what is a case study in criminal justice

The Ultimate Guide to Qualitative Research - Part 1: The Basics

• Introduction and overview
• What is qualitative research?
• What is qualitative data?
• Examples of qualitative data
• Qualitative vs. quantitative research
• Mixed methods
• Qualitative research preparation
• Theoretical perspective
• Theoretical framework
• Literature reviews

Research question

• Conceptual framework
• Conceptual vs. theoretical framework

Data collection

• Qualitative research methods
• Focus groups
• Observational research

What is a case study?

Applications for case study research, what is a good case study, process of case study design, benefits and limitations of case studies.

• Ethnographical research
• Ethical considerations
• Confidentiality and privacy
• Power dynamics
• Reflexivity

Case studies

Case studies are essential to qualitative research , offering a lens through which researchers can investigate complex phenomena within their real-life contexts. This chapter explores the concept, purpose, applications, examples, and types of case studies and provides guidance on how to conduct case study research effectively.

Whereas quantitative methods look at phenomena at scale, case study research looks at a concept or phenomenon in considerable detail. While analyzing a single case can help understand one perspective regarding the object of research inquiry, analyzing multiple cases can help obtain a more holistic sense of the topic or issue. Let's provide a basic definition of a case study, then explore its characteristics and role in the qualitative research process.

Definition of a case study

A case study in qualitative research is a strategy of inquiry that involves an in-depth investigation of a phenomenon within its real-world context. It provides researchers with the opportunity to acquire an in-depth understanding of intricate details that might not be as apparent or accessible through other methods of research. The specific case or cases being studied can be a single person, group, or organization – demarcating what constitutes a relevant case worth studying depends on the researcher and their research question .

Among qualitative research methods , a case study relies on multiple sources of evidence, such as documents, artifacts, interviews , or observations , to present a complete and nuanced understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. The objective is to illuminate the readers' understanding of the phenomenon beyond its abstract statistical or theoretical explanations.

Characteristics of case studies

Case studies typically possess a number of distinct characteristics that set them apart from other research methods. These characteristics include a focus on holistic description and explanation, flexibility in the design and data collection methods, reliance on multiple sources of evidence, and emphasis on the context in which the phenomenon occurs.

Furthermore, case studies can often involve a longitudinal examination of the case, meaning they study the case over a period of time. These characteristics allow case studies to yield comprehensive, in-depth, and richly contextualized insights about the phenomenon of interest.

The role of case studies in research

Case studies hold a unique position in the broader landscape of research methods aimed at theory development. They are instrumental when the primary research interest is to gain an intensive, detailed understanding of a phenomenon in its real-life context.

In addition, case studies can serve different purposes within research - they can be used for exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory purposes, depending on the research question and objectives. This flexibility and depth make case studies a valuable tool in the toolkit of qualitative researchers.

Remember, a well-conducted case study can offer a rich, insightful contribution to both academic and practical knowledge through theory development or theory verification, thus enhancing our understanding of complex phenomena in their real-world contexts.

What is the purpose of a case study?

Case study research aims for a more comprehensive understanding of phenomena, requiring various research methods to gather information for qualitative analysis . Ultimately, a case study can allow the researcher to gain insight into a particular object of inquiry and develop a theoretical framework relevant to the research inquiry.

Why use case studies in qualitative research?

Using case studies as a research strategy depends mainly on the nature of the research question and the researcher's access to the data.

Conducting case study research provides a level of detail and contextual richness that other research methods might not offer. They are beneficial when there's a need to understand complex social phenomena within their natural contexts.

The explanatory, exploratory, and descriptive roles of case studies

Case studies can take on various roles depending on the research objectives. They can be exploratory when the research aims to discover new phenomena or define new research questions; they are descriptive when the objective is to depict a phenomenon within its context in a detailed manner; and they can be explanatory if the goal is to understand specific relationships within the studied context. Thus, the versatility of case studies allows researchers to approach their topic from different angles, offering multiple ways to uncover and interpret the data .

The impact of case studies on knowledge development

Case studies play a significant role in knowledge development across various disciplines. Analysis of cases provides an avenue for researchers to explore phenomena within their context based on the collected data.

This can result in the production of rich, practical insights that can be instrumental in both theory-building and practice. Case studies allow researchers to delve into the intricacies and complexities of real-life situations, uncovering insights that might otherwise remain hidden.

Types of case studies

In qualitative research , a case study is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Depending on the nature of the research question and the specific objectives of the study, researchers might choose to use different types of case studies. These types differ in their focus, methodology, and the level of detail they provide about the phenomenon under investigation.

Understanding these types is crucial for selecting the most appropriate approach for your research project and effectively achieving your research goals. Let's briefly look at the main types of case studies.

Exploratory case studies

Exploratory case studies are typically conducted to develop a theory or framework around an understudied phenomenon. They can also serve as a precursor to a larger-scale research project. Exploratory case studies are useful when a researcher wants to identify the key issues or questions which can spur more extensive study or be used to develop propositions for further research. These case studies are characterized by flexibility, allowing researchers to explore various aspects of a phenomenon as they emerge, which can also form the foundation for subsequent studies.

Descriptive case studies

Descriptive case studies aim to provide a complete and accurate representation of a phenomenon or event within its context. These case studies are often based on an established theoretical framework, which guides how data is collected and analyzed. The researcher is concerned with describing the phenomenon in detail, as it occurs naturally, without trying to influence or manipulate it.

Explanatory case studies

Explanatory case studies are focused on explanation - they seek to clarify how or why certain phenomena occur. Often used in complex, real-life situations, they can be particularly valuable in clarifying causal relationships among concepts and understanding the interplay between different factors within a specific context.

Intrinsic, instrumental, and collective case studies

These three categories of case studies focus on the nature and purpose of the study. An intrinsic case study is conducted when a researcher has an inherent interest in the case itself. Instrumental case studies are employed when the case is used to provide insight into a particular issue or phenomenon. A collective case study, on the other hand, involves studying multiple cases simultaneously to investigate some general phenomena.

Each type of case study serves a different purpose and has its own strengths and challenges. The selection of the type should be guided by the research question and objectives, as well as the context and constraints of the research.

The flexibility, depth, and contextual richness offered by case studies make this approach an excellent research method for various fields of study. They enable researchers to investigate real-world phenomena within their specific contexts, capturing nuances that other research methods might miss. Across numerous fields, case studies provide valuable insights into complex issues.

Critical information systems research

Case studies provide a detailed understanding of the role and impact of information systems in different contexts. They offer a platform to explore how information systems are designed, implemented, and used and how they interact with various social, economic, and political factors. Case studies in this field often focus on examining the intricate relationship between technology, organizational processes, and user behavior, helping to uncover insights that can inform better system design and implementation.

Health research

Health research is another field where case studies are highly valuable. They offer a way to explore patient experiences, healthcare delivery processes, and the impact of various interventions in a real-world context.

Case studies can provide a deep understanding of a patient's journey, giving insights into the intricacies of disease progression, treatment effects, and the psychosocial aspects of health and illness.

Asthma research studies

Specifically within medical research, studies on asthma often employ case studies to explore the individual and environmental factors that influence asthma development, management, and outcomes. A case study can provide rich, detailed data about individual patients' experiences, from the triggers and symptoms they experience to the effectiveness of various management strategies. This can be crucial for developing patient-centered asthma care approaches.

Other fields

Apart from the fields mentioned, case studies are also extensively used in business and management research, education research, and political sciences, among many others. They provide an opportunity to delve into the intricacies of real-world situations, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of various phenomena.

Case studies, with their depth and contextual focus, offer unique insights across these varied fields. They allow researchers to illuminate the complexities of real-life situations, contributing to both theory and practice.

Whatever field you're in, ATLAS.ti puts your data to work for you

Download a free trial of ATLAS.ti to turn your data into insights.

Understanding the key elements of case study design is crucial for conducting rigorous and impactful case study research. A well-structured design guides the researcher through the process, ensuring that the study is methodologically sound and its findings are reliable and valid. The main elements of case study design include the research question , propositions, units of analysis, and the logic linking the data to the propositions.

The research question is the foundation of any research study. A good research question guides the direction of the study and informs the selection of the case, the methods of collecting data, and the analysis techniques. A well-formulated research question in case study research is typically clear, focused, and complex enough to merit further detailed examination of the relevant case(s).

Propositions

Propositions, though not necessary in every case study, provide a direction by stating what we might expect to find in the data collected. They guide how data is collected and analyzed by helping researchers focus on specific aspects of the case. They are particularly important in explanatory case studies, which seek to understand the relationships among concepts within the studied phenomenon.

Units of analysis

The unit of analysis refers to the case, or the main entity or entities that are being analyzed in the study. In case study research, the unit of analysis can be an individual, a group, an organization, a decision, an event, or even a time period. It's crucial to clearly define the unit of analysis, as it shapes the qualitative data analysis process by allowing the researcher to analyze a particular case and synthesize analysis across multiple case studies to draw conclusions.

Argumentation

This refers to the inferential model that allows researchers to draw conclusions from the data. The researcher needs to ensure that there is a clear link between the data, the propositions (if any), and the conclusions drawn. This argumentation is what enables the researcher to make valid and credible inferences about the phenomenon under study.

Understanding and carefully considering these elements in the design phase of a case study can significantly enhance the quality of the research. It can help ensure that the study is methodologically sound and its findings contribute meaningful insights about the case.

Ready to jumpstart your research with ATLAS.ti?

Conceptualize your research project with our intuitive data analysis interface. Download a free trial today.

Conducting a case study involves several steps, from defining the research question and selecting the case to collecting and analyzing data . This section outlines these key stages, providing a practical guide on how to conduct case study research.

Defining the research question

The first step in case study research is defining a clear, focused research question. This question should guide the entire research process, from case selection to analysis. It's crucial to ensure that the research question is suitable for a case study approach. Typically, such questions are exploratory or descriptive in nature and focus on understanding a phenomenon within its real-life context.

Selecting and defining the case

The selection of the case should be based on the research question and the objectives of the study. It involves choosing a unique example or a set of examples that provide rich, in-depth data about the phenomenon under investigation. After selecting the case, it's crucial to define it clearly, setting the boundaries of the case, including the time period and the specific context.

Previous research can help guide the case study design. When considering a case study, an example of a case could be taken from previous case study research and used to define cases in a new research inquiry. Considering recently published examples can help understand how to select and define cases effectively.

Developing a detailed case study protocol

A case study protocol outlines the procedures and general rules to be followed during the case study. This includes the data collection methods to be used, the sources of data, and the procedures for analysis. Having a detailed case study protocol ensures consistency and reliability in the study.

The protocol should also consider how to work with the people involved in the research context to grant the research team access to collecting data. As mentioned in previous sections of this guide, establishing rapport is an essential component of qualitative research as it shapes the overall potential for collecting and analyzing data.

Collecting data

Gathering data in case study research often involves multiple sources of evidence, including documents, archival records, interviews, observations, and physical artifacts. This allows for a comprehensive understanding of the case. The process for gathering data should be systematic and carefully documented to ensure the reliability and validity of the study.

Analyzing and interpreting data

The next step is analyzing the data. This involves organizing the data , categorizing it into themes or patterns , and interpreting these patterns to answer the research question. The analysis might also involve comparing the findings with prior research or theoretical propositions.

Writing the case study report

The final step is writing the case study report . This should provide a detailed description of the case, the data, the analysis process, and the findings. The report should be clear, organized, and carefully written to ensure that the reader can understand the case and the conclusions drawn from it.

Each of these steps is crucial in ensuring that the case study research is rigorous, reliable, and provides valuable insights about the case.

The type, depth, and quality of data in your study can significantly influence the validity and utility of the study. In case study research, data is usually collected from multiple sources to provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the case. This section will outline the various methods of collecting data used in case study research and discuss considerations for ensuring the quality of the data.

Interviews are a common method of gathering data in case study research. They can provide rich, in-depth data about the perspectives, experiences, and interpretations of the individuals involved in the case. Interviews can be structured , semi-structured , or unstructured , depending on the research question and the degree of flexibility needed.

Observations

Observations involve the researcher observing the case in its natural setting, providing first-hand information about the case and its context. Observations can provide data that might not be revealed in interviews or documents, such as non-verbal cues or contextual information.

Documents and artifacts

Documents and archival records provide a valuable source of data in case study research. They can include reports, letters, memos, meeting minutes, email correspondence, and various public and private documents related to the case.

These records can provide historical context, corroborate evidence from other sources, and offer insights into the case that might not be apparent from interviews or observations.

Physical artifacts refer to any physical evidence related to the case, such as tools, products, or physical environments. These artifacts can provide tangible insights into the case, complementing the data gathered from other sources.

Ensuring the quality of data collection

Determining the quality of data in case study research requires careful planning and execution. It's crucial to ensure that the data is reliable, accurate, and relevant to the research question. This involves selecting appropriate methods of collecting data, properly training interviewers or observers, and systematically recording and storing the data. It also includes considering ethical issues related to collecting and handling data, such as obtaining informed consent and ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of the participants.

Data analysis

Analyzing case study research involves making sense of the rich, detailed data to answer the research question. This process can be challenging due to the volume and complexity of case study data. However, a systematic and rigorous approach to analysis can ensure that the findings are credible and meaningful. This section outlines the main steps and considerations in analyzing data in case study research.

Organizing the data

The first step in the analysis is organizing the data. This involves sorting the data into manageable sections, often according to the data source or the theme. This step can also involve transcribing interviews, digitizing physical artifacts, or organizing observational data.

Categorizing and coding the data

Once the data is organized, the next step is to categorize or code the data. This involves identifying common themes, patterns, or concepts in the data and assigning codes to relevant data segments. Coding can be done manually or with the help of software tools, and in either case, qualitative analysis software can greatly facilitate the entire coding process. Coding helps to reduce the data to a set of themes or categories that can be more easily analyzed.

Identifying patterns and themes

After coding the data, the researcher looks for patterns or themes in the coded data. This involves comparing and contrasting the codes and looking for relationships or patterns among them. The identified patterns and themes should help answer the research question.

Interpreting the data

Once patterns and themes have been identified, the next step is to interpret these findings. This involves explaining what the patterns or themes mean in the context of the research question and the case. This interpretation should be grounded in the data, but it can also involve drawing on theoretical concepts or prior research.

Verification of the data

The last step in the analysis is verification. This involves checking the accuracy and consistency of the analysis process and confirming that the findings are supported by the data. This can involve re-checking the original data, checking the consistency of codes, or seeking feedback from research participants or peers.

Like any research method , case study research has its strengths and limitations. Researchers must be aware of these, as they can influence the design, conduct, and interpretation of the study.

Understanding the strengths and limitations of case study research can also guide researchers in deciding whether this approach is suitable for their research question . This section outlines some of the key strengths and limitations of case study research.

Benefits include the following:

• Rich, detailed data: One of the main strengths of case study research is that it can generate rich, detailed data about the case. This can provide a deep understanding of the case and its context, which can be valuable in exploring complex phenomena.
• Flexibility: Case study research is flexible in terms of design , data collection , and analysis . A sufficient degree of flexibility allows the researcher to adapt the study according to the case and the emerging findings.
• Real-world context: Case study research involves studying the case in its real-world context, which can provide valuable insights into the interplay between the case and its context.
• Multiple sources of evidence: Case study research often involves collecting data from multiple sources , which can enhance the robustness and validity of the findings.

On the other hand, researchers should consider the following limitations:

• Generalizability: A common criticism of case study research is that its findings might not be generalizable to other cases due to the specificity and uniqueness of each case.
• Time and resource intensive: Case study research can be time and resource intensive due to the depth of the investigation and the amount of collected data.
• Complexity of analysis: The rich, detailed data generated in case study research can make analyzing the data challenging.
• Subjectivity: Given the nature of case study research, there may be a higher degree of subjectivity in interpreting the data , so researchers need to reflect on this and transparently convey to audiences how the research was conducted.

Being aware of these strengths and limitations can help researchers design and conduct case study research effectively and interpret and report the findings appropriately.

Ready to analyze your data with ATLAS.ti?

See how our intuitive software can draw key insights from your data with a free trial today.

6 Chapter 6: Qualitative Research in Criminal Justice

Case study: exploring the culture of “urban scrounging” 1.

Research Purpose

To describe the culture of urban scrounging, or dumpster diving, and the items that can be found in dumpsters and trash piles.

Methodology

This field study, conducted by Dr. Jeff Ferrell, currently a professor of sociology at Texas Christian University, began in 2002. In December of 2001, after resigning from an academic position in Arizona, Ferrell returned home to Fort Worth, Texas. An avid proponent for and participant in field research throughout his career, he decided to use the next eight months, prior to the 2002 academic year beginning, to explore a culture in which he had always been interested, the urban underground of “scrounging, recycling, and secondhand living” (p. 1). Using the neighborhoods of central Fort Worth as a backdrop, Ferrell embarked, often on his bicycle, into the fife of a dumpster diver. While he was not completely homeless at the time, he did his best to fully embrace the lifestyle of an urban scrounger and survive on what he found. For this study, Ferrell was not only learning how to survive off of the discarded possessions of others, he was systematically recording and describing the contents of the dumpsters and trash piles he found and kept. While in the field, Ferrell was also exploring scrounging as a means of economic survival and the social aspects of this underground existence. A broader theme of Ferrell’s research emerged as he encountered the number and vast array of items he found discarded in trash piles and dumpsters. This theme concerns the “hyperconsumption” and “collective wastefulness” (pp. 5–6) by American citizens and the environmental destruction created by the accumulating and discarding of so many material goods.

Results and Implications

Ferrell’s time spent among the trash piles and dumpsters of Fort Worth resulted in a variety of intriguing yet disturbing realizations regarding not only material excess but also social and personal change. While encounters with others were kept to a minimum, as they generally are for scroungers, Ferrell describes some of the people he met along the way and their conversations. Whether food, clothes, building materials, or scrap metal, the commonality was that scroungers could usually find what they were looking for among the trash heaps and alleyways. Throughout his book, Ferrell often focuses on the material items that he discovered while scrounging. He found so much, he was able to fill and decorate a home with perfectly good items that had been discarded by others, including the bicycle he now rides and a turquoise sink and bathtub. He found books and even old photographs and other mementos meant to document personal history. While discarded, these social artifacts tell the stories of society and often have the chance to find altered meaning when possessed by someone new.

Beyond the things found and people met, Ferrell discusses the boundary shift that has taken urban scrounging from deviant to criminal as lines are often blurred between public access and ownership. Not only do these urban scroungers face the stigma associated with their scrounging activities, those who dive in dumpsters and dig through trash piles can face criminal charges for trespassing. While this makes scrounging more challenging, due to basic survival or interest, the wealth of items and artifacts to be found are often worth the risk. Ultimately, Ferrell’s experiences as an urban scrounger provide not only a description of this subculture but also a critique on American consumption and wastefulness, a theme that becomes more important as Americans and others continue in economically tenuous times.

In This Chapter You Will Learn

To explain what it means for research to be qualitative

To describe the advantages of field research

To explain the challenges of field studies for researchers

To provide examples of field research in the social sciences

To discuss the case study approach

Introduction

In Chapter 2, you read about the differences between quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Whereas methods that are quantitative in nature focus on numerical measurements of phenomena, qualitative methods are focused on developing a deeper understanding regarding groups of people, or subcultures, about which little is known. Using detailed description, findings from qualitative research are generally more sensitizing, providing the research community and the interested public information about these generally elusive groups and their behaviors. A debate rages between criminologists as to which type of research should be achieved and referenced more often. The truth is that both have something valuable to offer regarding the study of deviance, crime, and victimization.

Field Research

Qualitative methodologies involve the use of field research, where researchers are out among these groups collecting information rather than studying participant behavior through surveys or experiments that have been developed in artificial settings. Field research provides some of the most fascinating reading because the researcher is observing closely or acting as part of the group and is therefore able to describe in depth not only the subjects’ behaviors, but also consider the motivations that drive their behaviors. This chapter focuses on the use of qualitative methods in the social sciences, particularly the use of participant observation to study deviant, and sometimes criminal, behaviors. The many challenges as well as advantages of conducting this type of research will be discussed as will well-known examples of past field research and suggestions for conducting this type of research. First, however, it is important to understand what sets qualitative field research apart from the other methodologies discussed in this text.

The Study of Behavior

It is common for criminal justice researchers to rely on survey or interview methodologies to collect data. One advantage of doing so is being able to collect data from many respondents in a short period of time. Technology has created other advantages with survey methodology. For example, Internet surveys are a convenient, quick, and inexpensive way to reach respondents who may or may not reside nearby. Researchers often survey community residents and university students, but may also focus specifically on offender or victim samples. One significant limitation of using survey methodologies is that they rely on the truthfulness of the respondents. If researchers are interested in attitudes and behaviors that may be illegal or otherwise controversial, it could be that respondents will not be truthful in answering the questions placed before them. Survey research has focused on past or current drug use (see the Monitoring the Future Program), past victimization experiences (see the National Criminal Victimization Survey), and prison sexual assault victimization (see the Prison Rape Elimination Act data collection procedures conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics), just to name a few. If a student uses marijuana but does not want anyone to know, they may choose to falsify their survey responses when asked about marijuana use. If a citizen or prison inmate has been sexually assaulted but is too ashamed or afraid to tell anyone, they may be untruthful when asked about such victimization experiences on a survey. The point is, although researchers attempt to better understand the attitudes and behaviors of a certain population through the use of surveys, there is one major drawback to consider: the disjunction between what people say and what they actually do. As mentioned previously, a student may be a drug user but not admit to it. Someone may be a gang member, but say they are not when asked directly about it. Someone may respond that they have never committed a crime or been victimized when in fact they have. In short, people sometimes lie and there are many potential reasons for doing so. Perhaps the offender or drug user has not yet been caught and does not want to be caught. Whatever the reason, this is a hazard of measuring attitudes and behaviors through the use of surveys. One way to overcome the issue of untruthfulness is to conduct research using various forms of actual participation or observation of the behaviors we want to study. By observing someone in their natural environment (or, “the field”), researchers have the ability to observe behaviors firsthand, rather than relying on survey responses. These research strategies are generally known as participant observation methods.

Types of Field Research: A Continuum

Participant observation strategies involve researchers studying groups or individuals in their natural setting. Think of participant observation as a student internship. Students may read about law enforcement in their textbooks and discuss law enforcement issues in class, but only through an internship with a law enforcement agency will a student have a chance to understand how things actually happen from firsthand observation. Field strategies were first developed for social science, and particularly crime, research in the 1920s by researchers working within the University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology. The “Chicago School,” as this group of researchers is commonly known, focused on ethnographic research to study urban crime problems. Emerging from the field of anthropology, ethnographic research relies on field research methodologies to scientifically examine human culture in the natural environment. Significant theoretical developments within the field of criminology, such as social disorganization, which focused on the impact of culture and environment, were advanced at this time. For example, researchers such as Shaw and McKay, Thrasher, and others used field research to study the activities of subcultures, particularly youth gangs, as well as areas of the city that were most impacted by crime. These researchers were not interested in studying these problems from afar. Instead, they were interested in understanding social problems, including the impact of environmental disintegration, from the field.

There are various ways to conduct field research, and these can be placed on a continuum from most to least invasive and also from more qualitative to more quantitative. In attempting to understand phenomena from the standpoint of the actors, a researcher may participate fully in the behaviors of the group or may instead choose to observe from afar as activities unfold. The most invasive, and also most qualitative, form of participant observation is complete participation. The least invasive, and also most quantitative, is complete observation. In between these two are participant as observer and observer as participant. Each of these strategies will now be discussed in more detail.

Complete participation, sometimes referred to as disguised observation, is a method that involves the researcher becoming a full-fledged member of a particular group. For example, if a researcher is interested in understanding the culture of correctional officers, she may apply to be hired on as a correctional officer. Once hired on, the researcher will wear the uniform and obtain firsthand experience working in a prison environment. To study urban gangs, a researcher may attempt to be accepted as a member or associate of the gang. In complete participation, the true identity of the researcher is not known to the members of the group. Therefore, they are ultimately just like any other member of the group under study. Not only will the researcher have the ability to observe the group from the inside, he can also manipulate the direction of group activity through participation or through the use of confederates. This method is considered the most qualitative because, as a complete participant, the researcher will be fully sensitized to what it is like to be a member of the group under study, and will fully participate in the group’s activities. The researcher can then share the information he has gathered on the group’s inner workings, motivations, and activities from the perspective of a group member.

