Evaluation Research Essay
Evaluation research, which is also called the program evaluation, refers to the purpose of research. The purpose is to evaluate the effects of policies such as mandatory arrest for domestic violence, innovations in probation and new sentencing laws.
Evaluation research designed to provide information concerning the operations, effectiveness, and impact of program or policy. It should provide criminal justice administrators with reliable information to help them to make the correct decisions on program operations. As all of the research projects, it’s fraught with pitfalls and problems, most of which can be overcome trough careful planning and awareness of the environment. Mixing good designs with program and social science theories are among challenges in the research evaluation of criminal justice programs.
Evaluation research is appropriate whenever some policy intervention occurs. A policy intervention is an action taken for the purpose of producing some intended result. Simply speaking, evaluation research is a process of determining whether the intended result was achieved. (Maxfield M., Babbie E., 366)
Program analysis takes place in the earlier stages of the policy process, while research evaluation studies are conducted later and seek the answers to the following questions:
Are the policies been implemented as planned?
Are policies achieving their intended goals?
Therefore, evaluation seeks to link the intended actions of criminal justice policy to empirical evidence that policies are being carried out as planned and are having the desired effect. Without the evaluation information about program implementation cannot be linked to outcome measure. Criminal justice professionals may have particular difficulty separating ideology and politics from the more detached, scientific study of crime. The danger lies in allowing such beliefs to distort how research problems are defined and how research results are interpreted. The scientific approach to the study of crime and criminal justice policy guards against, but does not prevent, ideology and theology from coloring the research process
The selection process of criminal justice decision makers is political by all means. They are selected via election or appointment. Daily decisions of criminal justice determined by the style of law enforcement and the nature of departmental policy, despite the fact that politics doesn’t have a direct impact on it. The politicization of criminal justice can result substantial problems for citizens and the criminal justice system itself Criminal justice issues can be used by political leaders in order to increase their power. One of the worst enemies of functioning criminal justice is the political demagoguery. (Cole G., Smith C., 102)
The evaluation research may be influenced by the situation when winning political points becomes more important to public officials than controlling crime and achieving justice.
Objectivity plays the major role in the evaluation research. Criminal justice specialists avoid prejudgement by being as careful and deliberate in their thinking as they are in their observations. Although the scientific study of crime guards against, but does not prevent, ideological and political beliefs from influencing research findings. But the fact, that evaluation researchers often must work their measurement strategy with people responsible for the program or policy being evaluated, helps to achieve the maximum possible level of objectivity.
When the evaluation of a policy or a program is negative and problems were diagnosed, evaluation research stage is changed by the problem analysis. The problem analysis helps to design alternative course of actions and choose among them.
