematic. Suggestions for future research and questions about the role of criminal justice agencies in improving follow-through are raised.     

The end of police prosecutions: Symptom of changing values in english criminal justice

This article contrasts the traditional English prosecutorial system, and its underlying values, with the new Crown Prosecution Service and the related values which have emerged from five years of official study and planning of prosecutorial reform. The traditional system reflected the English ideal of the amateur generalist. Under this system the police, acting as citizens, undertook most prosecutions, hiring legal assistance as needed. Ower the last twenty years, about three-quarters of the English police forces set up prosecuting solicitors departments. While these institutions give professional legal assistance to many police, they were purely local arrangements without statutory basis and legally similar to the traditional ad hoc arrangements. In 1986 the Crown Prosecution Service will be initiated. This is the product of a process of development which includes a Royal Commission, two governmental working parties, a white paper, a bill, and a managerial study. The result is a hierarchical structure of legal professionals independent of the police who will handle virtually all prosecutions. This prosecutorial structure exhibits the characteristics and values of modern rationalistic bureaucracy described by Max Weber. The adoption of these values in English criminal justice indicates the likelihood of change in other aspects of the system which rest on the conflicting traditional values.     

Finding fit: The nature of a successful faculty employment search in criminal justice

While the process of finding employment in academia has always been a daunting task for the job candidate, in recent years, in the criminal justice discipline, the process of finding an acceptable candidate to fill a university vacancy has become an equally formidable problem for the employer. This research addresses this reality from the perspectives of both potential employers and employees. Job candidates applying for a university position in 2005, and universities soliciting for hires in criminal justice during the same time frame were surveyed in relation to a variety of issues surrounding their respective search procedures. The primary goal of the research was to determine what factors were associated with perceptions of a successful job search. Suggestions about “successful” searching are offered.