Researchers utilizing the participant as observer method will also participate in the activities of the group under study. The difference between the complete participant strategy and participant as observer strategy is that in the participant as observer method, the researcher reveals herself as a researcher to the group. Her presence as a researcher is known. Accordingly, the researcher does not overtly attempt to influence the direction of group activity. While she does participate, the researcher is more interested in observing the group’s activity and corresponding behaviors as they occur naturally. So, if a researcher wanted to examine life as a homeless person, she might go to where a group of homeless persons congregate. The researcher would introduce herself as such but, if safe, stay one or many days and nights out with the homeless she meets in order to conduct observations and participate in group activities.

The third participant observation strategy is observer as participant. As with the participant as observer method, researchers using the observer as participant method reveal themselves to the group as a researcher. Here again, their presence as a researcher is known. What makes this strategy different from the first two is that the researcher does not participate in the group’s activities. While he may interact with the participants, he does not participate. Instead, the researcher is there only to observe. An example of this method would be a researcher who conducts “ride-alongs” in order to study law enforcement behavior during traffic stops. The researcher will interact with the officers, but he will not participate or even exit the car during the traffic stops being observed.

The least invasive participant observation strategy is complete observation. As you will learn in Chapter 7, this is a totally unobtrusive method; the research subjects are not aware that they are being observed for purposes of research. Think of a law enforcement officer being on a stakeout. These officers generally sit in unmarked vehicles down the street as they observe the movements and activities of a certain person or group of people. Researchers who are complete observers work much the same way. While being the least invasive, complete observation is also the least qualitative. Studying an individual or group from afar means that there is no interaction with that individual. Without this interaction, researchers are unable to gain a more sensitized understanding of the motivations of the group. This strategy is considered to be more quantitative because researchers must rely on counts of activities or movements. For example, if you are a researcher interested in studying how many drivers run a stop sign on campus, you may sit near the intersection and observe driver behavior. In collecting the data, you will count how many drivers make a complete stop, how many come to a rolling stop, and how many run the stop sign altogether. Now, although you may have these counts, you will not know why drivers stopped or not. It could be that one driver had a sick passenger who he was rushing to the hospital and that is why he did not come to a complete stop. As with most quantitative research, as a complete observer, questions of “why?” often go unanswered.

FIGURE 6.1 | Differences among Participant Observation Methods

Advantages and Disadvantages of Field Research by Method

As with any particular research method, there are advantages and disadvantages to conducting field research. Some of these are specific to the type of field research a researcher decides to conduct. One general advantage to participant observation methods is that researchers are able to study “hard to reach” populations. A disadvantage is that these groups may be difficult to study for a number of reasons. It could be that the group is criminal in nature, such as a youth gang, a biker gang, or the Mafia. While perhaps not criminal, the individual or group may be involved in deviant behaviors that they are unwilling to discuss even with people they know. An additional disadvantage is that there could be administrative roadblocks to conducting such research. If a researcher wants to understand the correctional officer culture but the prison will not allow the researcher to conduct the study, she may have to get hired on and conduct the research as a full participant. Examples of research involving each of these situations will be discussed later in this chapter.

Another challenge for field researchers is the ability to maintain objectivity. In Chapter 2, the importance of objectivity for scientific research was discussed. If data gathered is subjective or biased in some way, research findings will be impacted by this subjectivity and will therefore not be reflective of reality. While objectivity would be easier to maintain from afar, the closer a researcher becomes to a group and its members, the easier it may be to lose objectivity. This is true particularly for complete participants. For researchers who participate as members of the group under study, it may become difficult not to begin to identify with the group. When this occurs, and the researcher loses sight of the research goals in favor of group membership, it is called “ going native. ” This is a hazard of field research in which the researcher spends a significant amount of time, perhaps years, within a group. The researcher may begin to see things from the group’s perspective and therefore not be able to objectively complete the intended study. To balance this possible hazard of complete participation is the advantage of not having reactivity. Because the research subjects do not know they are being observed, they will not act any differently than they would under normal circumstances. Researchers therefore avoid the Hawthorne Effect when conducting field research as a complete participant.

There is the possibility that a researcher who incorporates the participant as observer strategy may also go native. Although his presence as a researcher is known, he is interacting with the group and participating in group activities. Therefore, it is possible he may begin to lose objectivity due to an attachment to or identification with the group under study. Whereas complete participants can avoid the Hawthorne Effect, participants as observers do not have this luxury. Even though these researchers may be participating in group activities, because their presence as a researcher is known, it can be expected that the group may in some way alter their behavior because they are being observed. An additional disadvantage to this strategy is that it may take time for a researcher to be accepted by group members who are aware of the researcher’s presence. If certain group members are uncomfortable with the researcher’s presence, they may make it difficult for the researcher to interact with other members or join in group activities.

Researchers on the observing end of the participant observation continuum face some similar and some unique challenges. Those who conduct observer as participant field studies will also face reactivity, or the Hawthorne Effect, because their presence as a researcher is known to the group under study. As in the ride-along example discussed previously, if a patrol officer knows she is being observed, she may alter her behavior in such a way that the researcher is not observing a realistic traffic stop. Additionally, these researchers may face difficulties gaining access or being accepted into the group under study, especially since they are there only to observe and not to participate with the group. In this case, the researcher may be ostracized even further by the group because she is not acting as one of them.

Researchers acting as complete observers to gather data on an individual or group are not limited by reactivity. Because the research subjects are unaware they are being observed, the Hawthorne Effect will not impact study findings. The advantage is that this method is totally unobtrusive, or noninvasive. The main disadvantage here is that the researcher is too far away to truly understand the group and their behaviors. As mentioned previously, at this point, the research becomes quite quantitative because the researcher can only observe and count movements and interactions from afar. Lacking in context, these counts may not be as useful in understanding a group as findings would be from the use of another participant observation method.

Costs One of the more important factors to consider when determining whether field research is the best option is the demand such research may place on a researcher. If you remember from the opening case study, Ferrell spent months in the field to collect information on urban scrounging. Researchers may spend weeks, months, and even years participating with and/or observing study subjects. Due to this, they may experience financial, personal, and sometimes professional costs. Time away from family and friends can take a personal toll on researchers. If the researcher is funding his own research or otherwise not able to earn a salary while undergoing the field study, he may suffer financially. Finally, also due to time away and perhaps due to activities that may be considered unethical, fieldwork can have a negative impact on a researcher’s career. While these demands are very real, past researchers have found ways to successfully navigate the world of field research resulting in fascinating findings and ultimately coming out unscathed from the experience.

Gaining Access Gaining access to populations of interest is also a difficult task to accomplish as these populations are often small, clandestine groups who generally keep out of the public eye. Field research is unlike survey research in that there is not a readily available list of gang members or dumpster divers from which you can draw a random sample. Instead, researchers often rely on the snowball sampling technique. If you remember from Chapter 3, snowball sampling entails a researcher meeting one or a handful of group members and receiving introductions to other group members from the initial members. One member leads you to the next, who then leads you to the next.

When gathering information as an observer as participant, a researcher should be straightforward and announce her intentions to group members immediately. It may be best to give a detailed explanation of her presence and purpose to group leaders or other decision-makers. If this does not happen, when the group does find out a researcher is in their presence, they may feel the researcher was trying to hide something. If the identity of the researcher is known, it is important that the researcher be a researcher, and that she not pretend to be one of the group, as this may also cause problems. It may be disconcerting to group members if an outsider thinks she is closer to the group than members are willing to allow her to be.

While complete participant researchers may be introduced to one or more members, this does not mean that they will be readily accepted as part of the group. This is true even if they are acting as full participants. There are some things researchers can do to increase their chances of being accepted. First, researchers should learn the argot, or language, of the group under study. Study subjects may have a particular way of speaking to one another through the use of slang or other vernacular. If a researcher is familiar with this argot and is able to use it convincingly, he will seem less of an outsider. It is also important to time your approach. A researcher should be aware, as much as possible, about what is happening in the group before gaining access. If a researcher is studying drug dealers and there was just a big drug bust or if a researcher is studying gangs and there was recently a fight between two gangs, it may not be the best time to gain access as members of these groups may be immediately suspicious of people they do not know.

Researchers often must find a gatekeeper in order to join a group. Gatekeepers are those individuals who may or may not know about the researcher’s true identity, who will vouch for the researcher among the other group members and who will inform the researcher about group norms, territory, and the like. Gatekeepers may lobby to have a researcher become a part of the group or to be allowed access to the place where the group gathers. While this is helpful for the researcher, it can be dangerous for the gatekeeper, especially if something goes wrong. If the researcher is attempting to be a full participant but her identity as a researcher is exposed, the gatekeeper may be held responsible for allowing the researcher in. This may be the case even if the gatekeeper was not aware of the researcher’s true identity. If a researcher does not want to enter the group himself, he may find an indigenous observer, or a member of the group who is willing to collect information for him. The researcher may pay or otherwise remunerate this person for her efforts as she will be able to see and hear what the researcher could not. A similar problem may arise, however, if this person is caught. There may be negative consequences to pay if it is found out that she is revealing information about the group. Additionally, the researcher must be careful when analyzing the information provided as it may not be objective, or may not even be factual at all.

Maintaining Objectivity Once a researcher gains access, there is another issue she must face. This is the difficulty of remaining an outsider while becoming an insider. In short, the researcher must guard against going native. Objectivity is necessary for research to be scientific. If a researcher becomes too familiar with the group, she may lose objectivity and may even be able to identify with and/or empathize with the group under study. If this occurs, the research findings will be biased and not an objective reflection of the group, what drives the group, and the activities in which the group members participate. For these reasons, it is not suggested that a researcher conduct field research among a group of which he is a member. If a researcher has been a member of a social organization for many years and is friends, or at least acquaintances, with many of the members, it would be very difficult for her to objectively study the group. The researcher may consider the group and the group’s activities as normal and therefore miss out on interesting relationships and behaviors. This is also why external researchers are often brought in to evaluate agency programs. If employees of that program are tasked with evaluating it, they may—consciously or not—design the study in such a way that findings are sure to be positive. This may be because they feel that a negative evaluation will mean an end to the program and ultimately an end to their jobs. Having such a stake in the findings of research is sure to impact the objectivity of the person tasked with conducting the study. While bringing in external researchers may ensure objectivity, these researchers face their own challenges. Trulson, Marquart, and Mullings 3 offer some tips for breaking in to criminal justice agencies, specifically prisons, as an external researcher. The first two tips pertain to obtaining access through the use of a gatekeeper. The third tip focuses on the development and cultivation of relationships within the agency in order to maintain access. The remaining tips describe how a researcher can make a graceful exit once the research project is completed while still maintaining those relationships, as well as building new ones, for potential future research endeavors.

❑ Tip #1: Get a Contact

❑ Tip #2: Establish Yourself and Your Research

❑ Tip #3: Little Things Count

❑ Tip #4: Make Sense of Agency Data by Keeping Contact

❑ Tip #5: Deliver Competent Readable Reports on Time

❑ Tip #6: Request to Debrief the Agency

❑ Tip#7: Thank Everyone

❑ Tip #8: Deal with Adversity by Planning Ahead

❑ Tip #9: Inform the Agency of Data Use

❑ Tip #10: Maintain Trust by Staying in for the Long Haul (pp. 477–478)

CLASSICS IN CJ RESEARCH

Youth Violence and the Code of the Street

Research Study

Based on his ethnography of African American youth living in poor, inner-city neighborhoods, Elijah Anderson 2 developed a comprehensive theory regarding youth violence and the “code of the street.” Anderson explains that, stemming from a lack of resources, distrust in law enforcement, and an overall lack of hope, aggressive behavior is condoned by the informal street code as a way to resolve conflict and earn respect. Anderson’s detailed description and analysis of this street culture provided much needed awareness regarding the context of African American youth violence. Like other research discussed in this chapter, these populations could not be sent an Internet survey or be surveyed in a classroom. The only way for Anderson to gain this knowledge was to go out to the streets and observe and interact with the youth himself. To do this, he conducted four years of field research in both the inner city and the more suburban areas of Philadelphia. During this time, he conducted lengthy interviews with youth and acted as a direct observer of their activities. Anderson’s research is touted for bringing attention to and understanding of inner-city life. Not only does he describe the “code of the street,” but, in doing so, he provides answers to the problem of urban youth violence.

Documenting the Experience Researchers must also decide how best to document their experiences for later analysis. There is a Chinese Proverb that states, “the palest ink is better than the best memory.” Applied here, researchers are encouraged to document as much as they can, as giving a detailed account of things that have occurred from memory is difficult. When taking notes, it is important for researchers to be as specific as possible when describing individuals and their behaviors. It is also important for researchers not to ignore behaviors that may seem trivial at the time, as these may actually signify something much more meaningful.

Particularly as a complete participant, researchers are not going to have the ability to readily pull out their note pad and begin taking notes on things they have seen and heard. Even careful note taking can be dangerous for a researcher who is trying to hide his identity. If a researcher is found to be documenting what is happening within the group, this may breed distrust and group members may become suspicious of the researcher. This suspicion may cause the group members to act unnaturally around the researcher. Even if research subjects are aware of the researcher’s identity, having someone taking notes while they are having a casual conversation can be disconcerting. This may make subjects nervous and unwilling to participate in group activities while the researcher is present. Luckily, with the advance of technology, documentation does not have to include a pen and a piece of paper. Instead, researchers may opt for audio and/or visual recording devices. In one-party consent states, it is legal for one person to record a conversation they are having with another. Not all states are one-party consent states, however, so researchers must be careful not to break any laws with their plan for documentation.

WHAT RESEARCH SHOWS: IMPACTING CRIMINAL JUSTICE OPERATIONS

Application of Field Research Methods in Undercover Investigations

Participant observation research not only informs criminal justice operations, but police and other investigative agencies use these methods as well. Think about an undercover investigation. While the purpose of going undercover for a law enforcement officer is to collect evidence against a suspect, the officer’s methods mirror those of an academic researcher who joins a group as a full participant. In the 1970s, FBI agent Joe Pistone 4 went undercover to obtain information about the Bonnano family, one of the major Sicilian organized crime families in New York at the time. Assuming the identity of Donnie Brasco, the jewel thief, Pistone infiltrated the Bonnano family for six years. Using many of the techniques discussed here—learning the argot and social mores of the group, finding a gatekeeper, documenting evidence through the use of recording devices—by the early 1980s, Pistone provided the FBI with enough evidence to put over 100 Mafioso in prison for the remainder of their lives. Many of you may recognize his alias, as Pistone’s experiences as an undercover agent were brought to the big screen with the release of Donnie Brasco, starring Johnny Depp. Depp’s portrayal of Pistone showed not only his undercover persona but also the difficulties he had maintaining relationships with his loved ones. Now, more than 30 years later, people are still interested in Pistone’s experiences as Brasco. As recently as 2005, the National Geographic Channel premiered Inside the Mafia, a series focused on Pistone’s experiences as Brasco. While this is a more well-known example of an undercover operation, undercover work goes on all the time. Whether making drug busts, infiltrating gangs or other trafficking organizations, or conducting a sting operation on one of their own, investigators employ many of the same techniques as field researchers rely upon.

Ethical Dilemmas for Field Researchers

As you can tell, field research poses unique complications for researchers to consider prior to and while conducting their studies. Ethical issues posed by field research, particularly field research in which the researcher’s identity is not known to research subjects, include the use of deception, privacy invasion, and the lack of consent. How can a researcher obtain informed consent from research subjects if she doesn’t want anyone to know research is taking place? Is it ethical to include someone in a research study without his or her permission? When the first guidelines for human subjects research were handed down, they caused a huge roadblock for field researchers. Later, however, it was determined that social science poses less risk to human subjects, particularly those being observed in their natural setting. Because it was recognized that the risk for harm was significantly less, field researchers were allowed to conduct their studies without conditions involving informed consent. The debate remains, however, as to whether it is truly ethical to conduct research on individuals without them knowing. A related issue is confidentiality and anonymity. If researchers are living among study subjects, anonymity is impossible. One way field researchers protect their subjects in this regard is through the use of pseudonyms. A pseudonym is a false name given to someone whose identity needs to be kept secret. In writing up their study findings, researchers will use pseudonyms instead of the actual names of study subjects.

Beyond the ethical nature of the research itself, field studies may introduce other ethical dilemmas for the researcher. For example, what if the researcher, as a participating member of a group, is asked to participate in an illegal activity? This may be a nonviolent activity like vandalism or graffiti, or it may be an activity that is more sinister in nature. Researchers, as full participants, have to decide whether they would be willing to commit the crime in question. After all, if caught and arrests are made, “I was just doing research,” will not be a justification the researcher will be able to use for his participation. Even if not a full participant, a researcher may observe some activity that is unlawful. The researcher will then have to decide whether to report this activity or to keep quiet about it. If a researcher is called to testify, there could be consequences for not cooperating. Depending on what kind of group is being studied, these dilemmas may occur more or less frequently. It is important that researchers understand prior to entering the field that they may have to make difficult decisions that like the research itself, could have great costs to them personally and professionally.

RESEARCH IN THE NEWS

Field Research Hits Prime Time

In 2009, CBS aired a new reality television series, Undercover Boss, 5 in which corporate executives go “undercover” to experience life as an employee of their company. Fully disguised, the executives are quickly thrown into the day-to-day operations of their workplaces. From the co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, to the CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line, to the mayor of Cincinnati, these executives conduct field research on camera to gain a better understanding of how their company, or city administration, runs from the bottom up. Often, they find hard-working, talented employees who are deserving of recognition, which is given as the episode comes to a close and the executive reveals himself and his undercover activities to his employees. Other times, they find employees that are not so good for business. Ultimately, the experience provides these executives with awareness they did not have prior to going undercover, and they hope to be able to utilize this knowledge to position their workplaces for continued success. Not only has this show benefited the companies and other workplaces profiled, with millions of viewers each week, it has certainly brought the adventures of field research into prime time.

Examples of Field Research in Criminal Justice

If you recall from Chapter 2, Humphreys’ Tea Room Trade is an example of field research. Humphreys participated to an extent, acting as a “watchqueen” so that he could observe the sexual activities taking place in public restrooms and other public places. Another study exploring clandestine sexual activity was conducted by Styles. 6 Styles was interested in the use of gay baths, places where men seeking to have sexual relationships with other men could have relatively private encounters. While Styles was a gay man attempting to study other gay men, at the outset his intention was to be a nonparticipant observer. Having a friend vouch for him, he easily gained access into the bath and began figuring out how to best observe the scene. After observing and conducting a few interviews, Styles was approached by another man for sexual activity. Although he was resolved to only observe, this time he gave in. From this point on, he began attending another bath and collecting information as a complete participant. Styles’ writing is informative, not only for the description regarding this group’s activity, but also for the discussion he provides about his travels through the world of field research, beginning as an observer and ending as a complete participant. His writing on insider versus outsider research resulted in four main reflections for readers to consider:

There are no privileged positions of knowledge when it comes to scrutinizing human group life;

All research is conditioned by value biases and factual preconceptions about the group being studied;

Fieldwork is a process of building up images from one’s biases, preconceptions, and new information, testing these images against one’s observations and the reports of informants, and accepting, modifying, or discarding these images on the basis of what one observes and what one has been told; and

Insider and outsider researchers will differ in the ways they go about building and testing their images of the group they study. (pp. 148–150)

Reviewing the literature, one finds that field researchers often choose sexual deviance as a topic for their field studies. Tewksbury and colleagues have researched gender differences in sex shop patrons 7 and places where men have been found to have anonymous sexual encounters 8 such as sex shop theaters. 9 Another interesting field study was conducted by Ronai and Ellis. 10 For this study, Ronai acted as a complete participant, drawing from her past as a table dancer and also gaining access as an exotic dancer in a Florida strip bar for the purpose of her master’s thesis research. Building on Ronai’s experiences and her interviews with fellow dancers, the researchers examined the interactional strategies used by dancers, both on the stage and on the floor, to ensure a night where the dancers were well paid for their services. In conducting these studies, these researchers were able to expose places where many are either unwilling or afraid to go, or perhaps afraid to admit they go.

In their study of women who belong to outlaw motorcycle gangs, Hopper and Moore 11 used participant observation methods as well as interviews to better understand the biker culture and where women fit into this culture. Moore provided access, as he was once a member and president of Satan’s Dead, an outlaw biker club in Mississippi. Like Styles, Hopper and Moore discuss the challenges of conducting research among the outlaw biker population. Having to observe quietly while bikers committed acts opposite to their personal values and not being able to ask many questions or give uninvited comments were just some of the hurdles the researchers had to overcome in order to conduct their study. The male bikers were, at the least, distrustful of the researchers, and the women bikers even more so. While these challenges existed, Hopper and Moore were able to ascertain quite a bit about the female experience as relates to their role in or among the outlaw biker culture.

Ferrell has been one of the most active field researchers of our time. He is considered a founder and remains a steadfast proponent of cultural criminology, 12 a subfield of criminology that examines the intersections of cultural activities and crime. Not only did he conduct the ethnography on urban scrounging discussed at the beginning of this chapter, he has spent more than a decade in the field studying subcultural groups who defy social norms. Crossing the United States, and the globe, Ferrell has explored the social and political motivations of urban graffiti artists, 13 anarchist bicycle group activists, and outlaw radio operators, 14 just to name a few. The research conducted by Ferrell, and others discussed here, has been described as edgework, or radical ethnography. This means that, as researchers, Ferrell and others have gone to the “edge,” or the extreme, to collect information on subjects of interest. Ferrell and Hamm 15 have put together a collection of readings based on edgework, as have Miller and Tewksbury. 16 While dangerous and wrought with ethical challenges, their research has shed light on societal groups who, whether by choice or not, often reside in the shadows.

Although ethnographers have spent years studying criminal and other deviant activities, field research has not been limited to those groups. Other researchers have sought to explore what it’s like to work in criminal justice from the inside. In the 1960s, Skolnick 17 conducted field research among police officers to better understand how elements of their occupation impacted their views and behaviors. He wrote extensively about the “working personality” of police officers as shaped by their occupational environment, including the danger and alienation they face from those they are sworn to protect, and the solidarity that builds from shared experiences. Beyond law enforcement, there have also been a variety of studies focused on the prison environment. When Ted Conover, 18 a journalist interested in writing from the correctional officer perspective, was denied permission from the New York Department of Correctional Services to do a report on correctional life, he instead applied and was hired on as an actual correctional officer. In Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, Conover offers a compelling account of his journalistic field research, which resulted in a one-year stint as a corrections officer. From his time in training until his last days working in the galleries, Conover’s experiences provide the reader a look into the challenges faced by correctional officers, stemming not only from the inmates but the correctional staff as well.

Prior to Conover’s writing, Marquart was also interested in correctional work and strategies utilized by prison guards to ensure control over the inmate population. Specifically, in the 1980s, Marquart 19 examined correctional officials’ use of physical coercion and Marquart and Crouch 20 explored their use of inmate leaders as social control mechanisms. In order to conduct this field study, Marquart, with the warden’s permission, entered a prison unit in Texas and proceeded to work as a guard from June 1981 until January 1983. He was able to work in various posts within the institution so that he could observe how prison guards interacted with inmates. Marquart not only observed the prison’s daily routine, he examined institutional records, conducted interviews, and also developed close relationships with 20 prison guards and inmate leaders, or building tenders, whom he relied on for their insider knowledge of prison life and inmate control. Based on his fieldwork, Marquait shared his findings regarding the intimidation and physical coercion used by prison guards to discipline inmates. This fieldwork also provided a fascinating look into the building tender system that was utilized as a means of social control in the Texas prison system prior to that system being discontinued.

In the early 1990s, Schmid and Jones 21 used a unique strategy to study inmate adaptation from inside the prison walls. Jones, an offender serving a sentence in a prison located in the upper midwestern region of the United States, was given permission to enroll in a graduate sociology course focused on methods of research. This course was being offered by Schmid and led to collaborative work between the two men to study prison culture. They specifically focused on the experiences of first-time, short-term inmates. With Jones acting as the complete participant and Schmid acting as the complete observer, the pair began their research covertly. While they were aware of Jones’s meeting with Schmid for purposes of the research methods course in which he was enrolled, correctional authorities and other inmates perceived Jones to be just another inmate. In the 10 months that followed, Jones kept detailed notes regarding his daily experiences and his personal thoughts about and observations of prison life. Also included in his notes was information about his participation in prison activities and his communications with other similar, first-time, short-term inmates. Once his field notes were prepared, Jones would mail them to Schmid for review. Over the course of these letters, phone calls, and intermittent meetings, new observation strategies and themes began to develop based on the observations made by Jones. Upon his release from prison and their analyzing of the initial data, Jones and Schmid reentered the prison to conduct informed interviews with 20 first-time, short-term inmates. Using these data, Schmid and Jones began to write up their findings, which focused on inmate adaptations over time, identity transformations within the prison environment, 22 and conceptions of prison sexual assault, 23 among other topics. Schmid and Jones discussed how their roles as a complete observer and a complete participant allowed them the advantage of balancing scientific objectivity and intimacy with the group under study. The unfettered access Jones had to other inmates within the prison environment as a complete participant added to the unusual nature of this study yielding valuable insight into the prison experience for this particular subset of inmates.

