CORRECTIONAL POLICY AND PUBLIC VALUES

Since 1960, research on various options in correctional policy has emphasiz ‘two basic dimensions: the offender and the community. Under the assumptions that the community and the offender are not separable concerns and that the community is a complex system with many different and conflicting elements, this study examines public values regarding several popular correctional options. Data obtained demonstrate two normative clusters, one concerned with retribution and one with rehabilitation. Examination of the social status of respondents suggests a complex relationship between community structure and norms concerning correctional programs. Recommendations for further research are outlined, as well as for ways that correctional officials could reduce public resistance to the programs favored by officials.     

PUBLIC OPINION AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE JUVENILE COURT*

Over 100 years ago, juvenile courts emerged out of the belief that juveniles are different from adults—less culpable and more rehabilitatable—and can be "saved" from a life of crime and disadvantage. Today, the juvenile justice system is under attack through increasing calls to eliminate it and enactment of statutes designed to place younger offenders in the adult justice system. However, little evidence exists that policy makers have taken the full range of public views into account. At the same time, scholarly accounts of calls to eliminate the juvenile justice system have neglected the role of public opinion. The current study addresses this situation by examining public views about 1) abolishing juvenile justice and 2) the proper upper age of original juvenile court jurisdiction. Particular attention is given to the notion that child‐saving and "get tough" orientations influence public views about juvenile justice. The analyses suggest support for the lingering appeal of juvenile justice among the public and the idea that youth can be “saved,” as well as arguments about the politicization and criminalization of juvenile justice. They also highlight that the public, like states, holds variable views about the appropriate age of juvenile court jurisdiction. We discuss the implications of the study and avenues for future research. Why is it not just and proper to treat these juvenile offenders, as we deal with the neglected children, as a wise and merciful father handles his own child whose errors are not discovered by the authorities? Why is it not the duty of the state, instead of asking merely whether a boy or a girl has committed a specific offense, to find out what he is, physically, mentally, morally, and then if it learns that he is treading the path that leads to criminality, to take him in charge, not so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, to make him not a criminal but a worthy citizen.     

PENALITY AND THE PENAL STATE

The sociology of punishment has developed a rich understanding of the social and historical forces that have transformed American penality during the last 40 years. But whereas these social forces are not unique to the United States, their penal impact there has been disproportionately large, relative to comparable nations. To address this issue, I suggest that future research should attend more closely to the structure and operation of the penal state. I begin by distinguishing penality (the penal field) from the penal state (the governing institutions that direct and control the penal field). I then present a preliminary conceptualization of “the penal state” and discuss the relationship between the penal state and the American state more generally.     

SCIENCE,PUBLIC POLICY,AND THE CAREER PARADIGM*

The career model reappears with some consistency in the history of criminology. It consistently fails, however, to organize the facts about crime in a meaningful way. As a consequence, we predict that criminology will once again abandon career models in favor of theories of crime.     

公共决策中的大众、专家与政府 以中国价格决策听证制度为个案的研究视角

<正>一、问题的提出近几年来,听证会制度的兴起,已经成为我国公共决策体制改革领域的一个重要符号。立法听证会、价格调整听证会、城市规划听证、环境影响评估听证等,已构成公共行政领域不断展开的实践。在公共决策体制改革过程中,听证会制度一度被人们视为公共决策民主化、科学化的重要制度创新。     

DESIGN PROBLEMS IN PUBLIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT

This essay explores the issues involved in designing public policies. It suggests that those programs not well designed will generate inappropriate expectations for success. This lack of design sophistication may not lead well-conceived methods .for achieving stated objectives. Taking the Low Enforcement Assistance Administration's Cornmunit. Anti-Crime Program as an example, the paper analyzes the implicit sociological theory which guided the development of this new and important program. The essay concludes by highlighting some of the important contributions the Community Anti-Crime Program can make in the criminal justice policy arena despite its conceptual shortcomings. While design problems may hinder the implementation of programs, they do not necessarily have to cripple them.     

FAITH,PUBLIC POLICY,AND THE LIMITS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE*

Recent interest on the part of criminologists in the “faith factor” has made possible a contemporary argument for faith‐based interventions in crime prevention: if faith “works,” then government should support faith‐based initiatives because in doing so, government is not endorsing religion, but science. Drawing on the ideas of Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and others, this essay reviews this argument within the framework of the philosophy of social science. The discussion reviews such concepts of falsification, structural causality, objectivity, and evidence‐based policy making to affirm the place of both faith and science in public life.     

INVESTIGATING THE NORMATIVE ASPECTS OF PUBLIC POLICY

This article challenges the idea that political philosophy must be of peripheral concern in the study of public policy through an exploration of the concept of harm and the debate over aggressive police patrol. This exploration begins with a brief discussion of the ways the concept of harm figures in the justification and administration of police work. It proceeds through an exposition of differing ways the concept of harm can be defined, the normative overtones of these varying definitions, and some of their policy ramifications with regard to police work. Finally, the way conceptual variation figures in policy debate is explored in the context of the debate over aggressive police patrol—the policy of maximizing the surveillance and criminal interception aspects of police activity as a patrol strategy.