Editorial: Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice: A More Feasible Nomenclature? (2011)

I recently spent time in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and of course the UK where I gave a number of addresses (1) on the impact of 'What Works?' (2) and more recent theorising on reducing re-offending, particularly the impact of desistance ideas. (3) Each address was to policy-makers, managers and practitioners across the criminal justice system working in prisons, the community and the voluntary and private sectors. The overall objective was to provide insights from research to influence policy and practice in reducing re-offending. It is a typical way in which academics and researchers can contribute to what is generally referred to as evidence-based policy and practice (EBP). The popularity and 'taken-for-granted' notion of EBP, often taken as axiomatic in these exchanges, is described as the 'objective, balanced, and responsible use of current research and the best available data to guide practice decisions, such that outcomes for all are improved' (4) but often carries with it two implicit guarantees which are at the very least challengeable: * that research is the prime material for conducting and determining policy changes; and * that policy will be driven by the findings of research. Tonry (2003) couches the challenge in these terms: [...] the important question [...] is whether policy making gives good-faith consideration to the credible systematic evidence that is available, or whether it disregards it entirely for reasons of ideology or political self interest. (5) Indeed we have a proliferation of databases on websites (6) that purport to give managers this kind of systematic evidence though whether that amounts to policy-makers being driven by this is worth further reflection as does the way such sites might undertake their selection of pertinent evidence. Criminal justice policy occupies a crowded terrain in which the claims of different actors vie with each other for precedence and primacy in policy deliberations. In no particular order (though arguable that there is an institutionally determined order of power and influence) this includes the views of governmental representatives (politicians and government advisors); official advice (civil servants, government research advice, public inquiries, select committees); public opinion and the media (in all its florid variety of expression and views); the penal lobby (penal reform groups, professional associations and unions); policy networks (key stakeholder groups who come together on particular issues or areas of practice to exert a concerted influence) (7); political ideologies (often signalled by key sound bites, e.g. 'law and order', 'tough on crime and the causes of crime', 'hug a hoodie', 'name and shame' and 'Big Society'); and, of course, the rich, diverse and hugely contested contribution of research and theory from many competing disciplinary foci. The impact exerted by any one grouping is determined by a range of contingent factors. This includes the timing of the policy cycle (research findings at a time of new legislative discussions will have more impact than if a new Act has just been implemented) mediated by the relative power and influence of each actor. The policy cycle, though often presented as a rational change process--initiation/trigger for change; formulation of the problem; finding alternatives; implementation; evaluation; further changes--is frequently more incremental and disputed than this ideal purports to represent. The policy cycle exists in real time and is subject to the contingencies of everyday interference and at any one time many policies are being considered, reconsidered, tweaked, implemented or abandoned and the impact of one policy upon another is complex and frequently paradoxical and sometimes perverse in outcome. 'Infamous' cases can have a defining impact on change (consider the impact on over a decade of youth justice policy of the Jamie Bulger tragedy) and often a single event can change the course of criminal justice reform--a change of government, the 'riots' and the financial tsunami to name three such recent 'events'. …