Case Studies

Beyond field research, case studies provide an additional means of qualitative data. While more often conducted by researchers in other disciplines, such as psychology, or by journalists, criminologists also have a rich history of case study research. In conducting case studies, researchers use in-depth interviews and oral/life history, or autobiographical, approaches to thoroughly examine one or a few illustrative cases. This method often allows individuals, particularly offenders, to tell their own story, and information from these stories, or case studies, may then be extrapolated to the larger group. The advantage is a firsthand, descriptive account of a way of life that is little understood. Disadvantages relate to the ability to generalize from what may be an atypical case and also the bias that may enter as a researcher develops a working relationship with their subject. Most examples of case studies involving criminological subjects were conducted more than 20 years ago, which may be due to criminologists’ general inclination toward more quantitative research during this time period.

The earliest case studies focused on crime topics were conducted in the 1930s. Not only was the Chicago School interested in ethnographic research, these researchers were also among the first to conduct case studies on individuals involved in criminal activities. Shaw’s The Jack Roller (1930) 24 and Sutherland’s The Professional Thief (1937) 25 are not only the oldest but also the most well-known case studies related to delinquent and criminal figures. Focused on environmental influences on behavior, Shaw profiled an inner city delinquent male, “Stanley” the “jack roller,” who explained why he was involved in delinquent behavior, specifically the crime of mugging intoxicated men. Fifty years later, Snodgrass 26 updated Shaw’s work, following up with an elderly “Stanley” at age 70. Sutherland’s case study, resulting in the publication of The Professional Thief, was based on “Chic Conwell’s” account of his personal life and professional experience surviving off of what could be stolen or conned from others. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed numerous publications based on case studies. Researchers examined organized crime figures and families, 27 heroin addicts, 28 thieves, 29 and those who fence stolen property. 30 As with participant observation research, case studies have not been relegated to offenders only. In fact, more recently the case study approach has been applied to law enforcement and correctional agencies. 33 These studies have examined activities of the New York City Police Department, 34 the New Orleans Police Department’s response in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, 35 and Rhode Island’s prison system. 36

As with field research, the case study approach can provide a deeper understanding of individuals or groups of individuals, such as crime families, who live outside of the mainstream. Case studies inform us about the motivations for why individuals or groups behave the way they do and how those experiences or activities were either beneficial or detrimental for them. The same goes for agency research. One department or agency can learn from the experiences of another department or agency. With more recent research utilizing the case study approach, it could be that this methodology will be seen more often in the criminal justice literature.

Making Critical Choices as a Field Researcher

In conducting field studies, researchers often must make decisions that impact the viability of their research. Sometimes, researchers don’t make the best choices. In the 1990s, Dr. Ansley Hamid was an esteemed anthropologist, well-known for his field research focused on the drug subculture. 31 Based on his previous success as a researcher documenting the more significant trends in drug use and addiction, he, through his position as a university professor, was awarded a multimillion-dollar federal research grant to examine heroin use on the streets of New York. It was not long after the grant was awarded, however, that Hamid was accused of misusing the funds provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, even going so far as to use the funds to purchase heroin for his own use and the use of his research subjects. While the criminal charges were eventually dismissed, Hamid paid the ultimate professional price for his behavior, particularly his use of the drug, which was documented in his handwritten field notes. 32 As of 2003, the professor was no longer connected to John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. In fact, Hamid is no longer working in higher education at all due to the accusations and accompanying negative publicity. Instead, he owns a candle shop in a small Brooklyn neighborhood. He does not plan to stop researching and writing though. His book, Ganja Complex: Rastafari and Marijuana, was published in 2002. This case is a prime example of what can happen when researchers cross the boundary of objectivity. Hamid’s brief experience in the shoes of a heroin user led to his ultimate downfall as an objective and respected researcher.

Chapter Summary

Qualitative research strategies allow researchers to enter into groups and places that are often considered off limits to the general public. The methods and studies discussed here provide excellent examples of the use of field research to discover motivations for the development and patterns of behavior within these groups. These qualitative endeavors offer a unique look into the lives of those who may live or work on the fringes of modern society. As it would be nearly impossible to conduct research on these groups using methods such as experiments, surveys, and formal interviews, participant observation techniques extend the ability of researchers to study activities beyond the norm by participating with and observing subjects in their natural environment and later describing in detail their experiences in the field.

Critical Thinking Questions

1. What are the advantages to using a more qualitative research method?

2. Compare and contrast the four different participant observation strategies.

3. What must a researcher consider before conducting field research?

4. What did Styles learn about conducting research as an insider versus an outsider?

5. How has the case study approach been applied to criminal justice research?

case study: In-depth analysis of one or a few illustrative cases

complete observation: A participant observation method that involves the researcher observing an individual or group from afar

complete participation: A participant observation method that involves the researcher becoming a full-fledged member of a particular group; sometimes referred to as disguised observation

confederates: Individuals, who are part of the research team, used to speed up the events of interest when observations are being made

edgework: This refers to researchers going to the “edge,” or the extreme, to collect information on subjects of interest

ethnographic research: Relies on field research methodologies to scientifically examine human culture in the natural environment

field research: Research that involves researchers studying individuals or groups of individuals in their natural environment

gatekeeper: A person within the group under study whom the researcher can use to learn about and access the group

going native: A challenge to field research in which the researcher loses her identity as a researcher and begins to identify more with her role as a member of the group under study

Hawthorne Effect: Based on a study of worker productivity, this term refers to changes in behavior caused by being observed

indigenous observer: A person within the group under study who is willing to collect information about the group for compensation

journalistic field research: Field research conducted by journalists and used to write books or articles about a certain topic of interest

observer as participant: A participant observation strategy in which the researcher is known to the group and is only there to observe

oral/life history: Methods used to conduct case studies; similar to an autobiographical account

participant as observer: A participant observation strategy in which the researcher will participate with the group but his identity as a researcher is known

participant observation strategies: First used for social science in the 1920s, these are research methodologies that involve participation and/or observation with the group under study; there are four such strategies

pseudonym: A false name given to someone whose identity needs to be kept secret

reactivity: The problem of having research subjects change their natural behavior in reaction to being observed or otherwise included in a research study

1 Ferrell, J. (2006). Empire of scrounge: Inside the urban underground of dumpster diving, trash picking, and street scavenging. New York: New York University Press.

2 Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

3 Trulson, C., J. Marquait, & J. Mullings. (2004). “Breaking in: Gaining entry to prisons and other hard-to-access criminal justice organizations.” Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 15(2), 451–478.

4 Lovgren, S. (2005, June 10). “FBI Agent ‘Donnie Brasco’ recalls life in the Mafia.” Retrieved March 7, 2012 from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/34063528 .html.

5 See series website, http://www.cbs.com/shows /undercover_boss/.

6 Styles, J. (1979). “Outsider/insider: Researching gay baths.” Urban Life, 8(2), 135–152.

7 McCleary, R., & R. Tewksbury. (2010). “Female patrons of porn.” Deviant Behavior, 31, 208–223.

8 Tewksbury, R. (2008). “Finding erotic oases: Locating the sites of men’s same-sex anonymous sexual encounters.” Journal of Homosexuality, 55(1), 1–19.

9 Douglas, B., & R. Tewksbury. (2008). “Theaters and sex: An examination of anonymous sexual encounters in an erotic oasis.” Deviant Behavior, 29(1), 1–17.

10 Ronai, C. R., & C. Ellis. (1989). “Turn-ons for money: Interactional strategies of the table dancer.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18, 271–298.

11 Hopper, C. B., & J. Moore. (1990). “Women in outlaw motorcycle gangs.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 18(4), 363–387.

12 Ferrell, J., & C. Sanders (Eds.). (1995). Cultural criminology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

13 Ferrell, J. (1996). Crimes of style: Urban graffiti and the politics of criminality. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

14 Ferrell, J. (2002). Tearing down the streets: Adventures in urban anarchy. New York: Palgrave Mcmillan.

15 Ferrell, J., & M. Hamm (Eds.). (1998). Ethnography at the edge: Crime, deviance, and field research. Boston: Northeastern University Press

16 Miller, J., & R. Tewksbury (Eds.). (2001). Extreme methods: Innovative approaches to social science research. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

17 Skolnick, J. (1966). Justice without trial: Law enforcement in a democratic society. New York: Wiley & Sons.

18 Conover, T. (2000). Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. New York: Random House, Inc.

19 Marquart, J. (1986). “Prison guards and the use of physical coercion as a mechanism of prisoner control.” Criminology, 24(2), 347–366.

20 Marquart, J. & B. Crouch. (1984). “Coopting the kept: Using inmates for social control in a southern prison.” Justice Quarterly, 1(4), 491–509.

21 Schmid, T. J., & R. S. Jones. (1993). “Ambivalent actions: Prison adaptation strategies of first-time, short-term inmates.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 21(4), 439–463.

22 Schmid, T. J., & R. S. Jones. (1991). “Suspended identity: Identity transformation in a maximum security prison.” Symbolic Interaction, 14, 415–432.

23 Jones, R. S., & T. J. Schmid. (1989). “Inmates’ conceptions of prison sexual assault.” Prison Journal, 69, 53–61.

24 Shaw, C. (1930). The jack-roller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

25 Sutherland, E. (1937). The professional thief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

26 Snodgrass, J. (1982). The jack-roller at seventy: A fifty year follow-up. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.

27 Abadinsky, H. (1983). The criminal elite: Professional and organized crime. Wesport, CT: Greenwood Press.; Anderson, A. (1979). The business of organized crime. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.; Ianni, F., & E. Reuss-Ianni. (1972). A family business: kinship and social control in organized crime. New York: Russell Sage.

28 Agar, M. (1973). Ripping and running: A formal ethnography of urban heroin users. New York: Seminar Press.; Rettig, R., M. Torres, & G. Garrett. (1977). Manny: A criminal addict ’ s story. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

29 Chambliss, W. (1972). Boxman: A professional thief ’ s journal, with Harry King. New York: Harper and Row.; King, H., & W. Chambliss. (1984). Harry King: A professional thief ’ s journal. New York: Wiley.

30 Klockars, C. (1974). The professional fence. New York: Free Press; Steffensmeier, D. (1986). The fence: In the shadow of two worlds. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.

31 Forero, J. (1999, November, 1). “Charges unravel drug-use scholar’s career.” The New York Times Archives. Retrieved March 7, 2012 from http://www.nytimes .com/1999/11/01/nyregion/charges-unravel-drug-use-scholar-s-career.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm.

32 Smallwood, S. (2002, October 25). “Crossing the line: A heroin researcher partakes and pays the price.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved March 7, 2012 from http://chronicle.com/article /Crossing-the-Line/2839.

33 Travis, L. III (1983). “The case study in criminal justice research: Applications to policy analysis.” Criminal Justice Review, 8, 46–51.

34 Eterno, J. (2003). Policing within the law: A case study of the New York City Police Department. Westport, CT: Praeger.

35 Wigginton, M. (2007). “The New Orleans police emergency response to Hurricane Katrina: A case study.” A Dissertation completed for the University of Southern Mississippi.

36 Carroll, L. (1998). Lawful order: A case study of correctional crisis and reform. New York: Garland.

Applied Research Methods in Criminal Justice and Criminology by University of North Texas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

• Utility Menu

GA4 Tracking Code

bok_logo_2-02_-_harvard_left.png

Crime, Justice, and the American Legal System: Case Study Preparation

Throughout the term students prepared three case studies in order to engage with information on the american legal system..

Up to two of the case studies could be replaced by multimedia projects.  The case studies were discussed in lectures and sections, and the multimedia projects are presented in the final lecture, allowing for students to regularly showcase their hard work. For both projects, students had to complete the course reading in order to propose a topic that engaged course scholarship and themes. 

There is a detailed handout describing how to create case studies.  In short, a case study examines a real life situation and includes three components:  (1) Part A--a detailed factual background section that raises (but does not resolve) several significant questions/dilemmas in the case; (2) Part B--a follow up factual section explaining what subsequently occurred and how the questions/dilemmas were actually addressed; and (3) Part C--a final analytical section contextualizing the case study in light of course themes and theories, while substantively engaging and citing course readings.  Multimedia projects are unstructured and open ended, but must be approved in advance by the course staff.  Examples are shown to students early in the term.

Prior to the first submission deadline, the instructor presented an earlier student case study in lecture so students understood the structure and pedagogical objectives of the case studies.  Part A was distributed to students to read in class (much as is done at the Business School, for example).  After reading Part A, students debated the dilemma presented and how they feel the protagonist should proceed.  Part B is then distributed in class and it describes what decision(s) the protagonist actually made and the ramifications of that/those decisions.  Students then discuss and debate what occurred, and how it connects to course theories and themes.  With respect to multimedia projects, many are video documentaries and are shown in class followed by a structured discussion by the course instructor.

With respect to case studies, students are given a word processing template so that all output is uniform (similar to case studies produced by the business, law and government professional schools).  Students often prepare the case studies with a combination of text, photos and graphs/charts.  Prior examples were both discussed in class and made available online for students to use as a reference.  For multimedia projects, most students created videos that incorporated person-to-person interviews with correctional officials, police officers, business owners, fellow students, community organizers, public defenders, etc--and these interviews were edited along with voice-overs and other video clips and still images to create compelling presentations.  Other students presented their multimedia presentations live, some utilizing powerpoints and even one student performing in class an anti-death penalty song (that she wrote) in the form of a traditional protest folk ballad.  Other students have created fictitious television programs and even a children's book harnessing course themes.  All multimedia projects must be accompanied by a short essay contextualizing the project, citing course scholarship and themes.

For case studies, students researched unique topics (students must write on different topics from one another), some of which are publicly known and others that are known only from the student's own personal experience.  Students must not only find compelling cases to analyze, but they must engage in the pedagogical exercise of finding a strong "dilemma" or "decision point" in the story that could be debatable in class.  This is more difficult than it appears, as the break between Part A and Part B cannot simply be a break in the action; the break must present a compelling and controversial dilemma that is likely to create an excellent and robust class discussion.  The best case studies are chosen by the instructor and then distributed in class (anonymously), and discussed--both in terms of the criminological questions raised, but also the pedagogical strength of the case study's construction.  With respect to multimedia projects, at least 5 minutes of every project is presented in class (either "live" by the student or through video), and then the instructor provides constructive feedback for the students.  In past years students have also provided constructive feedback both in class and on iSite (online).

The goal of the case studies is for students to (1) research a relevant, real life case that illustrates course themes and theories; (2) analyze a real life fact scenario not only for course themes, but also for classroom pedagogical potential in terms of the dilemma and issues presented for discussion/debate; and (3) to analyze (in Part C of the case study) the case selected by substantively engaging course scholarship, forcing students to move beyond merely descriptive assignments and to develop their own opinions and views, contextualized by course themes and readings.  For the multimedia projects, students are encouraged to explore their passions and think "outside the box" in exploring a criminological topic in a media format that speaks to them.  While most students use video format for interviewing key stakeholders, others have created songs, children's books, advocacy pieces, fictitious television episodes, fictitious magazines/tabloid front pages, and even music videos.  The over-arching goal of these projects is to illustrate how the course themes can be intensely (and engagingly) relevant to students--and our society.

More activities like this

• Business Case Development Practice
• Learning through Case Construction
• Civil War Curiosity Cabinet
• Mashed Potatoes Metaphor
• Final Project Video Presentations

Further Filter By

Activity type.

• Discussion (102) Apply Discussion filter
• Research (79) Apply Research filter
• Presentation (55) Apply Presentation filter
• Role Play (54) Apply Role Play filter
• Homework (44) Apply Homework filter
• Pair and Share (42) Apply Pair and Share filter
• Case Study (31) Apply Case Study filter
• Do Now (31) Apply Do Now filter
• Lab (30) Apply Lab filter
• Game (29) Apply Game filter
• Debate (24) Apply Debate filter
• Peer Instruction (23) Apply Peer Instruction filter
• Quick Write (23) Apply Quick Write filter
• Field Trip (21) Apply Field Trip filter
• Lecture (20) Apply Lecture filter
• Jigsaw (18) Apply Jigsaw filter
• Concept Map (14) Apply Concept Map filter
• Sequence Reconstruction (8) Apply Sequence Reconstruction filter
• Speed Dating (3) Apply Speed Dating filter
• Statement Correction (1) Apply Statement Correction filter
• General Education (44) Apply General Education filter
• Government (38) Apply Government filter
• Physics (20) Apply Physics filter
• English (13) Apply English filter
• Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (13) Apply Organismic and Evolutionary Biology filter
• Sociology (12) Apply Sociology filter
• Statistics (12) Apply Statistics filter
• Expository Writing (10) Apply Expository Writing filter
• Romance Languages and Literatures (10) Apply Romance Languages and Literatures filter
• Germanic Languages and Literatures (9) Apply Germanic Languages and Literatures filter
• History (9) Apply History filter
• Humanities (9) Apply Humanities filter
• Music (9) Apply Music filter
• Mathematics (8) Apply Mathematics filter
• Molecular and Cellular Biology (8) Apply Molecular and Cellular Biology filter
• Economics (7) Apply Economics filter
• Freshman Seminars (6) Apply Freshman Seminars filter
• Social Studies (6) Apply Social Studies filter
• Astronomy (5) Apply Astronomy filter
• Chemistry and Chemical Biology (5) Apply Chemistry and Chemical Biology filter
• Psychology (5) Apply Psychology filter
• Computer Science (4) Apply Computer Science filter
• East Asian Languages and Civilizations (4) Apply East Asian Languages and Civilizations filter
• History of Science (4) Apply History of Science filter
• Linguistics (4) Apply Linguistics filter
• Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (4) Apply Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology filter
• Comparative Literature (3) Apply Comparative Literature filter
• History and Literature (3) Apply History and Literature filter
• African and African American Studies (2) Apply African and African American Studies filter
• Classics (2) Apply Classics filter
• Earth and Planetary Science (2) Apply Earth and Planetary Science filter
• Education (2) Apply Education filter
• History of Art and Architecture (2) Apply History of Art and Architecture filter
• Public Health (2) Apply Public Health filter
• Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (2) Apply Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality filter
• Systems Biology (2) Apply Systems Biology filter
• Anthropology (1) Apply Anthropology filter
• Biomedical Engineering (1) Apply Biomedical Engineering filter
• Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (1) Apply Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations filter
• Psychiatry (1) Apply Psychiatry filter
• Visual and Environmental Studies (1) Apply Visual and Environmental Studies filter

Learning Objective

• Collaborate (107) Apply Collaborate filter
• Develop Subject Specific Intuitions (101) Apply Develop Subject Specific Intuitions filter
• Make Real World Connections to Course Material (101) Apply Make Real World Connections to Course Material filter
• Interpret Primary Sources to Propose a Model or Argument (95) Apply Interpret Primary Sources to Propose a Model or Argument filter
• Learn Foundational Knowledge (82) Apply Learn Foundational Knowledge filter
• Develop Communication Skills (73) Apply Develop Communication Skills filter
• Defend a Position in a Model or Argument (55) Apply Defend a Position in a Model or Argument filter
• Evaluate and Critique a Model or Argument (45) Apply Evaluate and Critique a Model or Argument filter
• Reflect on the Learning Process (Metacognition) (44) Apply Reflect on the Learning Process (Metacognition) filter
• Compare the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Methods (23) Apply Compare the Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Methods filter

Length of Activity

• Full Class (142) Apply Full Class filter
• 10 to 30 minutes (49) Apply 10 to 30 minutes filter
• Multiple Classes (31) Apply Multiple Classes filter
• up to 10 minutes (22) Apply up to 10 minutes filter
• Full Semester (19) Apply Full Semester filter

Filter by Post Type

• Announcements
• OnPolicing Blog
• Press Releases
• Publications

Crime Analysis Case Studies

Publication Date

Greg Jones and Mary Malina

Research Design

Non-experimental

Research Methods

Recommended citation.

Strategic Priority Area(s)

Topic area(s).

For general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]

For general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]

• Strategic Priorities
• Board of Directors
• Business Strategies Advisory Group
• Partnerships
• Data Science Blog
• Community Partnerships
• Preventing Crime & Violence
• Innovations & Technology
• Policing Strategies & Operations
• Personnel & Staffing
• Police Administration & Organizations
• Media Resources
• I am a: Community Member
• I am a: Law Enforcement Professional
• I am a: Business/Corporation
• Past Honorees
• Patrick V. Murphy Award
• Hubert Williams Award

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

NCJRS Virtual Library

Case studies in criminal justice education - an experiential model, additional details, no download available, availability, related topics.

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar

Criminal Justice

IResearchNet

Academic Writing Services

Case law analysis in criminal justice.

This article delves into the intricate domain of case law analysis within the context of the United States criminal justice system. Commencing with a foundational introduction, the discourse defines case law analysis and underscores its pivotal role in shaping legal precedents. The historical section elucidates the evolutionary trajectory of case law, spotlighting landmark cases and the profound influence of constitutional amendments on its development. A meticulous exploration of the methodology employed in case law analysis follows, detailing research techniques, the significance of legal research, and the integration of technology in facilitating this process. The third section scrutinizes the multifaceted factors influencing case law analysis, including judicial decision-making, societal shifts, and the enduring impact of legal precedents. Furthermore, the article engages with contemporary challenges and debates surrounding case law analysis, addressing critiques, emerging trends, and the imperative of diversity in this evolving field. The practical application of case law analysis in criminal investigations, prosecutorial strategies, and defense tactics is elucidated, offering insights into its real-world implications. The conclusion synthesizes key findings, emphasizing the ongoing evolution of case law in criminal justice and projecting future trends and implications in this dynamic realm.

Introduction

Analysis refers to the systematic examination and interpretation of legal decisions and precedents established by courts through their rulings. It involves a comprehensive study of judicial opinions, emphasizing the rationale behind court decisions, legal principles applied, and the resulting implications. This analytical process is essential for understanding the legal landscape, as it enables practitioners, scholars, and policymakers to interpret, apply, and critique existing laws based on past judicial interpretations.

The significance of Case Law Analysis in the field of criminal justice cannot be overstated. As the bedrock of the American legal system, case law serves as a primary source of legal authority, guiding the interpretation and application of statutes and regulations. The analysis of past cases provides a framework for legal professionals to navigate complexities in criminal proceedings, make informed decisions, and advocate for or challenge legal interpretations. Moreover, case law analysis fosters consistency, fairness, and the evolution of legal principles, ensuring that the criminal justice system adapts to societal changes while maintaining foundational legal principles.

Understanding the role of case law in shaping legal precedents is integral to appreciating its impact on the criminal justice system. Legal precedents, established through past court decisions, create a framework for future rulings, influencing how similar cases are decided. Case law serves as a dynamic force that not only interprets existing laws but also contributes to their development and adaptation. By examining the evolution of legal principles through case law, legal professionals gain insights into the application of justice, the protection of individual rights, and the broader societal implications of legal decisions. This section aims to provide a foundational understanding of Case Law Analysis, elucidating its vital role in the criminal justice process.

Historical Perspective of Case Law in Criminal Justice

The evolution of case law in the United States is a dynamic narrative that reflects the nation’s legal foundations and societal shifts. Rooted in the English common law tradition, early American courts grappled with adapting legal principles to the fledgling republic. As the legal landscape matured, the development of case law became integral to the interpretation and application of statutory law. Landmark decisions, such as Marbury v. Madison (1803), played a pivotal role in establishing the authority of judicial review, shaping the trajectory of case law analysis in the United States. The evolution of case law further mirrored societal changes, responding to issues ranging from slavery to civil rights, contributing to the legal framework that governs the nation’s criminal justice system.

Landmark cases stand as cornerstones in the edifice of the American legal system, profoundly influencing the course of criminal justice. Cases such as Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) have left an indelible mark, establishing crucial rights for individuals within the criminal justice process. The analysis of these cases not only reveals the legal reasoning behind their outcomes but also sheds light on their enduring impact on investigative procedures, the right to counsel, and the overall balance between individual liberties and the state’s pursuit of justice. Examining landmark cases provides a lens through which the evolution of legal thought and the ongoing refinement of criminal justice principles can be comprehended.

Constitutional amendments serve as constitutional milestones that significantly shape case law development in the realm of criminal justice. The Bill of Rights, comprising the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, has been particularly instrumental in safeguarding individual rights within the criminal justice system. Through the lens of case law analysis, the impact of amendments such as the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination, and the Sixth Amendment’s guarantees of a fair trial and legal representation come into sharper focus. This section explores how constitutional amendments have catalyzed pivotal shifts in case law, establishing a constitutional framework that continues to resonate in contemporary legal practice.

Methodology of Case Law Analysis

The effective analysis of legal precedents requires a systematic and nuanced approach to research techniques. Legal scholars and practitioners employ various methods, including traditional legal research, to explore and comprehend the intricacies of past court decisions. Exhaustive examination of case law involves not only scrutinizing the decisions themselves but also delving into the legal reasoning, dissents, and broader contextual factors that may have influenced the outcomes. Legal databases, libraries, and archival materials serve as valuable resources in this process, allowing researchers to trace the development of legal principles and discern patterns that inform contemporary understanding.

Legal research is the cornerstone of case law analysis, serving as the gateway to identifying and understanding relevant precedents. This process involves comprehensive exploration of legal databases, statutes, regulations, and other authoritative legal sources to locate cases that are pertinent to the legal issue at hand. Rigorous legal research not only unveils the precedents directly applicable to a specific case but also provides insights into the broader legal landscape, enabling practitioners to situate their arguments within a historical and jurisprudential context. The importance of thorough and meticulous legal research cannot be overstated, as it lays the foundation for persuasive legal arguments, ensuring that legal professionals are well-versed in the relevant case law.

In the contemporary landscape, technology has revolutionized the practice of case law analysis, enhancing efficiency and accessibility for legal professionals. Online legal databases, electronic research tools, and digital libraries have streamlined the research process, enabling practitioners to conduct searches, retrieve case law, and analyze legal precedents with unprecedented speed and precision. The integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms has further augmented the capabilities of legal research tools, providing advanced insights and facilitating predictive analytics in the identification of potential legal outcomes. This section explores how technology has become an indispensable ally in the methodology of case law analysis, shaping the way legal professionals engage with and leverage legal precedents in the modern era.

Factors Influencing Case Law Analysis in Criminal Justice

Central to case law analysis in the criminal justice system is the role of judicial interpretation and decision-making. Judges, through their interpretation of statutes, constitutional provisions, and legal principles, shape the development of case law. This section explores the nuances of judicial decision-making, emphasizing how factors such as legal philosophy, precedent, statutory construction, and judicial discretion influence the outcomes of cases. Understanding the dynamics of judicial interpretation is crucial for legal practitioners engaged in case law analysis, as it unveils the thought processes that underpin legal rulings and sets the stage for the evolution of legal doctrines.

The dynamic interplay between societal changes and case law development is a key determinant in shaping the criminal justice landscape. As societal norms, values, and perspectives evolve, so too does the interpretation and application of laws by the judiciary. This section examines how societal shifts, cultural transformations, and changes in public opinion manifest in legal precedents. It delves into landmark cases that have reflected and responded to societal changes, illustrating the symbiotic relationship between the legal system and the broader social fabric. Analyzing the influence of societal dynamics on case law is imperative for comprehending the adaptability of the criminal justice system to contemporary norms and expectations.

The concept of stare decisis, or the doctrine of precedent, underscores the importance of legal precedents in shaping subsequent cases. This section elucidates how prior decisions serve as binding or persuasive authority, establishing a foundation for the resolution of similar legal issues in subsequent litigation. It explores the role of precedent in providing consistency, predictability, and stability in the legal system while also acknowledging the potential for legal evolution through the reexamination of established precedents. Legal professionals engaged in case law analysis must grapple with the intricate balance between upholding precedent and recognizing the need for legal innovation in response to changing societal and legal landscapes. This examination of the impact of legal precedents on subsequent cases illuminates the complex interplay between continuity and adaptability within the criminal justice system.

Contemporary Challenges and Debates in Case Law Analysis

The contemporary landscape of case law analysis in the criminal justice system is not without its critiques. This section delves into the criticisms and challenges that the current system faces. Some argue that the reliance on precedent may perpetuate outdated or unjust legal doctrines, hindering the adaptability of the legal system. Additionally, concerns about judicial activism, inconsistency in decision-making, and the potential for biases to influence legal interpretations contribute to the ongoing debate. By examining these critiques, legal scholars and practitioners can engage in a critical evaluation of the current case law analysis system, fostering discussions on potential reforms and improvements.

As the legal landscape evolves, new trends in legal interpretation and case law development continue to emerge. This section explores the cutting-edge developments that shape the future of case law analysis. The integration of international legal perspectives, advancements in legal technology, and the growing influence of interdisciplinary approaches are among the key trends shaping contemporary legal thought. Analyzing these trends provides insights into the evolving nature of case law analysis and its responsiveness to the complexities of modern legal challenges. Understanding the trajectory of emerging trends is vital for legal professionals seeking to navigate the evolving dynamics of the criminal justice system.

The imperative of intersectionality and diversity has gained prominence in contemporary legal discourse. This section delves into how issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of identity intersect with case law analysis. By considering the diverse perspectives and experiences of individuals involved in legal proceedings, legal professionals can contribute to a more nuanced and equitable application of the law. This exploration acknowledges the ongoing efforts to address biases in case law, promote inclusivity, and ensure that legal interpretations are reflective of the diverse society they serve. Understanding the intersectionality and diversity dimensions in case law analysis is crucial for fostering a more just and inclusive criminal justice system.

Case Law Analysis in Practice

Case law analysis plays a pivotal role in guiding and shaping criminal investigations. This section explores how law enforcement professionals utilize legal precedents to navigate the intricacies of gathering evidence, conducting searches, and ensuring adherence to constitutional rights. Examining landmark cases that have influenced investigative procedures, such as Terry v. Ohio (1968) and Katz v. United States (1967), illustrates the practical implications of case law analysis in safeguarding both the interests of law enforcement and the constitutional rights of individuals. Understanding the application of case law in criminal investigations is essential for ensuring the legality and efficacy of law enforcement practices.

Prosecutors heavily rely on case law analysis to develop effective strategies in pursuing criminal cases. This section delves into how legal precedents guide prosecutorial decisions, from charging considerations to evidentiary presentations in court. Landmark cases like Brady v. Maryland (1963) and Strickland v. Washington (1984) serve as touchstones for ethical obligations and standards that prosecutors must adhere to in the pursuit of justice. Analyzing the role of case law in shaping prosecutorial strategies provides valuable insights into the ethical and legal considerations that underpin the prosecution’s approach, ensuring a fair and just legal process.

Defense attorneys, too, engage in thorough case law analysis to construct effective legal defenses for their clients. This section explores how legal precedents inform defense strategies, including challenges to evidence, constitutional violations, and arguments for the protection of individual rights. Landmark cases such as Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) exemplify the foundational principles that defense attorneys draw upon in safeguarding the rights of the accused. Analyzing the interplay between defense strategies and case law interpretation provides a nuanced understanding of the adversarial legal process, emphasizing the crucial role that case law analysis plays in ensuring a balanced and just criminal justice system.

In summarizing the key findings of this exploration into Case Law Analysis in the context of the United States criminal justice system, it is evident that this analytical process is fundamental to the interpretation, application, and evolution of the law. The definition of Case Law Analysis has been elucidated, emphasizing its role in systematically examining legal precedents and shaping the understanding of judicial decisions. The importance of case law analysis in criminal justice has been underscored, emphasizing its significance in providing a foundation for legal arguments, ensuring consistency, and fostering the development of legal principles. The overview of the role of case law in shaping legal precedents has highlighted its dynamic nature, influencing not only current legal interpretations but also laying the groundwork for future decisions.

This exploration has traced the historical perspective of case law in the United States, recognizing its evolution from the roots of English common law to its present-day complexity. Landmark cases have been examined, illustrating their profound impact on the criminal justice system and the broader legal landscape. The influence of constitutional amendments on case law development has been explored, emphasizing the constitutional framework that shapes the analysis and interpretation of legal precedents. The ongoing evolution of case law is a testament to its adaptability and responsiveness to societal changes, ensuring that the legal system remains dynamic and reflective of contemporary values.

Analysis Looking ahead, the future implications and trends in case law analysis suggest a continued evolution in response to contemporary challenges. Critiques of the current system have been acknowledged, prompting discussions on potential reforms and improvements. Emerging trends in legal interpretation, driven by advancements in technology and interdisciplinary approaches, indicate a shifting landscape in the practice of case law analysis. Furthermore, the imperative of intersectionality and diversity in case law analysis signals a commitment to fostering a more equitable and inclusive legal system. Recognizing these future implications, legal professionals are poised to navigate the evolving dynamics of case law analysis, ensuring that it remains a cornerstone in the pursuit of justice within the United States criminal justice system.

Bibliography

• Epstein, L., & Knight, J. (1998). The Choices Justices Make. CQ Press.
• Fisher, G. (2019). American Legal Systems: A Resource and Reference Guide. Oxford University Press.
• Garner, B. A., & Black, H. C. (Eds.). (2014). Black’s Law Dictionary. Thomson Reuters.
• Hall, K. (2008). Criminal Law and Procedure. Cengage Learning.
• LaFave, W., Israel, J., King, N., & Kerr, O. (2015). Criminal Procedure (Vol. 1). West Academic Publishing.
• Leiter, B. (2001). American Legal Realism. Oxford University Press.
• Richards, M. A., & Smith, E. B. (2011). Case Law Research and Writing: A Practical Guide. Wolters Kluwer.
• Schubert, F. N. (2008). Introduction to Law and the Legal System. Cengage Learning.
• Sigler, J. (2017). Case Law and Common Law. Cambridge University Press.
• Strier, F. S. (2019). Legal Research: Materials and Methods. LexisNexis.
• Sunstein, C. R. (2005). Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America. Basic Books.
• Tribe, L. (2015). American Constitutional Law (3rd ed.). Foundation Press.
• Walker, S., & Katz, C. M. (2019). The Police in America: An Introduction. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Zalman, M. (2019). Criminal Procedure: A Brief Introduction. Pearson.
• Zurcher, L. A. (2009). Principles of Criminal Procedure. West Academic Publishing.

• --> Login or Sign Up

Shop by Author

• Sabrineh Ardalan
• Robert Bordone
• Robert Clark
• John Coates
• Susan Crawford
• Alonzo Emery
• Heidi Gardner
• Philip B. Heymann
• Howell E. Jackson
• Wendy Jacobs
• Adriaan Lanni
• Jeremy McClane
• Naz Modirzadeh
• Catherine Mondell
• Ashish Nanda
• Charles R. Nesson
• John Palfrey
• Bruce Patton
• Todd D. Rakoff
• Lisa Rohrer
• Jeswald W. Salacuse
• James Sebenius
• Joseph William Singer
• Holger Spamann
• Carol Steiker
• Guhan Subramanian
• Lawrence Susskind
• David B. Wilkins
• Jonathan Zittrain

Shop by Brand

• Howell Jackson
• Ashish Nanda and Nicholas Semi Haas

Chad M. Carr

• John Coates, Clayton Rose, and David Lane
• Ashish Nanda and Lauren Prusiner
• Ashish Nanda and Lisa Rohrer
• Ashish Nanda and Monet Brewerton
• View all Brands
• $0.00 - $1.00
• $1.00 - $2.00
• $2.00 - $4.00
• $4.00 - $5.00
• $5.00 - $6.00

Criminal Law

• Published Old-New
• Published New-Old

The Case of the Smoking Tenant

Joseph William Singer and Esme Caramello

Prosecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case (B)

Elizabeth Moroney, under the supervision of Adriaan Lanni and Carol Steiker

Prosecutorial Discretion in Charging and Plea Bargaining: The Aaron Swartz Case (A)

Elizabeth Moroney, under supervision of Adriaan Lanni and Carol Steiker

The Case of Cross-Deputization

Joseph William Singer, Jeremy McClane, and Nicholas Price

Balloon Boy

Todd D. Rakoff, Alex Whiting, and Kyle Virgien

Cyrus Vance and Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Dilemmas in a High-Profile Prosecution (B) and (C)

Philip Heymann, Lisa Brem, Emily Balter, and Michael Noveck

Cyrus Vance and Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Dilemmas in a High-Profile Prosecution (A)

The WikiLeaks Incident: Background, Details, and Resources

Alan Ezekiel, under supervision of John Palfrey and Jonathan Zittrain

The Case of the Federal Defender's Advice

David Abrams

The Final Furlough

The Case of the Section 8 Housing Vouchers

Todd D. Rakoff, Paul Radvany, and Rebecca Goldberg

A better path forward for criminal justice: Reimagining pretrial and sentencing

• Download a PDF of this chapter.

Subscribe to Governance Weekly

Pamela k. lattimore , pamela k. lattimore senior director for research development, division for applied justice research - rti international cassia spohn , and cassia spohn regents professor - school of criminology and criminal justice, arizona state university matthew demichele matthew demichele senior research sociologist - rti international.

• 28 min read

Below is the second chapter from “A Better Path Forward for Criminal Justice,” a report by the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform. You can access other chapters from the report here .

The roots of mass incarceration in the United States lie in policies and practices that result in jail for millions of individuals charged with but not convicted of any crime and lengthy jail or prison sentences for those who are convicted. These policies and practices are the results of 50 years of efforts at criminal justice reform in response to the “War on Crime” and the “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970s—intended to improve public safety, curb drug abuse, and address perceived inequities in the justice system, these reforms also had unintended consequences that exacerbated disparities.

As the United States grapples with yet another iteration of calls for social and racial justice following multiple deaths of Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, the time is ripe to develop and implement deep structural reforms that will increase fairness and ensure proportionate punishment without sacrificing public safety. Concurrently, practices implemented to address the public health crisis in the Nation’s jails and prisons accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic provide an opportunity to examine whether reducing pretrial detention and prison sentences can be accomplished without negatively affecting public safety.

As the United States grapples with yet another iteration of calls for social and racial justice following multiple deaths of Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement, the time is ripe to develop and implement deep structural reforms that will increase fairness and ensure proportionate punishment without sacrificing public safety.

This chapter briefly discusses the evolution of criminal justice reform efforts focused on pretrial and sentencing policies and practices that resulted in unprecedented rates of incarceration that have only recently begun to abate. This discussion is followed by proposals for policy reforms that should be implemented and recommendations for critical research needed to guide future reform efforts.

Level Setting

Despite declining somewhat over the past two decades, America’s incarceration rate remains the highest in the world. 1  Individuals in the United States may spend months in jail awaiting trial and those convicted are more likely than those in peer nations to receive long carceral sentences. Against the backdrop of renewed calls for racial and social justice in response to deaths of Black people at the hands of police, the COVID-19 pandemic has shone an unforgiving spotlight on America’s jails and prisons, where those awaiting trial or serving sentences have experienced disproportionate rates of infection and death due to the spread of the virus. The responses to the pandemic in many jurisdictions have included unprecedented efforts to reduce jail populations and some efforts toward early prison release that provide an opportunity to determine whether reducing pretrial detention or prison sentences can be accomplished without negatively affecting public safety.

The United States has been engaged in efforts to reform pretrial practices and sentencing for more than five decades. The 1966 Bail Reform Act sought to reduce pretrial detention through the offer of payment of money bond in lieu of detention, while rising violent crime rates and an ongoing “drug war” resulted in the 1984 Pretrial Reform Act that once again led to a reliance on preventive pretrial detention. More recently, there has been a renewed push to reduce reliance on financial requirements for pretrial release in response to concerns about the growing numbers of individuals detained and the disparate impact of these detentions on individuals who are poor and people of color. Risk assessment tools that predict failure to appear and new arrests for those released while awaiting trial have been implemented to support release decisionmaking and to provide an alternative to money bail. These tools have also been suggested as a means to reduce disparities in release that may reflect implicit biases and cognitive errors in judgement by those charged with making release decisions quickly with incomplete information. Risk assessment tools continue to garner support despite criticisms that they perpetuate historical biases that exist in the criminal record information used to make the predictions.

Concerns about disparity, discrimination, and unfairness in sentencing led to a sentencing reform movement that began in the mid-1970s and that, over time, revolutionized sentencing. States and the federal system moved from indeterminate sentencing, in which judges imposed minimum and maximum sentences and parole boards determined how long those incarcerated would serve, to structured sentencing policies that constrained the discretion of judges, ensured that sentences were pegged to crime seriousness and to the criminal history of those found guilty, and, in many jurisdictions, eliminated discretionary release on parole.

As the “War on Crime” and the “War on Drugs” escalated during the 1980s in response to increasing rates of violent crime and the drug—primarily crack cocaine—epidemic, reformers also championed changes designed to establish more punitive sentencing standards. These changes included sentencing enhancements for use of a weapon, prior criminal history, and infliction of serious injury; mandatory minimum sentences, particularly for drug and weapons offenses; “three-strikes laws” that mandated long prison sentences for repeat offenders; truth-in-sentencing statutes that required individuals to serve more of their sentences before they were eligible for release; and life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) sentences. Federal support for these efforts included funding under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (Pub. L. 103-322) that established the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-in-Sentencing (VOI/TIS) Incentive Grant Program, which was designed to assist state efforts to remove violent offenders from the community. Over five years (FY1996 to FY2001) this program provided states with $3 billion in funding to expand prison and jail capacity and to encourage states to eliminate indeterminate sentencing in favor of “Truth in Sentencing” laws that required individuals to serve at least 85 percent of the imposed sentence. 2

What have been the results of these efforts at reform? More individuals detained pretrial as the numbers of individuals booked into jails increased and as the proportion of those held in jail pending trial increased from 56 percent of the jail population in 2000 to 66 percent in 2018. Prison populations also skyrocketed—from about 200,000 in 1970 to 1.43 million in 2019. 3 Further, sentences became more punitive, with individuals convicted of felonies in state and federal courts facing a greater likelihood of incarceration and longer sentences than they did in the pre-reform era. The number of individuals serving life—and life without the possibility of parole—sentences also increased dramatically; there are now more offenders serving life sentences than the total number of individual who were held in all U.S prisons in the early 1970s. Worldwide, the United States accounts for more than one-third of all life sentences and eight out of ten LWOP sentences. Moreover, there is persuasive evidence that these punitive changes did not produce the predicted decline in crime but did exacerbate already alarming racial and ethnic disparities in incarceration.

T here are now more offenders serving life sentences than the total number of individual s  who were held in all U.S prisons in the early 1970s.

Pretrial detention and prison incarceration are linked, as those engaged in recent efforts on pretrial reform recognize. Pretrial detention contributes to mass incarceration both directly and indirectly. Pretrial detention results in a greater likelihood that individuals (irrespective of guilt) will plead guilty, a greater likelihood of being sentenced to incarceration, and longer sentences. These impacts are disproportionately borne by people of color—who are more likely to be detained and less likely to be able to afford bond amounts that are often set higher than for similarly situated White defendants.

The consequences of pretrial detention are difficult to reconcile given that many of those detained pretrial are charged with offenses that, were they to be found guilty, would be unlikely to result in incarcerative sentences. Research suggests that pretrial detention is linked to substantially higher recidivism rates post sentencing—suggesting that even if pretrial detention reduces some criminal activity during the pretrial period this is more than offset by much higher recidivism rates after individuals serve their sentences. Further, pretrial detention removes individuals presumed innocent from their families and communities—often resulting in the loss of employment and housing, interrupted treatment, and, in some cases, the loss of child custody. Court imposed fines and fees are passed without making income-based adjustments and failure to pay such fines and fees can result in revocation of one’s driver’s license and further incarceration.

Housing America’s prisoners is expensive—more than $88 billion in local, state, and federal taxpayer monies were spent on corrections in 2016. 4 Most of those in jail are awaiting trial—so the costs of jail are not to pay for punishment. Instead, pretrial detention is meant to ensure attendance at trial and to protect the public from harm by individuals who have not been convicted of a crime. But, in fact, failure to appear at trial is rare and often due to mundane reasons (e.g., forgetting the trial or hearing date). Similarly, new arrests of those released pretrial are also infrequent with arrests for violent crimes rare. 5

The costs of jail or prison for sentenced individuals are justified in terms of one or more of the purposes of punishment—retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. The first of these (retribution) provides voice to the victims of crime and recognizes society’s need for justice. The remaining three are utilitarian justifications of punishment, each of which is designed to prevent or reduce crime. Incarcerated individuals cannot perpetrate new crimes on society at large (incapacitation) and there is a presumption that punishment will deter those who have been punished and those contemplating similar crimes from future criminal acts (deterrence). Finally, as reflected in the last three decades’ focus on reentry programs, society benefits if prisoners can be rehabilitated, reentering society with the skills and desire to be contributing citizens. These goals are often at odds—lengthy prison sentences may be justified by the seriousness of the crime and may act to incapacitate dangerous individuals or to deter potential offenders, but they also may decrease the odds of rehabilitation and successful reentry into the community. Long prison sentences that cause individuals to lose touch with their families and their communities and that reduce their ability to function in society interfere with rehabiliative goals, particularly as the prison environment itself is toxic to individual agency and the skills needed to function in society.

There is an urgent need to identify a balanced strategy with respect to pretrial justice and sentencing, one that will reduce crime and victimization, ameliorate unwarranted disparities, and reclaim human capital currently lost to incarceration. This strategy should identify the costs incurred across the system and society and ensure that these costs are balanced by the benefits. Further, to ensure that the intent of policy changes is realized and to identify unanticipated consequences, rigorous research should assess the impacts and costs of changes, identifying what is promising.

Criminal justice reform is complicated. In the United States, justice responsibilities are spread across the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of local, state, and federal governments. As a result, the costs and benefits of various justice functions are seldom obvious to those making decisions. Further, the costs often accrue to one branch and level of government while the benefits accrue to another—for example, if the local government implements and pays for a program that diverts individuals with mental illness from jail to treatment, thus reducing future criminal activity, the local police and jail may incur fewer future justice system costs but the greatest savings may accrue to the state government that won’t have to prosecute and incarcerate or supervise these individuals in the future. A judicial decision to detain an individual pretrial or to sentence an individual to years in prison (or on probation) imposes costs that are not borne by the judicial branch. As a result, there is often little incentive to change policies and practices. In addition, laws and decisions are often made to address retributive or incapacitation goals—perhaps with a nod to deterrence—without consideration that less punitive—and less costly—interventions might provide better, long-term societal outcomes. Finally, the justice system is often the system of last resort to address the needs of individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders, who often do not have the education and job skills to be successful in the 21 st century. Rethinking how society can better address societal disadvantage may relieve the burdens on the justice system and result in better outcomes.

Our recommendations for achieving these goals include the following:

Short-Term Reforms

• Cost-benefit Analyses of Pretrial and Sentencing Practices
• Set Fines and Fees on Ability to Pay

Hold Prosecutors Accountable for Filing and Plea-Bargaining Decisions

• Reconsider Probation and Parole Practices that Contribute to Mass Incarceration

Medium-Term Reform

Inter-Agency Approaches to Reducing Justice System Intervention

Long-Term Reforms

Establish a Presumption of Pretrial Release

Revise sentencing statutes to ensure proportionality, short-term reforms, cost-benefit analyses of pretrial and sentencing practices.

Immediate changes could be made to reveal the costs across decision points within justice systems to those making decisions, with a goal of ensuring that the incurred costs are equal to the benefits. For pretrial decisions, this means stakeholders would have the information to understand that pretrial detention is not “free,” but instead comes with justice system costs and with collateral costs to the detained, their families, and their communities. If the average cost of a night in jail is $50 or higher 6  and given the collateral costs of pretrial detention, how many nights in jail awaiting trial would be justifiable for someone who is charged with a minor crime that would never result in a sentence of incarceration? Does society benefit if an individual spends many nights in jail because they are unable to post $200 to cover a $2000 bond while they are awaiting trial on minor charges or because they were unable to pay fees and fines from a previous case?

Justice systems should consider monetary and extra-monetary costs alongside the usual considerations of judicial officers as to whether someone will miss court or be arrested for a new crime as well as the costs of these very different events. Missing court is likely less costly than incorrectly detaining many people to avoid the potential for missed court appearances—particularly if inexpensive court reminder systems can more cheaply reduce failures to appear. Many jails reduced their pretrial detained populations significantly as the COVID-19 pandemic began and there is little evidence of effects on crime. This may provide a reset in some communities as they consider that what changed was not the risk posed by the detained individuals but the decision to release, as well as reconsideration of the initial decisions to arrest (rather than cite) and book into jail. To this end, jurisdictions need to move away from reliance on financial conditions for release. Few people are denied bail, but most people detained pretrial are there because they are unable to pay bail—a system that advantages the well-off who have the resources to cover bail at the expense of the poor. If bail cannot be eliminated for most charges, policymakers should revisit the use of private bail bond agencies so that individuals who are released only by securing the services of a bail agency do not end up forgoing the ten percent they pay to cover their bail—an expense they incur even if they appear and meet all pretrial conditions.

Setting Fines and Fees Based on Ability to Pay

Another reform that could be accomplished in the short-term is setting fines and fees based on ability to pay. 7 Just as bail differentially disadvantages the poor over the more well-off individual, so do fixed fine and fee schedules that charge the indigent the same as the millionaire. Fixed fines and fees can trap those with limited means in a cycle of fines, fees, jail for failure to pay, more fines, etc. Fine schedules could be developed that set fines based on multiples of the individual’s daily wage (perhaps setting the minimum at the minimum wage for those intermittently employed—for example, $58 representing eight hours of wage at $7.25). Similarly, fees could be adjusted to reflect ability to pay. Neither of these should preclude the ability of judges to waive fees and fines for those unlikely to ever be able to make the payments. In clear cases of indigence, courts should have the authority to waive all fines, fees, and surcharges.” 8

Policy changes that constrained judicial discretion at sentencing have concomitantly led to increased prosecutorial discretion at charging and plea bargaining. Prosecutors decide whether to file charges that trigger mandatory minimum sentences, life without parole sentences, or habitual offender provisions; whether to dismiss these charges during plea bargaining; and whether to file (and later dismiss) collateral charges that lead to punitive sentence enhancements. An immediate effort needs to be made to hold prosecutors accountable by requiring that they file charges only for offenses for which there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt and a reasonable likelihood of conviction at trial, and by mandating that plea negotiations be in writing and on the record. Prosecutors also should consider establishing sentencing review units that would identify, evaluate, and rectify sentences deemed excessive and disproportionate.

Reconsider Probation and Parole Practices that Contribute to Mass Incarceration  

Jurisdictions should reconsider probation and parole policies and practices that contribute to mass incarceration. In many jurisdictions, a large proportion of those admitted to jail or prison are individuals who violated the conditions of probation or parole. To rectify this, the conditions imposed on individuals placed on probation or parole should be reasonable (and not designed to set them up for failure), judges should use graduated sanctions in responding to probation/parole violations, and probation or parole should be revoked, and a jail or prison sentence imposed, only for repeated or egregious technical violations or for serious new crimes.

MEDIUM-TERM REFORMS

There should be investment in ongoing performance measurement—across the decision points—so that stakeholders can begin to understand the aggregate impacts of individual decisions. The law at its core is about the individual—the individual victim, the individual defendant, and the individual case. But the decisions that are made individually add up to crowded jails and prisons. These performance measurement systems are not necessarily complex—for example, dashboards to track variation in judicial sentencing or to monitor who is being held in jail provide insight into the overall consequences of the dispensation of justice.

Developing and monitoring these process metrics are simply good business practices. Just as a well-run restaurant knows exactly how many ingredients are needed and how long it takes to process each part of an order, a local justice system should know the details of who is in their jail and why. Prosecutors should know how their offices and individual prosecutors manage caseloads and outcomes. Judges should know how their sentencing stacks up with their peers.

Mid-term improvements require more sophisticated inter-agency approaches by law enforcement, prosecutors, and the courts. 9 These agencies have wide discretion to institute diversion programs, problem-solving courts, and other alternatives to incarceration, and they should collaborate with social service agencies and with public health and educational professionals to address underlying issues, such as behavioral health, substance abuse, or homelessness, that lead to local justice system intervention. Such inter-agency approaches to developing programs reflect that the complex needs of individuals caught in the justice system are the responsibility of society more broadly and not of a justice system poorly equipped and financed to address lifetimes of cumulative disadvantage. These programs need to be adequately funded and designed to provide positive pathways forward. One misunderstanding that accompanied the many early reentry programs was the assumption that the programs and services needed to address the needs and deficits of returning prisoners already existed in communities and only needed to be harnessed through planning and case management. Evaluations of some of the largest federally funded reentry grant programs have repeatedly shown that few individuals releasing from prison access services to address their needs—as services are not available or competing demands such as finding and keeping employment or lack of transportation preclude engagement. Emerging support for the hypothesis that desisting from criminal behavior may have different roots than simply addressing deficits correlated with offending like substance use also suggests that these programs should divert to a positive lifestyle through demonstrations and support for alternative identities. 10

LONG-TERM REFORMS

Mass incarceration is the result of several decades of policy decisions, and unwinding mass incarceration will require a long-term approach designed to slow the flow of individuals into jails and prisons and to reduce the lengths of sentences they are serving. Pretrial detention is an important component of mass incarceration; something to consider is restricting the crimes for which individuals are booked into jail and establishing a presumption for release for all but the most serious offenses and the individuals who pose the most serious flight risks.

In the long run, the criminal codes that govern the imposition of punishment in municipal, state, and federal justice systems in the United States need to be reformed to ensure that punishment is commensurate with the seriousness of the crime. This will entail ratcheting downward the sentencing ranges associated with various combinations of offense seriousness and criminal history, enhancing eligibility for probation, reducing sentence enhancements for aggravating circumstances, and increasing sentence discounts for mitigating circumstances. In addition, mandatory minimum sentencing statutes and two- and three-strikes laws should be repealed or, if that proves politically unpalatable, dramatically scaled back to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. Jurisdictions also should revise truth-in-sentencing and life sentencing statutes by reducing the amount of time offenders must serve before being eligible for release and should eliminate life without the possibility of parole sentences for all but the most heinous crimes.

Recommendations for Future Research

Justice requires identifying and confirming more effective and cost-efficient ways of securing appropriate outcomes for society, for victims, and for those charged with and convicted of crimes. Reforms should be surrounded with rigorous research and ongoing performance measurement. Basic research is needed to better understand the relationships between policy alternatives and outcomes, and evaluation is needed to ensure that reforms lead to better outcomes, to identify unintended negative consequences, and to embark on a path of continuous improvement of the justice system.

Researchers studying pretrial systems need to assess the impact of current practices and potential reforms on the crime rate, sentencing punitiveness, mass incarceration, and unwarranted disparity in pretrial detention. First, there needs to be more research on cumulative disadvantage to understand how disparities at earlier stages of the process (i.e., pretrial detention) accumulate across the life course of a criminal case to produce harsher treatment of certain categories of offenders. Second, research on the pretrial process needs to address and answer the following questions:

• Do financial conditions increase court attendance and decrease crime rates compared to release on recognizance (ROR) or non-financial conditions?
• Does the amount of bail affect outcomes?
• How consequential are pretrial decisions in future decisions about conviction and sentencing? And on future criminal behavior?
• What are the factors associated with failure to appear? Is there a relationship between the seriousness of the charged offense or the severity of the prior record and failure to appear?
• How does defense counsel at first appearance affect detention decisions and case outcomes?
• What are the effects of pretrial conditions and supervision practices on failure to appear and new criminal activity?
• How dangerous are pretrial releasees? What is the nature of criminal activity during pretrial release?
• What considerations and conditions need to attend release decisions for special categories of offenders that may pose special risks to victims (e.g., domestic violence cases) or to justice (e.g., defendants that pose special concerns with respect to witness intimidation)?

Sentencing researchers should examine decisions to sentence offenders to life—and especially to life without the possibility of parole; these consequential decisions have not been subjected to the type of empirical scrutiny directed at other sentencing outcomes and thus little is known about the existence of or extent of unwarranted disparities in the application of these punitive punishments. Research is needed to assess the impact of different types of punishment on recidivism rates—that is, to determine whether more punitive sentences lead to higher or lower recidivism rates and whether this relationship varies depending upon the offense of conviction. We know that those sentenced in the United States are more likely to be incarcerated, and for longer terms, than similar individuals in peer countries. What is not known is whether these harsher punishments produce any positive “added value” for society at large.

Research is needed to produce better estimates of the “costs of punishment” across the justice system and society. These estimates should include the explicit costs to local, state, and federal jurisdictions, but also the implicit costs to individuals, their families, and their communities. These efforts should be accompanied by new work to update estimates of the cost of crimes—both the cost to the criminal justice system but also the costs to victims. These sets of studies will provide the foundations for balancing the costs of crime with the costs of punishment.

And, finally, evaluation research should study the process, outcomes, impacts, and costs and benefits of pretrial and sentencing reforms. This research should help to identify what works and what does not work, including identifying unexpected consequences of reform. This research should clearly identify the goals of the reform and then assess how well those goals are met. For example, if changes in detention decisionmaking are intended to reduce racial disparity, a rigorous evaluation should assess the extent to which decisionmaking changes, whether those changes are commensurate with what was envisioned, had an impact on disparity.

Pretrial release and sentencing policies and practices are a root cause of mass incarceration in the United States. Moreover, these inflexible and punitive policies have disparate effects on the poor and people of color, are not cost effective, and often result in punishment that is disproportionate to the seriousness of the crime. We have outlined a series of short- medium- and long-term reforms designed to slow the flow of people into our nation’s jails and prisons, reduce the number of persons now incarcerated and the lengths of sentences they are serving, and ameliorate unwarranted disparities and unfairness. We also have articulated a series of issues for future research; answers to the questions we pose will be critical to understanding the cost, benefits, and effectiveness of pretrial and sentencing reforms.

RECOMMENDED READING

Clear, Todd R. 2008. “The Effects of High Imprisonment Rates on Communities.” Crime and Justice. 37: 97–132.

Gottschalk, Marie. 2015. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mauer, Marc, and Ashley Nellis. 2018. The Meaning of Life: The Case for Abolishing Life Sentences. New York: The New Press.

National Research Council. 2014. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Pfaff, John F. 2017. Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration—and How to Achieve Real Reform. New York: Basic Books.

Tonry, Michael. 2014. “Remodeling American -Sentencing: A Ten-Step Blueprint for Moving Past Mass Incarceration.” Criminology & Public Policy 13: 503–533.

• At year-end 2019, there were 1.43 million persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons, and the U.S. incarceration rate was 539 per 100,000 individuals 18 and older. (Carson, E.A. October 2020. Prisoners in 2019. S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 255115). County and city jails held 738,400 prisoners, mid-year 2018 (Zeng, Z. March 2020. Jail Inmates in 2018 . U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 253044).
• Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice. (February 2012). Report to Congress Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-In-Sentencing Incentive Formula Grant Program . https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/media/document/voitis-final-report.pdf .
• In 1970, the incarceration rate in the U.S. was about 100 individuals per 100,000 population—consistent with what had been observed throughout the 20th The U.S. prison population increased every year from 1975 to 2008, when 1.61 million individuals were in U.S. prisons (a rate of 506 per 100,000). Although the number of persons incarcerated has since declined, in 2019 there were still 1.43 million persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons (a rate of 419 per 100,000). Local jail populations saw similar increases—from 256,615 in 1985 (108 individuals per 100,000 population) to 738,400 in 2018 (226 per 100,000 population). The number of persons on probation also increased, from 923,000 in 1976 to 3.54 million in 2018, suggesting that the increase in incarceration was not driven by diverting individuals from probation to prison. See Minton, T. and Golinelli, D. (2014). Jail inmates at midyear 2013-Statistical tables . Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 245350; Zeng, Z. (2020). Jail inmates in 2018 . Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 253044; and Kaeble, D. and Alper, M. (2020). Probation and parole in the United States, 2017-2018. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 252072.
• Hyland, S. Justice Expenditure and Employment Extracts 2016, Preliminary. NCJ 254126. https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=6728 .
• Violent offending is rare compared to property and public order crimes (Morgan, R. and Truman, J. (2020). Criminal Victimization. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ 255113. Judicial officers express particular concern about releasing those arrested for domestic violence fearing a repeat or escalation of the behavior that led to the arrest.
• The $50 estimate is on the lower end of estimates of average daily jail costs, with many daily jail rates ranging between $150 and $200. In New York City, the Independent Budget Office estimated jail costs at nearly $460 per day, suggesting that it costs taxpayers $168,000 per year to jail one person (New York City Independent Budget Office, 2013).
• Schierenbeck, A. (2018). The constitutionality of income-based fines. The University of Chicago Law Review 85, 8, 1869–1925.
• See p. 278 of Shannon, S., Huebner, B. M, Harris, A., Martin, K., Patillo, M., Pettit, B., et al. (2020). The Broad Scope and Variation of Monetary Sanctions: Evidence From Eight States. UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review, 4(1). Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/64t2w833 or Alexes’ work more generally)
• State and local Criminal Justice Coordinating Committees (CJCCs) offer on potential model for inter-agency approaches. There are various configurations for CJCCs which are locally focused but offer lessons that can translate well to other jurisdictions. (See, for example, https://nicic.gov/criminal-justice-coordinating-committees)
• For example, the Prison Cells to Ph.D. or Prison to Professional program https://www.fromprisoncellstophd.org/ .

Governance Studies

Richard Lempert

May 15, 2024

Online Only

10:00 am - 11:15 am EDT

The Brookings Institution, Washington DC

10:00 am - 11:30 am EDT

• Top Courses
• Online Degrees
• Find your New Career
• Join for Free

What Is a Criminal Justice Degree?

Get the information you need about a criminal justice degree. Explore types of degrees, what to expect as a criminal justice major, possible jobs, and more.

A criminal justice degree is an undergraduate or graduate degree with coursework that focuses on various parts of the criminal justice system. The courses you take to earn the degree cover topics like law enforcement, corrections, and the court system as well as criminal behavior and motivation. Common majors within the field include the following:

Corrections

Criminal justice

Criminology

Forensic psychology

Forensic science

Law enforcement.

Paralegal studies

Types of criminal justice degrees 

Types of criminal justice degrees include associate degrees, bachelor's degrees, and master's degrees, but those descriptions only tell part of the story. You also can choose concentrations offered by your school to tailor your education to your personal and professional interests. The type of degree and concentration you choose will influence your career options. 

Associate degree

An associate degree in criminal justice opens the door to a variety of entry-level jobs in the field, including police officer, crime scene technician, and paralegal. You can earn this degree in about two years and can typically apply the courses you take toward a bachelor's degree. This makes it possible to start building in-field work experience if you decide to continue your education. The curriculum for an associate degree includes a mix of general education courses in broad topics like law enforcement, criminal law, and community relations. You can expect the coursework for an associate degree in criminal justice to take two to three years to complete.

Bachelor's degree

In addition to offering introductory courses, a bachelor's degree in criminal justice explores more specific topics. These might include juvenile delinquency, criminal investigation, and ethical behavior in criminal justice. With this degree, you'll gain an understanding of crime, criminal behavior, and the criminal justice system. If you're interested in a particular aspect of criminal justice, you can choose a specialization like corrections, forensics, or juvenile crime. On average, it takes about four years to complete a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.  

Master's degree

Generally, it takes two to three years to complete a master's degree. In criminal justice, a master's degree can help you get a specific job in the field or boost your chances for advancing in your career. Two types of master's degrees in criminal justice include:

Master of Arts (MA): The required general education courses in an MA program usually have a liberal arts focus. With an MA, you might land a position as a probation officer, detention center director, or victim's advocate. 

Master of Science (MS): The required general education courses in an MS  program are typically more science-focused. With an MS, you might become a forensic science tech or a crime lab analyst.

No matter which option you choose, you can get a more general degree (like a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice Leadership or a Master of Science in Justice Administration), or you can get a master's with a specific concentration. Examples of concentrations you might choose include:

Analysis of crime behavior

Corrections and offender rehabilitation

Cybersecurity

Fraud management

Homeland security

Terrorism studies

Admission requirements for earning a criminal justice degree 

To get into a criminal justice degree program, you'll need to follow certain admission requirements. These requirements differ depending on the type of degree you want to get. Typically, the higher the degree, the stricter the requirements. 

The requirements to get into an associate degree program are fairly lenient. Generally, you'll be required to complete an application and submit official transcripts. If you've just graduated from high school, most associate degree programs require a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher. If you have 12 or more college credits, you'll need to submit a college transcript with a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher. If you're attending a community college or a traditional four-year college or university, you may need to submit ACT or SAT test scores. 

To get into a bachelor's degree program after graduating high school, you'll need to complete a college application and submit official transcripts to the institution. If you have 12 or more college credits, you'll be required to submit your college transcripts. The minimum GPA varies according to the program. While some require a minimum GPA of 2.0, others require a 2.5 GPA or higher. Most programs also expect students in their freshman year to submit SAT or ACT test scores. You can strengthen your application to a bachelor's program by:

Taking pertinent AP courses

Doing an internship

Volunteering in your community

Gaining relevant work experience

For acceptance into a master's degree program, you'll need to submit a completed application and official transcripts from a college or university. Most programs require a GPA of 3.0 or higher for admittance and an undergraduate degree in criminal justice or a related field. Additional requirements usually include:

Scores from a graduate placement exam like the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) or Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT)

At least one letter of recommendation from a full-time faculty member

A personal statement 

Common criminal justice degree courses

If you're passionate about public protection or equal justice under the law, then you may be a good candidate for a criminal justice degree. This degree offers a wide array of interesting coursework, some of which cross over into other disciplines like sociology and political science. Here are just a few common criminal justice degree courses:

American Political System: Topics in this course include the rights and responsibilities of citizens, problems and solutions common in the criminal justice system, and the role of public and private organizations in crime prevention.

Courts and Social Policy: In this course, you can explore the ways the court system shapes public policy as well as how social factors influence the decision making process of judges.

Criminology: This course examines the causes and effects of criminal behavior, including social structures and aberrant behavior.

Fundamentals of Civil Liberties: In this course, you have an opportunity to examine in depth the rights granted to American citizens through the U.S. Constitution and how they fit within the criminal justice system.

Philosophy of Punishment: This course explores contemporary theories about the role and value of punishment, how they compare to current and historical practice, and their effectiveness.

Theories of Criminal Behavior: In this course, you can investigate theories about criminal behavior placed in their historical and social contexts.

Popular criminal justice majors

As a criminal justice student, you’ll choose from several interesting majors. When selecting your course of study, you may find it helpful to compare some of these majors to find the one that's the right fit for you. Check out some examples of popular criminal justice majors and the topics you'll encounter in their curriculum.

Criminology focuses on the ways criminals behave, why they engage in crime, and how the criminal justice system responds to it. This major draws from social sciences and behavioral sciences. By earning this degree, you may deepen your understanding of criminal procedure, law and society, policing in America, theories of criminology, and victimology.

As a forensic science major, you'll have opportunities to examine how to use science to help solve crimes. Coursework for the major typically includes more science courses like chemistry and biology and how they apply to investigations. Broad topics within this field include computer forensics, crime scene investigation procedures, and cybersecurity.

Students who pursue this major typically have an interest in a career as a police officer or law enforcement official. The courses you take give you a closer look at the work they do, including crime scene investigation, report writing, and department budgeting. You also may study kinesiology, psychology, and communication as part of the curriculum.

Sociology can be an interesting major if you're interested in a role in rehabilitation services or social work, which typically requires working with people who have committed crimes. One option is to earn an associate degree in criminal justice followed by a bachelor's degree in sociology. This can let you explore topics like gender, marriage and family, social inequality, crime, and race relations. 

Advantages of earning a criminal justice degree

A criminal justice degree offers several advantages, including the variety of subjects you study and new skills you're able to learn. Coursework typically includes fascinating subjects like information technology, law, and psychology that apply to multiple disciplines and help you gain a deeper understanding of the way the world works. You also may be able to pick up new skills that translate across many circles, including:

Analytical skills

Attention to detail

Communication

Critical thinking

Observation

Problem-solving

Researching ability

You may choose the direct route and apply these skills to jobs within the criminal justice system. However, you're not limited to working in law enforcement or the court system. The knowledge and skills you can acquire through criminal justice coursework can be useful in other areas. 

Possible criminal justice degree jobs

With a criminal justice degree, jobs are plentiful. This field offers a variety of rewarding job opportunities in law enforcement, corrections, or the court system. And you can work in the public or private sector. 

Police officer

As a police officer, you'll protect members of your community by enforcing local, state, and federal laws. In the course of your work, you'll have many different duties. Some of these duties include:

responding to calls from members of the community

patrolling different areas of a town or city

investigating suspicious activity

issuing citations

making arrests

filing incident reports

To become a police officer, you typically need to have a high school diploma or the equivalent. You'll also need to pass written and physical examinations and enroll in a police academy for 12 to 14 weeks. Law enforcement officers at the state and federal levels usually have a college degree as well. The average annual salary for a police officer is $69,254 [ 1 ]. 

Private investigator

If you're interested in an exciting private-sector job, you might become a private investigator (PI). As a PI, you may help law enforcement officers solve cases or investigate cases yourself. Attorneys, businesses, and private citizens hire PIs to look into financial, legal, criminal, personal, or missing person cases. Some of your daily tasks as a PI might include:

doing research

collecting evidence

conducting interviews

conducting surveillance

communicating with clients

testifying in court

To get a job working with a private investigation agency, you may want to earn at least an associate's degree in criminal justice or a related field. Some firms also hire former police officers. To work as a PI, you may need to get licensed by the state where you plan to work and make sure you meet the requirements. The average annual salary for private investigators is $58,633 [ 2 ]. 

Detective  

As a detective, you may help solve serious crimes like assault, robbery, homicide, or drug offenses. To do this, you can use your knowledge to ensure investigations are conducted legally and perform an array of investigative tasks. These include:

examining crime scenes

collecting and analyzing evidence

interviewing crime victims and witnesses

cataloging evidence

writing and filing police reports

building criminal cases

Educational requirements for detectives differ from department to department. While some departments require special training at the police academy, others require a bachelor's degree in criminal justice or a related field. Most police departments also require detectives to have some experience working as a police officer. Detectives make an average annual salary of $99,892 [ 3 ]. 

Forensic psychologist

If you like the idea of using your knowledge to understand criminals and their reasons for committing crimes, you might enjoy a career as a forensic psychologist. In this role, you can evaluate suspects and create profiles of criminals to help law enforcement solve crimes. Your work may include the following:

diagnosing mental health conditions

evaluating the ability of an accused person to stand trial

interviewing prisoners

offering opinions about sentencing

To become a forensic psychologist, you’ll likely need to earn a doctorate degree in psychology, and you may also need to qualify for state licensing depending on where you work and the scope of your practice. As a forensic psychologist, you'll make an average annual salary of $98,204 [ 4 ].

Crime prevention specialist

Crime prevention specialists are not sworn-in as law enforcement officials, but they play a valuable role in fighting crime. As a crime prevention specialist, you'll work to keep crime from occurring in your community. This job involves an array of tasks in a variety of settings. Duties might include:

developing crime prevention programs for different community groups

analyzing and researching crime within a community

leading personal safety classes for various groups like women or seniors

preparing and distributing crime prevention literature

sitting on crime prevention task forces, committees, and boards

creating public safety news releases

To become a crime prevention specialist, it helps to have at least an associate degree in criminal justice or a related field. Crime prevention specialists make an annual salary of $69,255, on average [ 5 ]. 

Experience for yourself whether studying criminal justice could be a good fit by enrolling in Hot Topics in Criminal Justice from Vanderbilt University on Coursera. Dig into current criminal justice topics in the news like mass incarceration, the death penalty, and ethics concerning police surveillance, all while learning at your own pace.

Related articles 

Computer Forensic Investigator: Career Guide

What Can You Do With a Psychology Degree?

10 Recession-Proof Job Fields for All Skill Levels

Article sources

1.Glassdoor. " Police Officer Salaries , https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/police-officer-salary-SRCH_KO0,14.htm." Accessed May 7, 2022.

2. Glassdoor. " Private Investigator Salaries , https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/private-investigator-salary-SRCH_KO0,20.htm." Accessed May 7, 2022.

3. Glassdoor. " Detective Salaries , https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/detective-salary-SRCH_KO0,9.htm." Accessed May 7, 2022.

4. Glassdoor. " Forensic Psychologist Salaries , https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/forensic-psychologist-salary-SRCH_KO0,21.htm." Accessed May 7, 2022.

5. Glassdoor. " Crime Prevention Specialist Salaries , https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/crime-prevention-specialist-salary- SRCH_KO0,27.htm." Accessed May 7, 2022.

Keep reading

Coursera staff.

Editorial Team

Coursera’s editorial team is comprised of highly experienced professional editors, writers, and fact...

This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

• Visit the University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Apply to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln
• Give to the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Search Form

Powerpoints for crim 101, section 1 crime, deviance and justice, section 2 the criminal justice network, section 3 crime and deviance in america, section 4  criminology, section 5  criminal law, section 6 justice process, section 7 rights of the accused (4 th amendment), section 8 rights of the accused (5 th , 6 th , 8 th amendments), section 9 the law enforcement system, section 10 pre-trial issues, section 11 the judicial system, section 12 the correctional system, section 13 the juvenile justice system, section 14 the future of justice.

• University News
• Faculty & Research
• Health & Medicine
• Science & Technology
• Social Sciences
• Humanities & Arts
• Students & Alumni
• Arts & Culture
• Sports & Athletics
• The Professions
• International
• New England Guide

The Magazine

• Current Issue
• Past Issues

Class Notes & Obituaries

• Browse Class Notes
• Browse Obituaries

Collections

• Commencement
• The Context

Harvard Squared

• Harvard in the Headlines

Support Harvard Magazine

• Why We Need Your Support
• How We Are Funded
• Ways to Support the Magazine
• Special Gifts
• Behind the Scenes

Classifieds

• Vacation Rentals & Travel
• Real Estate
• Products & Services
• Harvard Authors’ Bookshelf
• Education & Enrichment Resource
• Ad Prices & Information
• Place An Ad

Follow Harvard Magazine:

Restoring Justice

Exploring an alternative to crime and punishment.

July-August 2021

Illustration by James Heimer

“I spent 28 years in prison,” Armand Coleman was saying to the Harvard Law School students and professors gathered over Zoom on an early spring afternoon. For 22 of those years, he lived in a maximum-security prison; for 12, he was in solitary confinement. “But the time I spent in the restorative-justice program was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Coleman said. “It just…” He paused for a moment. “It was very difficult to come to terms with what I did, and also to come to terms with the things that happened to me that turned me into the person I was.”

Coleman and his friend, Emmanual “Noble” Williams—both former inmates at MCI Norfolk, one of the Commonwealth’s oldest and largest prisons—were guest speakers in senior lecturer Nancy Gertner’s class on mass incarceration and sentencing law. They’d come to talk about an approach to criminal justice that has gained ground during the past couple of decades as an alternative to the prevailing legal process. Restorative justice focuses not on prosecution and punishment, but on harm done and how to repair it. The men had come to talk about how completely it had changed them.

The term “restorative justice” these days describes an increasingly broad collection of practices and programs, in settings ranging from prisons to schools to workplaces. It is the concept that animates the American debate over reparations for slavery, and at its most far-reaching, restorative justice drives the work of truth and reconciliation commissions like those convened in South Africa and Rwanda in the aftermath of apartheid and atrocity.

In the criminal context, restorative justice most often involves face-to-face meetings between a victim and an offender (though practitioners don’t use those words, preferring descriptors like “affected party” and “responsible party,” because “victim” and “offender,” as one advocate explains, “leave people fixed in time,” and restorative justice is all about change). These meetings—often called “circles”—are also attended by members of the wider community: family, friends, other people affected by the crime. And by the time everyone sits down together, weeks or months of planning and preparation have gone into the event, as restorative-justice facilitators first meet separately—with both victim and offender—to gather information and to discuss in detail the expectations and structure of the coming dialogue and the process as a whole.

When the face-to-face conversation takes place—and sometimes there is more than one—each party speaks, one at a time and without interruption, about the crime and its effects, and about the circumstances and life histories leading up to it. The person who has committed the crime takes responsibility, expresses remorse, and offers a detailed public apology; victims give voice to their pain, their feelings, and their needs. Then the group comes to consensus on a set of actions that the offender can take to meet those needs, repair the harm, and prevent further offenses.

To date, 45 states have passed laws permitting the use of restorative justice in at least some criminal cases. Programs typically function in one of three ways: as a form of diversion from the criminal process, allowing offenders—especially young or first-time offenders—to avoid charges and a conviction; as a form of alternative sentencing; or, in more serious cases, as a way to reduce a criminal sentence. The program Coleman and Williams took part in was a fourth kind: initiated years after their convictions, it did not influence the men’s sentences or release dates, but its deeper purpose was the same—to help participants take responsibility for their wrongdoing and understand themselves better, and, to the extent possible, “make things right,” as Coleman put it.

Adriaan Lanni

Photograph by Stu Rosner

In Gertner’s class, he and Williams were accompanied by a third speaker, Touroff-Glueck professor of law Adriaan Lanni, who for the past three years has taught a course on restorative justice, and this year published a paper, “Taking Restorative Justice Seriously,” that argued for the concept’s expanded use—“thoughtfully and gradually”—in part as a way to help reduce incarceration, but also as a more effective and humane method for dealing with crime. She regularly invites Coleman and Williams to her own classroom; she also invites crime survivors who have found restitution in restorative justice. “I think that might actually be the most important thing I do at Harvard Law School,” she says. This spring she introduced her students to Janet Connors, whose son was murdered in 2001. Connors sought out a dialogue with the men convicted and eventually formed a deep connection with one of them. She is now a pioneering restorative-justice practitioner and activist in Boston. “There’s research and teaching on restorative justice,” Lanni says, “but hearing the experiences of people and how it’s changed their lives—I’ve had many students tell me that that’s what altered their view of the criminal legal system.”

That afternoon in Gertner’s class, Lanni helped steer the discussion, and Coleman laid out for students the basics of the restorative-justice program at MCI Norfolk. Operating within the prison, it’s largely run by the prisoners themselves, men for whom questions of conviction and sentencing were settled long ago. Many of them know they are never going home. “These men are lifers,” Coleman told the students. “Most of them have been in for 20 years, 30 years, some 40 years.” Yet restorative justice offers them something needed: accountability, self-knowledge, repair, healing. Programs based on a similar model operate inside other prisons around the country, facilitated by volunteers. Norfolk’s began after tensions between rival gang members in 2010 escalated to a brawl that ended with the prison’s youngest inmate, a newly arrived 18-year-old, on a medevac flight out. “After that,” Coleman said, “several of the men came together and figured that they needed to do something to make space for the young men, to bring healing to our community.”

Coleman arrived at the prison just as the program was getting started, and he didn’t fully anticipate what he was getting into. “When I started the process, I already had two decades incarcerated. And in all that time, I had never spoken about my crimes, even to my codefendants, even to my closest comrades.” He went to prison at 17 for murder. After he was locked up, surviving became easier if he didn’t think about why he was there. But programs like the one at Norfolk include a questionnaire about the crime and its impact: “It basically takes you through the whole gamut of how you hurt somebody and how you were hurt and how you could heal,” he said. Writing out his answers, he wept for the first time since arriving in prison.

The shattering moment for Williams, who spent 10 years in prison for home invasion and attempted murder, came later, at a “retreat” in the prison’s auditorium, attended by inmates’ families and friends and a panel of “surrogate” victims (people who’ve suffered crimes similar to those the men had committed, who stand in as participants in restorative-justice circles when the actual victims cannot be present). The men make their public apologies from a podium, after months of work and internal searching. Williams remembered going back to his cell briefly to prepare himself. “I almost didn’t come back out,” he said. “I’ll never forget, I was standing in my cell, staring out the window, crying. I was shaking. Because I really got to see the reality of me starting a gang and how I had made certain parts of my community unsafe, which led to people getting murdered, to people too scared to go to the park.”

“A Process of Making Things Right”

Restorative justice may seem like a new idea—it is such a radical departure from the current system. But in reality, it is ancient. The concept has origins with indigenous peoples around the world, including Native American and Canadian First Nations civilizations. In New Zealand, where all juvenile crimes except murder go through a restorative process and adult crimes are automatically referred for similar consideration, the genesis lies in Maori traditions. In Africa, the philosophy that undergirds restorative justice is ubuntu , a complex term that translates roughly as “A human being is a human being because of other human beings.” When South Africa embarked on its reconciliation process after apartheid, ubuntu provided the ethical framework.

The modern history of restorative justice in the West begins with Howard Zehr, the son of a Mennonite church leader, who left academia in the late 1970s to found the country’s first victim-offender reconciliation program, in Elkhart, Indiana. That program followed a model of restorative justice Zehr had developed largely from his own faith, mining the Bible and his Mennonite beliefs for a set of guiding principles. Many of them echo indigenous ideas. “The key to Old Testament justice was the concept of Shalom—of making things right, of living in peace and harmony with one another in right relationship,” Zehr wrote in a 1985 paper titled “Retributive Justice, Restorative Justice.” “The test of justice, then, was not whether the right rules, the right procedures, were followed.…Justice is to be tested by the outcome, not the procedures, and it must come out with right relationships. Justice is a process of making things right.”

In 1990, Zehr collected what he’d learned about restorative justice into Changing Lenses, a foundational book that called for a new paradigm in crime and punishment. One of its central tenets, which has guided countless other practitioners since, is what are known as the “three questions” of restorative justice: “Who has been hurt? What are their needs? Who is responsible for righting the harm?” By contrast, Zehr observed, a legal system built around punishment asks very different questions: “What rules were broken? Who did it? What do they deserve?”

sujatha baliga

Photograph courtesy of sujatha baliga

Another question is also crucial: “What happened?” That may be, in fact, the most important question that gets asked and answered in restorative-justice circles, believes sujatha baliga ’93, a practitioner in Oakland, California, who in 2019 won a MacArthur Fellowship for her work. When things go terribly wrong, says baliga (who prefers to lowercase her name), the need to know what happened and why—and to hear it directly from the person who committed the crime—is one of the deepest and most urgent that survivors feel.

It is a need she herself has felt. Growing up in an immigrant family in Pennsylvania, baliga was sexually abused by her father from as early as she can remember. He never apologized, and the abuse stopped only with his death, when she was 16. As an undergraduate, her intention was to become a prosecutor and put other abusers behind bars, and so after graduation, she spent a couple of years as a victim advocate, working in the areas of domestic violence, sexual assault, and rape crisis. And then, in her mid twenties, after mailing her law-school applications, she took a trip to India, where the weight of her childhood trauma and anger caught up with her. Amid a nervous breakdown and at the suggestion of a Tibetan family she had met while backpacking, she wrote to the Dalai Lama for help and advice. To her surprise, he responded by asking to meet with her, and the hour she spent with him that spring, she says, set her on a path toward healing and forgiveness—and ultimately toward restorative justice.

Other survivors’ stories contain more quotidian details, but the threads are similar. Janet Connors has spoken about the anger and emptiness she felt after her son’s killers were convicted, and a nagging dissatisfaction that nudged her to try to engage with them. Danielle Sered, who founded the New York-based program Common Justice and whose book, Until We Reckon , has become a pivotal text in the restorative-justice field, is a rape survivor. She has said that when victims are offered the option of sitting down with their offenders, 90 percent say yes.

That matches baliga’s experience, too. Within the first week of law school, she realized she couldn’t be a prosecutor. Instead she became a public defender in New York and Santa Fe, and later moved to California to work on death-penalty appeals. But being a defense attorney still didn’t feel quite right. A Buddhist, she found herself increasingly drawn to the system of justice that existed in Tibet before the Chinese occupation, with its focus on repair and healing for all involved. In 2008, she left the law to start a restorative-justice program for juvenile offenders, and eventually led the restorative-justice project at Impact Justice, an organization focused on research and reform. There, baliga specialized in cases involving sexual abuse and intimate-partner violence; she left last year to write a book on forgiveness and help advise other organizations.

People often get restorative justice wrong, she says. “They think it’s just everything kinder, gentler.” Really, it’s neither. For one thing, as baliga explained in a 2017 lecture at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), “If we’re going to ask these questions about who was harmed and what do they need, we can’t gloss over this word ‘harm,’ right?” Sometimes the harm is unthinkable. In 2012, a New York Times Magazine story chronicled a difficult case baliga facilitated between a 19-year-old who had murdered his fiancée and the parents of the murdered girl. It is a wrenching narrative of pain, loss, and seemingly impossible grace.

Plus, she adds, the entire process is designed to meet the needs of victims . Perhaps counterintuitively, she says, victims’ needs are more readily met in a circle than in a courtroom. The adversarial structure of the criminal-justice system routinely pushes offenders to downplay or deny their crimes, and those who plead guilty frequently plead to charges that are different from the actual offenses they committed—sometimes less severe, but at other times much more severe—and so survivors are often left with no real answer to that deeply urgent question, what happened . Restorative-justice programs that work as a form of diversion from conviction, intervening (as Impact Justice does) before charges are filed, are better able to elicit answers, baliga says. They are also “more empowering to survivors, and more accessible to survivors of color.” One reason she never reported her father was because of the potential consequences for her family: immigration problems, or her own removal to a new home with a language and culture she didn’t know. Also, reporting him would have meant giving up her say in any consequences, her “ownership” of the offense: “If I had reported it, it would have been the state versus my father, not me versus my father,” she points out. “And what does the state do? It exacts punishment. It does not repair the harm done to me.”

“I think survivors have been sold a bill of goods,” baliga says, “that the criminal legal system is real justice.”

Of the current carceral system, she says, “If you actually asked survivors what we needed, it would not be mass criminalization. No one would have designed this, including the people most impacted by harm….I think survivors have been sold a bill of goods, that the criminal legal system is real justice.”

And so her life’s work has been an effort to shift the paradigm, to “share the story that there is healing and resolution and happiness and thriving on the other side, when no criminal legal engagement ever happened.” One imperative for making this healing possible, she insists, is taking the necessary time to let the process play out. “Justice moves at the speed of trust,” baliga told the HDS audience, and that means not shortchanging any part of the procedure. “Time is a great challenge to our work.”

Another imperative revolves, again, around survivors: “The entire process, leading up to getting into the room where the circle takes place, needs to be about helping the person who’s experienced the harm feel empowered to set the terms,” baliga says. “I think a big problem with some restorative processes is that people think they can just throw people in a room together and have it work out.” The process becomes equally misguided when “it’s driven more by trying to prevent somebody from going to prison than it is from holding both parties with equal compassion and concern.” Yet equal compassion is called for, baliga says, because people who have caused harm have usually experienced it themselves. Offenders, very often, are also victims.

“What’s Your Story?”

Just as transformative for offenders as the recognition of their own accountability is the work of examining—often for the first time—the circumstances in their own lives that led to the crimes they committed: the violence, abuse, injustice, or poverty that shaped them. This is not the same as absolution. It is a necessary full accounting. Williams remembered finally making that connection: “Before I committed my first crime, many, many crimes were committed against me,” he said. Restorative justice redirected him in a way he didn’t see coming. “The first time I felt human, the first time I felt seen, was in a circle,” he said. “Someone asked me, ‘What’s your story? What’ve you been through? How you feel?’”

Harvard legal scholar and human-rights expert Martha Minow lays out the paradox in her book When Should Law Forgive? —which advocates a more restorative criminal justice system in the United States and draws an analogy between child soldiers in places like Sierra Leone and young gang members in American cities (read the review, “Forgive, but Don’t Forget,” November-December 2019, page 64). The 300 th Anniversary University Professor explains what she sees as the “concentric circles” that make room for empathy and forgiveness: “Concentric circles of people, incentives, and causes influence violations of the law,” she writes. In an interview, she elaborates: “We’re a nation that is so ready to blame other people. And I think we’re in search of, and in need of, ways to see our interconnections.…Finding ways for people to actually encounter one another as human beings is an important ingredient here, and that, at its core, is one thing that restorative methods allow.”

For Coleman and Williams, all of this was a revelation. Sitting in a circle with facilitators and other inmates at Norfolk, they revisited childhoods marked by addiction and abuse within their families, gangs and violence in their communities. Williams recalled that as child, “It was safer in the projects than it was in my house.” He came to realize, he said, that by founding a gang, he was, in part, “creating something so I could be safe.”

“Once you detail what happened to you,” Coleman said, “you go through a whole process.” One long-buried memory he shared with students took him back to second grade and an abusive teacher, whose side his mother took after he was accused of an infraction he didn’t commit. Coleman was suspended from school and then beaten when he got home. Afterward, he disliked school and distrusted his mother. “I really felt like I had nobody,” he said. “I started fighting every day in school.…I can remember myself disconnecting from my mother and trying to find other people to connect to. Until, eventually, I connected with my uncles, who were involved in the street life.”

Analyzing the Data

In recent decades, numerous restorative-justice programs have sprung into existence. A few operate entirely outside the legal system, without ever involving any authorities; others work with local police departments and district attorneys’ offices. Methodologies vary from place to place, too—making it more difficult to assess the effectiveness of the underlying concept: most analyses have focused on juvenile and first-time offenders. But recent rigorous, randomized studies find that restorative justice typically does a modestly better job at reducing recidivism than the court system—resulting in anywhere from 7 percent to 45 percent fewer repeat arrests or convictions, depending on the study parameters. One 2015 analysis found that this effect was actually most pronounced for violent offenses and adult offenders.

Crime victims also consistently appear to be more satisfied after a restorative-justice process than after a traditional criminal one—sometimes dramatically so (in a 2017 study of its own work, Impact Justice found that 91 percent of victims said they’d recommend the process to a friend and 88 percent said the repair plan adopted by the group addressed their needs). Surveys show that while people who have survived a crime want to feel safe, many of them also prefer rehabilitation for the perpetrators, rather than long periods of incarceration. Researchers find that victims often perceive restorative dialogues to be fairer and more responsive to their needs and wishes. One 2013 study of face-to-face meetings between victims and offenders found a marked decrease in victims’ post-traumatic stress symptoms and in their desire for revenge. A multiyear randomized study in Australia found that victims of violent crime who went to court were five times more likely to believe they would be re-victimized by the offender, while those who went through a restorative process felt more secure and achieved a greater sense of closure.

Adriaan Lanni points to such findings in her argument in favor of restorative justice, but says even they fall short of the full picture. For several years, she has volunteered as a case coordinator for a Concord-based program, and has seen firsthand what happens in those conversations. “I think you lose a lot if you just look at the quantitative analysis, like, ‘Give me the recidivism number,’” she says. “It’s sort of a magical experience. I was skeptical about restorative justice until I started sitting in circles. But it’s really transformative, in a way that’s hard to measure.”

“A Much More Capacious Approach”

Lanni found her way to restorative justice bit by bit. Originally, she planned to become a labor lawyer. Both her parents were labor organizers, and she spent her Yale Law School summers working at union-side law firms and the American Civil Liberties Union. But a class on capital punishment profoundly changed her outlook on the legal system; she dove into criminal law and procedure and wrote a paper on jury sentencing, arguing that communities should have more of a say in the criminal-justice decisions that affect them. “I think you can’t really study the criminal legal system without being appalled by mass incarceration and racial disparities,” she says.

Meanwhile, she had already fallen deep into another consuming interest: ancient Athenian democracy. That’s what she had studied as a Marshall Scholar at Cambridge University prior to law school, and as a doctoral student afterward; her dissertation (and first book) addressed jury decision-making in Athens. “The Athenian jury had a much more individualized, contextualized approach,” she says. “They would take into account the impact that, for example, the punishment would have on the defendant and on the community, and on the defendant’s family.” In the American system, those things are irrelevant: “We don’t even tell the American jury what the sentence will be, except in capital cases.”

In the concept of restorative justice, all of this came together. She discovered that restorative justice, like the Athenian system, offered “a much more capacious approach” to what ought to happen after a crime. Ancient law—not only in Athens, but also in Rome and the Near East—is a subject she still teaches: “What I think is important about a class like that for lawyers,” she says, “is that it denaturalizes our system and shows us that it’s not inevitable; it’s a result of contingencies and historical choices. There are different ways of thinking about crime and punishment than what we’ve chosen.”

Lanni’s engagement with restorative justice reflects a growing tide at the Law School. Minow reports that newly admitted students now often arrive with an interest—and sometimes actual experience—in restorative work. Lecturer John Cratsley, who, like Gertner, is a retired judge, devotes a few class periods every semester to teaching the concept: “It’s an extremely valuable tool that I wish had been available to me when I was on the bench,” he says. Meanwhile, student demand for Lanni’s restorative-justice course keeps growing. At one point this past spring, there were 150 names on the waitlist.

Moral and legal philosopher Erin Kelly, Ph.D. ’95, has found herself increasingly turning her research toward restorative justice, too. A faculty member at Tufts University who was a visiting Harvard Law professor this past spring, she studies criminal law and its relationship to injustice. Her 2018 book, The Limits of Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility , critiqued the moralism that justifies harsh treatment of lawbreakers. “A lot of times, people think that individual moral accountability only makes sense within a retributive framework,” she says. “I think a lot of people naturally put together the ideas of moral accountability, blame, and punishment. And they think that if we pull them apart, then we’re not being morally serious.”

Indeed, one common critique of restorative justice is that it allows offenders to escape proper punishment. But to Kelly, the punitive approach to criminal justice—the foundational idea that perpetrators must be harmed—is what’s “difficult to defend on the basis of rational argument.” Mitigating factors in crimes, and the long history of social injustice and inequality, complicate responsibility and mean that “When you ask, ‘Who deserves punishment? And how much punishment do they deserve?’ it’s harder to pin down a convincing answer than retributivists would like us to think.” Meanwhile, the broad discretionary power of police and prosecutors muddies the notion of the legal system as a tidy instrument; in reality, it is subjective and messy: “There’s lots of room for moral contestation there.”

Conversely, she argues, restorative justice is a firmer solution than many people imagine. “Instead of offering a purportedly objective answer to the question of what should happen next after criminal wrongdoing, what’s being offered is…a procedure that’s well-organized, with each person having a role and being recognized as an equal partner in the enterprise. And then things get worked out through that procedure.” Democracy itself follows that model, Kelly says. “And there’s something attractive, especially in a pluralistic society, and a society that values liberty and autonomy, about a democratic exercise in which the most important people with regard to what has happened are present and participating in the outcome.”

Fairness, Power, and Forgiveness

Still, restorative justice is not a panacea. An emerging field, it remains a site of vast experimentation, and there are trade-offs and drawbacks, questions to be worked out. Not every case can be decided this way: with defendants who are not ready to accept responsibility, for instance, or who are wrongfully accused, or offenders who pose serious danger to themselves or others.

Fairness is a worry in cases where police or prosecutors determine who has the option of a restorative process, and in cases where the offender wants to take responsibility and make amends but the victim is not willing or emotionally ready to meet. Surrogate victims offer a possible solution, but that in turn raises the concern that offender rehabilitation will supersede victims’ needs.

The power dynamic between facilitator and participants can also be tricky, especially when disparities in race, gender, age, and class come into play. And there is sometimes a risk that participants may feel coerced: offenders, to take part, with the threat of a criminal sentence hanging over them; victims, to forgive the perpetrator. Forgiveness must never be a requirement of the process, sujatha baliga says. “Forgiveness is an individual journey.” Very often it happens, but not always. “There’s an independent good to wanting to make things right. Whether or not you receive forgiveness when you’ve caused harm is not your business.”

Coleman recalled discovering restorative justice and thinking, “Wow, the people who need it most don’t have this. I was like, ‘Damn, man, I need this more than anybody.’ ”

Perhaps the biggest concern has to do with race. On one hand, restorative practices that originated in indigenous communities have been adopted without credit or adapted in ways that sever them from their original purpose and meaning. This kind of cultural appropriation “is a huge issue in the field,” Lanni says. Also, the problems of crime and incarceration fall disproportionately on minority communities. In those places, restorative justice has a real potential to bring change, advocates say, and yet, many programs are in white, suburban neighborhoods, dealing primarily with nonviolent offenses (though some organizations, like baliga’s, do focus on violent crime and minority communities). In talking to the Harvard Law students, Coleman recalled discovering the concept of restorative justice and thinking, “Wow, the people who need it most don’t have this. I was like, ‘Damn, man, I need this more than anybody.’” He and Williams help lead The Transformational Prison Project, which brings the restorative process they experienced in Norfolk to former inmates now living on the outside ; and Coleman is on staff at Communities for Restorative Justice, the same Concord-based organization where Lanni volunteers. His role involves expanding the program’s reach into Boston’s neighborhoods of color.

•   •   •

The first restorative justice circle involving a serious crime that Lanni took part in as a volunteer concerned a young man in Boston who, after smoking pot late at night with his friends, chased down a pedestrian and pointed a gun at him when the man refused to give the young assailants any money. The gun was loaded with BBs and the stick-up was meant as a prank, but the pedestrian ran away fearing for his life. The boy was arrested soon after. In the circle, Lanni says, everything came out: fear, regret, recognition, life histories and memories of trauma, and the story of what happened that night. And somewhere in those hours in the circle, that magical thing, the phenomenon Lanni can’t quite put into words and can’t capture with statistics, happened. It was the first time she’d seen it. At the end of the meeting, anger had turned to empathy; a traumatized victim felt less afraid and a young man had heard directly from the person he’d hurt—and had apologized, felt remorse, and made amends. After it was over, the offender’s mother stood up and hugged the victim. “I had walked into that room with curiosity and hope, but also with skepticism,” Lanni says. “I walked out with a firm belief in the transformative potential of restorative justice.” 

Associate editor Lydialyle Gibson’s profile of Jeannie Suk Gersen, “Due Process,” appeared in the March-April issue.

Published in the print edition of the July-August 2021 issue (Volume 123, Number 6), under the headline “Justice Be Done.”

You might also like

Crimson Cricket?

Taking a Harvard swing at a blossoming sport

An Interfaith Answer to Campus Tensions

Discussing religious pluralism at Harvard Divinity School 

Update: Harvard Encampment Ends

As protest numbers dwindled, organizers and administrators reached an agreement

Most popular

Michelle Yeoh’s Three Tips for Success

Oscar-winning actress offers advice in Harvard Law School Class Day address.

Advertisement

More to explore

Dominica’s “Bouyon” Star

Musician “Shelly” Alfred’s indigenous Caribbean sound

What is the Best Breakfast and Lunch in Harvard Square?

The cafés and restaurants of Harvard Square sure to impress for breakfast and lunch.

University People

Harvard Portraitist Nina Skov Jensen Paints Celebrities and Princesses

Nina Skov Jensen ’25, portraitist for collectors and the princess of Denmark. 

Doha Declaration

Education for justice.

• Agenda Day 1
• Agenda Day 2
• Agenda Day 3
• Agenda Day 4
• Registration
• Breakout Sessions for Primary and Secondary Level
• Breakout Sessions for Tertiary Level
• E4J Youth Competition
• India - Lockdown Learners
• Chuka, Break the Silence
• The Online Zoo
• I would like a community where ...
• Staying safe online
• Let's be respectful online
• We can all be heroes
• Respect for all
• We all have rights
• A mosaic of differences
• The right thing to do
• Solving ethical dilemmas
• UNODC-UNESCO Guide for Policymakers
• UNODC-UNESCO Handbooks for Teachers
• Justice Accelerators
• Introduction
• Organized Crime
• Trafficking in Persons & Smuggling of Migrants
• Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice Reform
• Crime Prevention, Criminal Justice & SDGs
• UN Congress on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Commission on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Conference of the Parties to UNTOC
• Conference of the States Parties to UNCAC
• Rules for Simulating Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice Bodies
• Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• Engage with Us
• Contact Us about MUN
• Conferences Supporting E4J
• Cyberstrike
• Play for Integrity
• Running out of Time
• Zorbs Reloaded
• Developing a Rationale for Using the Video
• Previewing the Anti-Corruption Video
• Viewing the Video with a Purpose
• Post-viewing Activities
• Previewing the Firearms Video
• Rationale for Using the Video
• Previewing the Human Trafficking Video
• Previewing the Organized Crime Video
• Previewing the Video
• Criminal Justice & Crime Prevention
• Corruption & Integrity
• Human Trafficking & Migrant Smuggling
• Firearms Trafficking
• Terrorism & Violent Extremism
• Introduction & Learning Outcomes
• Corruption - Baseline Definition
• Effects of Corruption
• Deeper Meanings of Corruption
• Measuring Corruption
• Possible Class Structure
• Core Reading
• Advanced Reading
• Student Assessment
• Additional Teaching Tools
• Guidelines for Stand-Alone Course
• Appendix: How Corruption Affects the SDGs
• What is Governance?
• What is Good Governance?
• Corruption and Bad Governance
• Governance Reforms and Anti-Corruption
• Guidelines for Stand-alone Course
• Corruption and Democracy
• Corruption and Authoritarian Systems
• Hybrid Systems and Syndromes of Corruption
• The Deep Democratization Approach
• Political Parties and Political Finance
• Political Institution-building as a Means to Counter Corruption
• Manifestations and Consequences of Public Sector Corruption
• Causes of Public Sector Corruption
• Theories that Explain Corruption
• Corruption in Public Procurement
• Corruption in State-Owned Enterprises
• Responses to Public Sector Corruption
• Preventing Public Sector Corruption
• Forms & Manifestations of Private Sector Corruption
• Consequences of Private Sector Corruption
• Causes of Private Sector Corruption
• Responses to Private Sector Corruption
• Preventing Private Sector Corruption
• Collective Action & Public-Private Partnerships against Corruption
• Transparency as a Precondition
• Detection Mechanisms - Auditing and Reporting
• Whistle-blowing Systems and Protections
• Investigation of Corruption
• Introduction and Learning Outcomes
• Brief background on the human rights system
• Overview of the corruption-human rights nexus
• Impact of corruption on specific human rights
• Approaches to assessing the corruption-human rights nexus
• Human-rights based approach
• Defining sex, gender and gender mainstreaming
• Gender differences in corruption
• Theories explaining the gender–corruption nexus
• Gendered impacts of corruption
• Anti-corruption and gender mainstreaming
• Manifestations of corruption in education
• Costs of corruption in education
• Causes of corruption in education
• Fighting corruption in education
• Core terms and concepts
• The role of citizens in fighting corruption
• The role, risks and challenges of CSOs fighting corruption
• The role of the media in fighting corruption
• Access to information: a condition for citizen participation
• ICT as a tool for citizen participation in anti-corruption efforts
• Government obligations to ensure citizen participation in anti-corruption efforts
• Teaching Guide
• Brief History of Terrorism
• 19th Century Terrorism
• League of Nations & Terrorism
• United Nations & Terrorism
• Terrorist Victimization
• Exercises & Case Studies
• Radicalization & Violent Extremism
• Preventing & Countering Violent Extremism
• Drivers of Violent Extremism
• International Approaches to PVE &CVE
• Regional & Multilateral Approaches
• Defining Rule of Law
• UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy
• International Cooperation & UN CT Strategy
• Legal Sources & UN CT Strategy
• Regional & National Approaches
• International Legal Frameworks
• International Human Rights Law
• International Humanitarian Law
• International Refugee Law
• Current Challenges to International Legal Framework
• Defining Terrorism
• Criminal Justice Responses
• Treaty-based Crimes of Terrorism
• Core International Crimes
• International Courts and Tribunals
• African Region
• Inter-American Region
• Asian Region
• European Region
• Middle East & Gulf Regions
• Core Principles of IHL
• Categorization of Armed Conflict
• Classification of Persons
• IHL, Terrorism & Counter-Terrorism
• Relationship between IHL & intern. human rights law
• Limitations Permitted by Human Rights Law
• Derogation during Public Emergency
• Examples of States of Emergency & Derogations
• International Human Rights Instruments
• Regional Human Rights Instruments
• Extra-territorial Application of Right to Life
• Arbitrary Deprivation of Life
• Death Penalty
• Enforced Disappearances
• Armed Conflict Context
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• Convention against Torture et al.
• International Legal Framework
• Key Contemporary Issues
• Investigative Phase
• Trial & Sentencing Phase
• Armed Conflict
• Case Studies
• Special Investigative Techniques
• Surveillance & Interception of Communications
• Privacy & Intelligence Gathering in Armed Conflict
• Accountability & Oversight of Intelligence Gathering
• Principle of Non-Discrimination
• Freedom of Religion
• Freedom of Expression
• Freedom of Assembly
• Freedom of Association
• Fundamental Freedoms
• Definition of 'Victim'
• Effects of Terrorism
• Access to Justice
• Recognition of the Victim
• Human Rights Instruments
• Criminal Justice Mechanisms
• Instruments for Victims of Terrorism
• National Approaches
• Key Challenges in Securing Reparation
• Topic 1. Contemporary issues relating to conditions conducive both to the spread of terrorism and the rule of law
• Topic 2. Contemporary issues relating to the right to life
• Topic 3. Contemporary issues relating to foreign terrorist fighters
• Topic 4. Contemporary issues relating to non-discrimination and fundamental freedoms
• Module 16: Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism
• Thematic Areas
• Content Breakdown
• Module Adaptation & Design Guidelines
• Teaching Methods
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introducing United Nations Standards & Norms on CPCJ vis-à-vis International Law
• 2. Scope of United Nations Standards & Norms on CPCJ
• 3. United Nations Standards & Norms on CPCJ in Operation
• 1. Definition of Crime Prevention
• 2. Key Crime Prevention Typologies
• 2. (cont.) Tonry & Farrington’s Typology
• 3. Crime Problem-Solving Approaches
• 4. What Works
• United Nations Entities
• Regional Crime Prevention Councils/Institutions
• Key Clearinghouses
• Systematic Reviews
• 1. Introduction to International Standards & Norms
• 2. Identifying the Need for Legal Aid
• 3. Key Components of the Right of Access to Legal Aid
• 4. Access to Legal Aid for Those with Specific Needs
• 5. Models for Governing, Administering and Funding Legal Aid
• 6. Models for Delivering Legal Aid Services
• 7. Roles and Responsibilities of Legal Aid Providers
• 8. Quality Assurance and Legal Aid Services
• 1. Context for Use of Force by Law Enforcement Officials
• 2. Legal Framework
• 3. General Principles of Use of Force in Law Enforcement
• 4. Use of Firearms
• 5. Use of “Less-Lethal” Weapons
• 6. Protection of Especially Vulnerable Groups
• 7. Use of Force during Assemblies
• 1. Policing in democracies & need for accountability, integrity, oversight
• 2. Key mechanisms & actors in police accountability, oversight
• 3. Crosscutting & contemporary issues in police accountability
• 1. Introducing Aims of Punishment, Imprisonment & Prison Reform
• 2. Current Trends, Challenges & Human Rights
• 3. Towards Humane Prisons & Alternative Sanctions
• 1. Aims and Significance of Alternatives to Imprisonment
• 2. Justifying Punishment in the Community
• 3. Pretrial Alternatives
• 4. Post Trial Alternatives
• 5. Evaluating Alternatives
• 1. Concept, Values and Origin of Restorative Justice
• 2. Overview of Restorative Justice Processes
• 3. How Cost Effective is Restorative Justice?
• 4. Issues in Implementing Restorative Justice
• 1. Gender-Based Discrimination & Women in Conflict with the Law
• 2. Vulnerabilities of Girls in Conflict with the Law
• 3. Discrimination and Violence against LGBTI Individuals
• 4. Gender Diversity in Criminal Justice Workforce
• 1. Ending Violence against Women
• 2. Human Rights Approaches to Violence against Women
• 3. Who Has Rights in this Situation?
• 4. What about the Men?
• 5. Local, Regional & Global Solutions to Violence against Women & Girls
• 1. Understanding the Concept of Victims of Crime
• 2. Impact of Crime, including Trauma
• 3. Right of Victims to Adequate Response to their Needs
• 4. Collecting Victim Data
• 5. Victims and their Participation in Criminal Justice Process
• 6. Victim Services: Institutional and Non-Governmental Organizations
• 7. Outlook on Current Developments Regarding Victims
• 8. Victims of Crime and International Law
• 1. The Many Forms of Violence against Children
• 2. The Impact of Violence on Children
• 3. States' Obligations to Prevent VAC and Protect Child Victims
• 4. Improving the Prevention of Violence against Children
• 5. Improving the Criminal Justice Response to VAC
• 6. Addressing Violence against Children within the Justice System
• 1. The Role of the Justice System
• 2. Convention on the Rights of the Child & International Legal Framework on Children's Rights
• 3. Justice for Children
• 4. Justice for Children in Conflict with the Law
• 5. Realizing Justice for Children
• 1a. Judicial Independence as Fundamental Value of Rule of Law & of Constitutionalism
• 1b. Main Factors Aimed at Securing Judicial Independence
• 2a. Public Prosecutors as ‘Gate Keepers’ of Criminal Justice
• 2b. Institutional and Functional Role of Prosecutors
• 2c. Other Factors Affecting the Role of Prosecutors
• Basics of Computing
• Global Connectivity and Technology Usage Trends
• Cybercrime in Brief
• Cybercrime Trends
• Cybercrime Prevention
• Offences against computer data and systems
• Computer-related offences
• Content-related offences
• The Role of Cybercrime Law
• Harmonization of Laws
• International and Regional Instruments
• International Human Rights and Cybercrime Law
• Digital Evidence
• Digital Forensics
• Standards and Best Practices for Digital Forensics
• Reporting Cybercrime
• Who Conducts Cybercrime Investigations?
• Obstacles to Cybercrime Investigations
• Knowledge Management
• Legal and Ethical Obligations
• Handling of Digital Evidence
• Digital Evidence Admissibility
• Sovereignty and Jurisdiction
• Formal International Cooperation Mechanisms
• Informal International Cooperation Mechanisms
• Data Retention, Preservation and Access
• Challenges Relating to Extraterritorial Evidence
• National Capacity and International Cooperation
• Internet Governance
• Cybersecurity Strategies: Basic Features
• National Cybersecurity Strategies
• International Cooperation on Cybersecurity Matters
• Cybersecurity Posture
• Assets, Vulnerabilities and Threats
• Vulnerability Disclosure
• Cybersecurity Measures and Usability
• Situational Crime Prevention
• Incident Detection, Response, Recovery & Preparedness
• Privacy: What it is and Why it is Important
• Privacy and Security
• Cybercrime that Compromises Privacy
• Data Protection Legislation
• Data Breach Notification Laws
• Enforcement of Privacy and Data Protection Laws
• Intellectual Property: What it is
• Types of Intellectual Property
• Causes for Cyber-Enabled Copyright & Trademark Offences
• Protection & Prevention Efforts
• Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse
• Cyberstalking and Cyberharassment
• Cyberbullying
• Gender-Based Interpersonal Cybercrime
• Interpersonal Cybercrime Prevention
• Cyber Organized Crime: What is it?
• Conceptualizing Organized Crime & Defining Actors Involved
• Criminal Groups Engaging in Cyber Organized Crime
• Cyber Organized Crime Activities
• Preventing & Countering Cyber Organized Crime
• Cyberespionage
• Cyberterrorism
• Cyberwarfare
• Information Warfare, Disinformation & Electoral Fraud
• Responses to Cyberinterventions
• Framing the Issue of Firearms
• Direct Impact of Firearms
• Indirect Impacts of Firearms on States or Communities
• International and National Responses
• Typology and Classification of Firearms
• Common Firearms Types
• 'Other' Types of Firearms
• Parts and Components
• History of the Legitimate Arms Market
• Need for a Legitimate Market
• Key Actors in the Legitimate Market
• Authorized & Unauthorized Arms Transfers
• Illegal Firearms in Social, Cultural & Political Context
• Supply, Demand & Criminal Motivations
• Larger Scale Firearms Trafficking Activities
• Smaller Scale Trafficking Activities
• Sources of Illicit Firearms
• Consequences of Illicit Markets
• International Public Law & Transnational Law
• International Instruments with Global Outreach
• Commonalities, Differences & Complementarity between Global Instruments
• Tools to Support Implementation of Global Instruments
• Other United Nations Processes
• The Sustainable Development Goals
• Multilateral & Regional Instruments
• Scope of National Firearms Regulations
• National Firearms Strategies & Action Plans
• Harmonization of National Legislation with International Firearms Instruments
• Assistance for Development of National Firearms Legislation
• Firearms Trafficking as a Cross-Cutting Element
• Organized Crime and Organized Criminal Groups
• Criminal Gangs
• Terrorist Groups
• Interconnections between Organized Criminal Groups & Terrorist Groups
• Gangs - Organized Crime & Terrorism: An Evolving Continuum
• International Response
• International and National Legal Framework
• Firearms Related Offences
• Role of Law Enforcement
• Firearms as Evidence
• Use of Special Investigative Techniques
• International Cooperation and Information Exchange
• Prosecution and Adjudication of Firearms Trafficking
• Teaching Methods & Principles
• Ethical Learning Environments
• Overview of Modules
• Module Adaption & Design Guidelines
• Table of Exercises
• Basic Terms
• Forms of Gender Discrimination
• Ethics of Care
• Case Studies for Professional Ethics
• Case Studies for Role Morality
• Additional Exercises
• Defining Organized Crime
• Definition in Convention
• Similarities & Differences
• Activities, Organization, Composition
• Thinking Critically Through Fiction
• Excerpts of Legislation
• Research & Independent Study Questions
• Legal Definitions of Organized Crimes
• Criminal Association
• Definitions in the Organized Crime Convention
• Criminal Organizations and Enterprise Laws
• Enabling Offence: Obstruction of Justice
• Drug Trafficking
• Wildlife & Forest Crime
• Counterfeit Products Trafficking
• Falsified Medical Products
• Trafficking in Cultural Property
• Trafficking in Persons
• Case Studies & Exercises
• Extortion Racketeering
• Loansharking
• Links to Corruption
• Bribery versus Extortion
• Money-Laundering
• Liability of Legal Persons
• How much Organized Crime is there?
• Alternative Ways for Measuring
• Measuring Product Markets
• Risk Assessment
• Key Concepts of Risk Assessment
• Risk Assessment of Organized Crime Groups
• Risk Assessment of Product Markets
• Risk Assessment in Practice
• Positivism: Environmental Influences
• Classical: Pain-Pleasure Decisions
• Structural Factors
• Ethical Perspective
• Crime Causes & Facilitating Factors
• Models and Structure
• Hierarchical Model
• Local, Cultural Model
• Enterprise or Business Model
• Groups vs Activities
• Networked Structure
• Jurisdiction
• Investigators of Organized Crime
• Controlled Deliveries
• Physical & Electronic Surveillance
• Undercover Operations
• Financial Analysis
• Use of Informants
• Rights of Victims & Witnesses
• Role of Prosecutors
• Adversarial vs Inquisitorial Legal Systems
• Mitigating Punishment
• Granting Immunity from Prosecution
• Witness Protection
• Aggravating & Mitigating Factors
• Sentencing Options
• Alternatives to Imprisonment
• Death Penalty & Organized Crime
• Backgrounds of Convicted Offenders
• Confiscation
• Confiscation in Practice
• Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA)
• Extradition
• Transfer of Criminal Proceedings
• Transfer of Sentenced Persons
• Module 12: Prevention of Organized Crime
• Adoption of Organized Crime Convention
• Historical Context
• Features of the Convention
• Related international instruments
• Conference of the Parties
• Roles of Participants
• Structure and Flow
• Recommended Topics
• Background Materials
• What is Sex / Gender / Intersectionality?
• Knowledge about Gender in Organized Crime
• Gender and Organized Crime
• Gender and Different Types of Organized Crime
• Definitions and Terminology
• Organized crime and Terrorism - International Legal Framework
• International Terrorism-related Conventions
• UNSC Resolutions on Terrorism
• Organized Crime Convention and its Protocols
• Theoretical Frameworks on Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism
• Typologies of Criminal Behaviour Associated with Terrorism
• Terrorism and Drug Trafficking
• Terrorism and Trafficking in Weapons
• Terrorism, Crime and Trafficking in Cultural Property
• Trafficking in Persons and Terrorism
• Intellectual Property Crime and Terrorism
• Kidnapping for Ransom and Terrorism
• Exploitation of Natural Resources and Terrorism
• Review and Assessment Questions
• Research and Independent Study Questions
• Criminalization of Smuggling of Migrants
• UNTOC & the Protocol against Smuggling of Migrants
• Offences under the Protocol
• Financial & Other Material Benefits
• Aggravating Circumstances
• Criminal Liability
• Non-Criminalization of Smuggled Migrants
• Scope of the Protocol
• Humanitarian Exemption
• Migrant Smuggling v. Irregular Migration
• Migrant Smuggling vis-a-vis Other Crime Types
• Other Resources
• Assistance and Protection in the Protocol
• International Human Rights and Refugee Law
• Vulnerable groups
• Positive and Negative Obligations of the State
• Identification of Smuggled Migrants
• Participation in Legal Proceedings
• Role of Non-Governmental Organizations
• Smuggled Migrants & Other Categories of Migrants
• Short-, Mid- and Long-Term Measures
• Criminal Justice Reponse: Scope
• Investigative & Prosecutorial Approaches
• Different Relevant Actors & Their Roles
• Testimonial Evidence
• Financial Investigations
• Non-Governmental Organizations
• ‘Outside the Box’ Methodologies
• Intra- and Inter-Agency Coordination
• Admissibility of Evidence
• International Cooperation
• Exchange of Information
• Non-Criminal Law Relevant to Smuggling of Migrants
• Administrative Approach
• Complementary Activities & Role of Non-criminal Justice Actors
• Macro-Perspective in Addressing Smuggling of Migrants
• Human Security
• International Aid and Cooperation
• Migration & Migrant Smuggling
• Mixed Migration Flows
• Social Politics of Migrant Smuggling
• Vulnerability
• Profile of Smugglers
• Role of Organized Criminal Groups
• Humanitarianism, Security and Migrant Smuggling
• Crime of Trafficking in Persons
• The Issue of Consent
• The Purpose of Exploitation
• The abuse of a position of vulnerability
• Indicators of Trafficking in Persons
• Distinction between Trafficking in Persons and Other Crimes
• Misconceptions Regarding Trafficking in Persons
• Root Causes
• Supply Side Prevention Strategies
• Demand Side Prevention Strategies
• Role of the Media
• Safe Migration Channels
• Crime Prevention Strategies
• Monitoring, Evaluating & Reporting on Effectiveness of Prevention
• Trafficked Persons as Victims
• Protection under the Protocol against Trafficking in Persons
• Broader International Framework
• State Responsibility for Trafficking in Persons
• Identification of Victims
• Principle of Non-Criminalization of Victims
• Criminal Justice Duties Imposed on States
• Role of the Criminal Justice System
• Current Low Levels of Prosecutions and Convictions
• Challenges to an Effective Criminal Justice Response
• Rights of Victims to Justice and Protection
• Potential Strategies to “Turn the Tide”
• State Cooperation with Civil Society
• Civil Society Actors
• The Private Sector
• Comparing SOM and TIP
• Differences and Commonalities
• Vulnerability and Continuum between SOM & TIP
• Labour Exploitation
• Forced Marriage
• Other Examples
• Children on the Move
• Protecting Smuggled and Trafficked Children
• Protection in Practice
• Children Alleged as Having Committed Smuggling or Trafficking Offences
• Basic Terms - Gender and Gender Stereotypes
• International Legal Frameworks and Definitions of TIP and SOM
• Global Overview on TIP and SOM
• Gender and Migration
• Key Debates in the Scholarship on TIP and SOM
• Gender and TIP and SOM Offenders
• Responses to TIP and SOM
• Use of Technology to Facilitate TIP and SOM
• Technology Facilitating Trafficking in Persons
• Technology in Smuggling of Migrants
• Using Technology to Prevent and Combat TIP and SOM
• Privacy and Data Concerns
• Emerging Trends
• Demand and Consumption
• Supply and Demand
• Implications of Wildlife Trafficking
• Legal and Illegal Markets
• Perpetrators and their Networks
• Locations and Activities relating to Wildlife Trafficking
• Environmental Protection & Conservation
• CITES & the International Trade in Endangered Species
• Organized Crime & Corruption
• Animal Welfare
• Criminal Justice Actors and Agencies
• Criminalization of Wildlife Trafficking
• Challenges for Law Enforcement
• Investigation Measures and Detection Methods
• Prosecution and Judiciary
• Wild Flora as the Target of Illegal Trafficking
• Purposes for which Wild Flora is Illegally Targeted
• How is it Done and Who is Involved?
• Consequences of Harms to Wild Flora
• Terminology
• Background: Communities and conservation: A history of disenfranchisement
• Incentives for communities to get involved in illegal wildlife trafficking: the cost of conservation
• Incentives to participate in illegal wildlife, logging and fishing economies
• International and regional responses that fight wildlife trafficking while supporting IPLCs
• Mechanisms for incentivizing community conservation and reducing wildlife trafficking
• Critiques of community engagement
• Other challenges posed by wildlife trafficking that affect local populations
• Global Podcast Series
• Apr. 2021: Call for Expressions of Interest: Online training for academics from francophone Africa
• Feb. 2021: Series of Seminars for Universities of Central Asia
• Dec. 2020: UNODC and TISS Conference on Access to Justice to End Violence
• Nov. 2020: Expert Workshop for University Lecturers and Trainers from the Commonwealth of Independent States
• Oct. 2020: E4J Webinar Series: Youth Empowerment through Education for Justice
• Interview: How to use E4J's tool in teaching on TIP and SOM
• E4J-Open University Online Training-of-Trainers Course
• Teaching Integrity and Ethics Modules: Survey Results
• Grants Programmes
• E4J MUN Resource Guide
• Library of Resources
• Module 1: United Nations Norms & Standards on Crime Prevention & Criminal Justice
• {{item.name}} ({{item.items.length}}) items
• Add new list

E4J University Module Series: Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice

Module 1: united nations norms and standards on crime prevention and criminal justice, introduction and learning outcomes.

• Topic 1 - Introducing the United Nations standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice vis-à-vis international law
• Topic 2 - The scope of United Nations standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice
• Topic 3 - The United Nations standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice in operation

Case studies

Possible class structure, core reading, advanced reading, student assessment, additional teaching tools, guidelines to develop a stand-alone course.

• First published in September 2020

  This module is a resource for lecturers  

Several case studies are provided to illustrate the different aspects of the topic. These can be used as handouts or included in the relevant sections of the lecture. Case studies are necessarily geographically specific. Regionally or locally relevant case studies can be constructed by viewing materials available from regional and local crime prevention entities.

Case Study 1 - The Corinna Horvath Case

• Human Rights Committee, Communication No. 1885/2009. UN Doc. CCPR/C/110/D/1885/2009 .
• Remedy Australia (n.d), Regarding the case: Horvath v Australia (HRC, 2014), Violations: ICCPR Article 2(3)

On 5 June 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee found that Ms. Horvath's right to an effective remedy was violated, in relation to the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention to which she was subjected, and the interference with her home and privacy. The Committee recommended legislative reform in Victoria and adequate compensation for Ms. Horvath. Read the full decision at  Horvath v Australia (2014)

On 19 September 2014, Ms. Horvath obtained an individual remedy, a written apology from the Victorian Police Commissioner and an ex gratia payment as compensation for the violent assault on her by police in 1996. In October 2015, Justice Teague recommended to the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) that Victoria Police should investigate bringing criminal charges against Leading Senior Constable David Jenkin, who is still a serving police officer. Possible charges range from assault to intentionally causing serious injury (Bucci and Lee, 2015). In November 2016, IBAC charged Leading Senior Constable David Jenkin with recklessly causing injury, recklessly causing serious injury, intentionally causing injury and intentionally causing serious injury. Jenkin, still a police officer, was removed from operational duties, with a Magistrates' Court hearing scheduled for 19 December ( Bucci, 2016 ). In November 2018, David Jenkin was tried in the County Court of Victoria for intentionally causing serious injury, recklessly causing serious injury, intentionally causing injury and recklessly causing injury. The jury acquitted Jenkin and Ms Horvath said she considered the case over (Cooper, 2018).

Case study 2 - Corrective Rape in South Africa

• The Brutality of ‘Corrective Rape’ : Clare Carter, The New York Times 27 July 2013

"South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of sexual assault. According to a 2009 government survey, one in four men admit to having sex with a woman who did not consent to intercourse, and nearly half of these men admitted to raping more than once. An earlier government study found that a majority of rapes were committed by friends and acquaintances of the victim. Just as disturbing is a practice called “corrective rape” — the rape of gay men and lesbians to “cure” them of their sexual orientation.

In one of the few cases to attract press attention, in 2008, Eudy Simelane, a lesbian, was gang-raped and stabbed to death. Her naked body was dumped in a stream in the Kwa Thema township outside Johannesburg. A soccer player training to be a referee for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, she was targeted because of her sexual orientation. In 2011, Noxolo Nogwaza, 24, was raped, and stabbed multiple times with glass shards. Her skull was shattered. Her eyes were reportedly gouged from their sockets. Ms. Nogwaza had been seen earlier that evening in a bar with a female friend.

South Africa …was the fifth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage … with horrific apartheid in recent memory, the country’s 1996 Constitution committed itself to equality for the entire nation. But the new constitution could not erase deeply held biases and even hatred toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. If anything, the extension of formal legal protections exacerbated some people’s worst homophobic inclinations.…multiple layers of South African society were responsible for the epidemic of corrective rape and that bias, apathy and culpability ran deep …: in educational and religious institutions, the criminal justice system, and even within families. I met victims whose loved ones let rapists back into their homes, or even abetted the sexual assaults, sometimes under the influence of local ministers. Police officers did not document or investigate these assaults.

… Simphiwe Thandeka, was “correctively” raped three times. A tomboy, she was raped at age 13 by an uncle who didn’t approve of her “boyish” ways. “I didn’t know at the time it was rape, because I was only 13,” she told me. The next morning, she awoke bleeding and in severe pain. She spoke to her mother and grandmother, who insisted it was a family matter and was not to be spoken of again. Some years later, Simphiwe’s uncle decided that marriage would “cure” his niece of her sexuality. So he arranged a marriage for her. “He took me to his friend’s house and told me I must have sex with this man, because I was going to marry him next month,” she recounted. “I had no idea what was going on.” The friend raped Simphiwe multiple times, and beat her with a clothes hanger. “He told me I was going to be his wife and not a lesbian,” she said. The following morning, the friend returned her to her uncle’s house. “He told my uncle he couldn’t marry me because I was still a lesbian, and returned the money my uncle had given him,” she said. During a hospital visit, Simphiwe learned that she had contracted H.I.V. from her uncle and had become pregnant by his friend. “My Mum had known my uncle was positive, but she never told me,” she said. After giving birth to a son, she was raped again, this time by a priest in her township — who also impregnated her. She gave birth to a daughter. She gave her children Zulu names: her boy Happiness, and her daughter Blessing. “I opened a case against the priest but nothing happened,” she said. “They kept losing documents; there was a lot of confusion. There were a lot of people against me, this man was a priest, and they love him so much so they took his side.” She added: “I don’t have any support from my family or the community, so what could I do? I just left it like that. The only thing I can do is love my children.”

Citation for Case Study 2: Carter, Clare (2013). The Brutality of ‘Corrective Rape’ The New York Times 27 July 2013.

Case study 3 - alternatives to imprisonment (penal reform international).

In many countries in Africa, prisons are severely overcrowded.

“According to the  International Centre for Prison Studies’ World Prison Brief , the number of prisoners exceeds capacity in 37 out of 46 African countries. In 10 countries occupancy levels are operating at more than twice capacity. The occupancy rates in countries where PRI currently works are 115% in Tanzania, 202% in Kenya and 273% in Uganda. This is largely the result of  excessive use of  pre-trial detention  and disproportionate prison sentences.

Approximately half of those detained at any one time are awaiting justice. Pre-trial detainees represent 55% of prisoners in Uganda, 50% in Tanzania and 40% in Kenya. Many will spend months and even years in detention – without being tried or found guilty.

Large numbers of those sentenced to prison receive relatively  short prison sentences for   minor offences . Research conducted by PRI in East Africa in 2012 showed that people are imprisoned for offences ranging from using abusive language and operating without a valid business licence to desertion of a child and unlawful gambling (PRI, 2012). It is likely that at least some of these offences could be dealt with in a more effective and cost-efficient way than a prison sentence.”

Prison Reform International has a strong record of working in partnership with governments and NGOs to develop non-custodial measures in Africa, as well as to promote good prison management. In the early 1990s we assisted with the development of community service in Zimbabwe and subsequently worked in a number of countries in East Africa to help establish Community Service Orders (CSOs) as an alternative to imprisonment.

“Thanks in part to Prison Reform International’s work, the use of Community Service Orders (CSOs) increased. For example, CSOs given by magistrates in Kenya rose from 3,000 orders in 1990 to 55,000 in 1997. However, there was then a sharp decline, and in 2012, we started work to help identify the reasons why this had happened. In partnership with probation and aftercare services and civil society partners, we are now addressing the challenges that are currently preventing greater use of community service and other alternatives to imprisonment, including pre-trial measures”.

“We are helping to address decongestion in prisons in  Kenya ,  Uganda  and  Tanzania  by developing models of good practice, and by providing training and technical assistance to promote the use of alternatives. We also facilitate the sharing of good practice and expertise within the wider region. We publish  research and guidance on alternatives , including  Alternatives to imprisonment in East Africa: trends and challenges  and a resource pack  Making Community Service Work: A Resource Pack from East Africa . We are supporting probation services to raise awareness among local communities about community service orders and the potential benefits for communities. We conduct  training workshops and conferences  for magistrates and prison and probation services on alternatives to imprisonment and on good practice for implementing community service orders. We are supporting the development of the African Network on Probation and Community Service (CAPC), which has been set up to facilitate the  exchange of good practice , experience and collaboration among probation services in Africa. To support civil society in the region, the  Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (Uganda)  and PRI established an  e-network of NGOs  to share information, good practice and enable collaboration in the promotion of alternatives to imprisonment, justice for children and improved treatment and conditions for women in the criminal justice system. This work is currently largely delivered through our  Excellence in Training on Rehabilitation in Africa (ExTRA) Project (2014-2016) funded by the UK Government. This pilot projects aims to increase and improve the use of community service orders with the end goal of reducing chronic overcrowding. It works with all the different, but inter-linking, levels of the criminal justice system, delivering training, awareness raising, and practical expertise and support to government probation services, the judiciary and community supervision officers.”

Citation for Case Study 3: Penal Reform International, (n.d.). Alternatives to Imprisonment .

Case study 4: muslim voices: perceptions of policing in india.

Status of Policing in India Report 2018: A Study of Performance and Perceptions

“In 2018, two civil society organisations - Common Cause and the Lokniti Programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies - published a first-ever comprehensive report on policing in India. Covering 22 States, it combines official data from government sources with surveys of public perceptions of policing, on a host of parameters, including perceptions of discrimination by the police. Surveys were done to gather public opinion on whether the police discriminate on the basis of caste, religion, gender, class, and region/state.

The report throws up that institutional bias manifests in various ways – in low levels of diversity, as well as police actions towards certain groups. Hard data reveals that bias shows itself in police decisions on who to arrest: disproportionality high for minorities, the poor, and marginalised groups. It reinforces the glaring reality that Muslim representation is disproportionately low in the police and disproportionately high in prisons (see below). It states that “institutional discrimination” is a feature of policing that “cannot be denied.” 

Yet, the perceptions of discrimination, reported through the surveys, were only moderate. Taken together across the Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian respondents, 19% held that the police discriminate on the basis of religion, while the majority denied discrimination. Muslims stand out as expressing in the highest numbers that police are discriminatory on the basis of religion.

The survey results of discrimination on the basis of religion (and in fact on the other parameters as well) diverge significantly from existing official literature (some cited above), civil society fact-finding and documentation, and documented lived experiences. This is perhaps an indication that purely quantitative, data-driven methodologies deter individuals, particularly those from marginalized communities, from honestly expressing being discriminated against. There may be conscious, or unconscious, fear at play in admitting, in a public survey, that a law enforcement body like the police discriminates.

Measuring bias and discrimination may require a combination of methodologies, and targeted efforts designed on the basis of the contexts (including the documented history of discrimination) of each community, rather than an omnibus all-in-one survey, to have the best chances of eliciting honest perceptions.”

Citation for Case Study 4: Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (2018). Muslim Voices: Perceptions of Policing in India .

Case study 5: justice for syrian victims beyond trials: the need for new, innovative uses for documentation of human rights violations in syria.

“A critical challenge to pursuing justice for victims of serious human rights violations in Syria concerns the objectives of documentation. At the international level, the issue of justice has been framed almost exclusively in terms of criminal accountability, with a focus on the Commission of Inquiry, the IIIM, the ICC, possible ad hoc hybrid tribunals, and universal jurisdiction. At the national level, Syrian organizations formed since 2012 followed this lead, specifically training and building their missions around criminal prosecution objectives. With regime change now an unlikely outcome of the war and progress at the international level slow, however, these organizations have begun to reorient their documentation work toward new goals, which could complement the longer-term objective of holding perpetrators responsible. Addressing its objectives, documentation’s relationship to different transitional justice measures and possible use for purposes other than criminal prosecutions remain a difficult but critical challenge. Developing new and innovative uses for the material that Syrian organizations have documented and continue to document is key to achieving objectives related to acknowledgment, victims’ right to truth, memory, property, civil status, and the missing and forcibly disappeared. Support from the international community for developing innovative approaches and uses for documentation is critical.”

Citation for Case Study 5: Kabawat, Nousha, and Travesi, Fernando (2018). “Justice for Syrian Victims Beyond Trials: The Need for New, Innovative Uses for Documentation of Human Rights Violations in Syria” ICTJ Briefing.

Next: possible class structure, back to top, supported by the state of qatar, 60 years crime congress.

What You Need to Know About Becoming a Criminal Justice and Corrections Major

A criminal justice major learns research methods for criminology, criminological theory and the psychology behind criminal behavior.

Becoming a Criminal Justice Major

Getty Images

A criminal justice major gives students an understanding of the three main elements of the justice system: the courts, policing and corrections. The study of criminal justice and corrections involves research methods for criminology, criminological theory and the psychology behind criminal behavior. Those in this field work to help society operate safely and effectively.

What Is a Criminal Justice and Corrections Major?

A criminal justice major provides students with a liberal arts and social sciences-focused education in addition to criminal justice and corrections-specific training. Areas of study for this major include juvenile justice, criminal law, corrections, the judicial process, administration theory and evaluations, and crime prevention. The major draws on topics from history, political science, communications, psychology and sociology to supplement students’ coursework. Students can choose to specialize in an area of criminal justice like law enforcement, forensic science, homeland security, crisis management, or corrections and case management. For example, a law enforcement specialization likely focuses on police interactions with the community throughout the levels of the justice system. Courses for that particular speciality might cover law enforcement ethics, the structure of police organizations and daily administrative operations of the police. Those who are unsure can choose to be a generalist in criminal justice and corrections. Field experience and internships with the FBI or police are ways for students to take the theories outside of the classroom and use their knowledge in agency situations. Study abroad is an option through some programs as an opportunity to learn how other countries approach issues in criminal justice.

Common Coursework Criminal Justice and Corrections Majors Can Expect

Many of the required courses for this major are in the areas of criminal justice and criminology, psychology, political science and sociology. The foundational courses in these areas include introduction to criminal justice; problems of law enforcement; introduction to sociology; introduction to social research; the American political system; and statistics for criminology and criminal justice. More advanced courses are focused on topics like social psychology; constitutional law; civil liberties: equal protection; problems of corrections; courts and sentencing; crime and delinquency prevention; and contemporary criminological theory. For example, in the course titled “Problems of Corrections,” students learn an overview of the American corrections system, current problems with the system, philosophy of punishment, the prison experience, alternatives to incarceration and more. These broad areas of study give students exposure to the elements of the field and allow them to decide on an area of interest. No matter what career path students choose, understanding the law, policing ethics, human behavior and best practices in the field will be helpful to succeed.

How to Know if This Major Is the Right Fit for You

When choosing this major, students can think about what sparked their interest in this area of study and choose a speciality based on that answer. This major is right for students who are interested in the law, have great people skills and want to help people by serving society. People who work in criminal justice are often subjected to tough decision-making situations, so they must be calm and professional under pressure. Whether it’s working with law-abiding citizens to make progress in the community, rehabilitating convicted criminals to help them rejoin society, advocating for victims or overseeing offenders on parole or probation, this area of study can result in a rewarding career path.

Pick the Perfect Major

Discover the perfect major for you based on your innate wiring. The Innate Assessment sets you up for success by pairing you with majors, colleges and careers that fit your unique skills and abilities.

What Can I Do With a Criminal Justice and Corrections Major?

Those with a criminal justice and corrections degree have a range of career options in law enforcement and other law-related professions. The undergraduate degree sets a foundation for students who want to go to law school or into other graduate degree programs. Criminal justice majors can work for the government as a federal agent, in the private sector as a private investigator or in other jobs like a court reporter, court administrator, and criminal justice educator or researcher. In addition, criminal justice majors can become parole or probation officers, juvenile court counselors, correctional administrators, social workers, federal law enforcement officers, or police officers on the municipal, county or state level. Some of these careers involving counseling, psychology and social work require advanced degrees or licensing. An added perk to working in the criminal justice system or in law enforcement: Employees are known to receive favorable health and retirement benefits.

Schools Offering a Criminal Justice Major

Check out some schools below that offer criminal justice majors and find the full list of schools here that you can filter and sort.

2024 Best Colleges

Search for your perfect fit with the U.S. News rankings of colleges and universities.

College Admissions: Get a Step Ahead!

Sign up to receive the latest updates from U.S. News & World Report and our trusted partners and sponsors. By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy .

Ask an Alum: Making the Most Out of College

You May Also Like

Scholarships for lesser-known sports.

Sarah Wood May 15, 2024

Should Students Submit Test Scores?

Sarah Wood May 13, 2024

Poll: Antisemitism a Problem on Campus

Lauren Camera May 13, 2024

Federal vs. Private Parent Student Loans

Erika Giovanetti May 9, 2024

14 Colleges With Great Food Options

Sarah Wood May 8, 2024

Colleges With Religious Affiliations

Anayat Durrani May 8, 2024

Protests Threaten Campus Graduations

Aneeta Mathur-Ashton May 6, 2024

Protesting on Campus: What to Know

Sarah Wood May 6, 2024

Lawmakers Ramp Up Response to Unrest

Aneeta Mathur-Ashton May 3, 2024

University Commencements Must Go On

Eric J. Gertler May 3, 2024

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Advancing Justice Through Science

Public Feedback on AI in Criminal Justice

NIJ is seeking public comment that could inform a report that addresses the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the criminal justice system. Robust public feedback is needed to shape AI research promoting the equitable treatment of individuals and ensuring fair and impartial justice for all.

Mental Health and Violent Extremism

Understanding and addressing trauma exposure and mental health issues related to domestic radicalization and violent extremism remains a major challenge, but multidisciplinary research is helping unpack this complexity. A new NIJ Journal article examines three studies that point to the need for trauma-informed, community-based care to strengthen programs and policies for violence prevention efforts.

Statistical Tool Helps Estimate Subadult Age-At-Death

Determining the age-at-death of subadult remains is a challenging task for forensic investigators, despite decades of research in the field. A collaborative team of NIJ-supported anthropology researchers have developed a reference dataset framework that enables more precise age estimations using developmental dental data.

Term of the Month — User-Generated Recordings

User-generated recordings from smartphones, or body-worn and surveillance cameras help investigations by providing firsthand accounts of events. Often key evidence in investigations and legal proceedings, they help corroborate facts and reconstruct timelines. However, because they can be modified, a forensic examiner must establish the validity of these recordings.

Criminal Justice Data Archives

The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data archives data on crime and justice and contains data from over 2,700 curated studies or statistical data series. The website is home to several large-scale datasets, including the National Crime Victimization Survey, FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and National Incident-Based Reporting System, and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods.

List of Compliant Ballistic Resistant Body Armor

NIJ certifies torso-worn ballistic resistant body armor for law enforcement that complies with the requirements our Compliance Testing Program. If you’re in the law enforcement profession, review a newly updated list of all compliant armor, searching by manufacturing company, gender, threat levels, and other factors.

Recent Articles

Unconventional wisdom: research shakes up assumptions about sex trafficking clues in online escort ads, lessons learned on the methodological challenges in studying rare violent incidents, the daunting task of strengthening medical examiner and coroner investigations across hundreds of jurisdictions, listen, learn, inform - about nij.

Review the YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy

Find funding opportunities

Read the latest, register for events, browse all topics, crimesolutions program and practice ratings.

PSYCHOPATHY.COMP (Portugal)

This is an individual compassion-focused, therapy-based intervention adapted from traditional compassionate-focused therapy to reduce psychopathic traits in youth in a correctional setting in Portugal.

Police Body-Worn Cameras (Boston, Massachusetts)

This involves police officers wearing cameras on their uniforms to improve the civility of their interactions with citizens.

Imprisonment for Individuals Who Committed a Drunk Driving Offense (New South Wales, Australia)

This involves prison time for individuals who have committed drunk-driving offenses to reduce their risk of recidivism upon their release.

The First Step Act

The First Step Act of 2018 aims to reform the federal prison system and reduce recidivism. NIJ is working to assess and develop an existing risk and needs assessment system for incarcerated individuals, and develop recommendations regarding effective evidence-based recidivism reduction programs and activities.

• Facebook facebook
• Instagram instagram
• Twitter twitter
• LinkedIn linkedin
• Youtube youtube

California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic

The mission of the California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic (IJC) (formerly known as California Innocence Project) is to train law students to become zealous advocates and to provide students the opportunity to assist in freeing the wrongly convicted from prison. Since 1999, California Western School of Law has helped free forty innocent people from prison. As a CWSL student there are many ways for you to be involved and gain real world experience! 

California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic Relaunch

In anticipation of the exciting arrival of Professor Amy Kimpel as the new Executive Director of the California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic in July 2024, the clinic is on a temporary hiatus and has paused the provision of services. Professor Kimpel will build upon the strong foundation of the clinic, continuing its work to free the innocent while preparing students for careers in criminal law and beyond.

Please check back for updates about the program and direct any questions in the meantime to JavaScript Required .

Summer 2024

We are excited to offer California Western students the opportunity to participate in the Innocence Clinic in Summer 2024. Students will receive 4 units of academic credit for the seminar and clinical components. Students will work alongside experienced post-conviction attorneys to seek the release of wrongfully convicted prisoners in California.

Innocence Clinic Application

Making an impact

Since its inception, IJC has been involved in changing laws and policies in California related to preserving evidence, litigating innocence cases, and compensating exonerees.

Freeing the Innocent

Clients of the California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic (formerly known as California Innocence Project) have spent 570 years in prison due to wrongful convictions. While they cannot get those years back, they are now embarking on a future with freedom.

XONR8 ® Join the Movement

The purpose of XONR8 ® is to create interest and awareness about wrongful convictions in the legal community. Wrongful convictions happen in every community across the world. The California Western Innocence and Justice Clinic is based at California Western School of Law, thus it has the ability to gather students, professors, and lawyers to teach and learn about the causes of wrongful convictions. XONR8 ® does this through the use of speakers, class sessions taught by practicing attorneys, and field trips to various places involved in the criminal justice process.

XONR8 ® officers organize and arrange several events throughout the year. Examples of typical events might be a screening of a film focused on wrongful convictions followed by a discussion, an educational seminar, or a debate on the death penalty where attendees hear from individuals involved in the death penalty process. XONR8 ® also organizes networking events for students, lawyers, and other individuals who are interested in criminal justice reform and wrongful convictions.

Want to know more about the incredible work at IJC, how you can help fund the clinic’s work, or discover how you can join IJC once you are a student at California Western?

How a new grassroots movement aims to reform Oklahoma's criminal justice system

A grassroots movement in Oklahoma is underway to reshape criminal justice by improving crime prevention programs and developing better alternatives to incarceration, supporters say.

Faith leaders, social workers, attorneys, tribal officials and nonprofit organizations want to change long-standing beliefs about crime and punishment.

A recent  Roundtable Justice and Values  discussion was the culmination of meetings across the state that began nearly two years ago to review state law and gather public feedback to create better policies. The group plans to urge the Legislature to adopt new proposed legislation to reform the justice system, attendees said.

Kris Steele, The Education and Employment Ministry executive director, said the goal is to change public perception that incarceration is the only way to satisfy justice. His nonprofit works to help people transition from prison back into society.

“This is an invitation to reimagine our approach to justice,” Steele said. “The end result is to develop a strategy to change the culture in Oklahoma, to change the narrative in our state as it pertains to how we collectively think, feel and act toward people in the criminal legal system.”

Oklahoma has historically had one of the highest incarceration rates in the world

Steele said Oklahoma’s policy to prioritize incarceration keeps the incarceration rate too high. Historically, Oklahoma has held the  highest  incarceration rate in the world and the nation. A recent report shows it has dropped to the  fourth -highest following  decriminalization  of some nonviolent offenses, but it’s  rising  again. According to the  U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics , 6% more people were admitted to state prisons from 2021 to 2022.

To better understand the reasons people commit crime, Steele said the group examined experiences that led to their incarceration.

“It’s just been a real moment of truth to say, why aren’t we asking them what they may have needed to avoid engaging in activities outside the social norm, to break the law?”

The group’s discussions on possible alternatives to prison have included programs like  Common Justice , said Square One’s community partnerships director, Anamika Dwivedi. Square One is an initiative of Columbia University’s Justice Lab that facilitates community discussion on alternatives to incarceration.

More: Jail trust approves $750K deal with sheriff to cover cost of transporting detainees

The model allows a crime victim to hold the offender accountable and restore justice without incarceration, she said.

The program is used in Brooklyn and the Bronx to facilitate agreements between violent offenders and victims. The offender must complete the recommended plan to restore justice to the victim.

“It is a restorative process to respond and deal with harm when it happens,” she said. “They work with all of those involved in the harm to find a way outside of incarceration to restore justice.”

There is support for such programs in Oklahoma among some prosecutors if it enhances public safety and “makes the victim whole,” said Chris Boring, president of the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council.

“It’s not a perfect system we have today, by any means,” he said of the criminal justice system. “I think prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys and counselors are all in, all trying to figure out what is the best way to keep communities safe?”

Could neighborhood groups work to respond to some crimes? A case study in Brooklyn

Sen. George Young, D-Oklahoma City, who serves on the criminal justice reform group’s steering committee, said he hopes to see support for reform in the Legislature.

He touted an  initiative  in Brooklyn where neighbors responded to low-level crimes in a two-block area. The  Brownsville Safety Alliance  is a team of residents, police and district attorneys who work to prevent crime and reduce prosecutions leading to prison sentences. Its members do not have arrest powers, but have resolved criminal complaints like shoplifting, domestic violence and the surrender of illegal weapons without arrest.

“I think those are the kinds of things we want legislators to hear so that they’ll see their jobs differently,” Young said.

The Justice Lab plans to publish a report of its findings early next spring.

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: [email protected] . Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and Twitter .