Assignment:
For Scaffolding Draft you will write the 2 to 3 page section Context and Importance of the Problem.
The Prompt:
As Jacinta Gau argues in her book (Gau, 2018), "current policies contain flaws that limit their effectiveness at protecting the public and can even increase victimization risks and the probability that people who have committed crime in the past will reoffend." Policies also frequently run afoul of principles of social justice, and given the race and ethnic disparities detailed above, policies are failing deeply. Therefore, for your capstone research project, you are charged with examining policies through a critical, social-scientific, empirical lens, and producing an action-oriented policy report targeting policymakers and agency executives (for example, legislators, police chiefs, wardens, prosecutors, and the like). The report will serve the purpose of informing policymakers and agency executives on what they can do to improve on what scholars and many people in communities of color call the ‘criminal injustice system.
To begin, select a crime policy that is contributing to the aforementioned problems (for example, drug policy, sentencing policy, rehabilitation policy). Next, based on what you know and have learned in the criminology and criminal justice major, work to answer the question how can we implement reforms within a single crime policy area that both reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. and the well-known racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system? Next thoroughly review the evidence pertaining to the effectiveness of a crime policy area. Use this evidence to argue that what we should and should not be doing and what needs to be reformed.
Last, recommend to policymakers the best policies, practices, and programs that should be adopted that, based on the best available scientific evidence, will work and won't lead to the race, ethnic, and class disparities. To illustrate how you should proceed, existing drug policy still adheres to the tenets of the "war on drugs" and, as such, is more oriented toward enforcement than toward prevention and treatment. Enforcement-based strategies are, by themselves, limited in their overall effectiveness. Drug courts have become significant players in the fight against drugs, but enforcement remains the focal point of policy efforts. Racial disparities in prison populations have been attributed to the war on drugs and accompanying determinant sentencing structures, yet policymakers have been reluctant to alter sentencing schemes or legislation that flatly prohibits sale, possession, and use of drugs.
If this were your focus (or topic of investigation) you would review the evidence pertaining to the effectiveness of enforcement-based and treatment-based efforts, as well as the relative cost effectiveness of each, and recommend to a policymaking audience what strategies, practices, and programs should be adopted. As final note, you need to view "effectiveness" in broad terms that include issues of justice, fairness, and what are known as "collateral consequences," and not just in terms of reducing or preventing crime.
Now, the overview: A policy report is a document that outlines the rationale for choosing a particular policy alternative or course of action in a current policy debate. It is commonly produced in response to a request directly from a decision-maker or within an organization that intends to advocate for the position detailed in the brief. Depending on the role of the writer or organization producing the document, the brief may only provide a targeted discussion of the current alternatives without arguing for a particular one (i.e. those who adopt the role of ‘objective' researcher). On the other end of the scale, i.e. advocates, the brief may focus directly on providing an argument for the adoption of a particular alternative. Nevertheless for any case, as any policy debate is a market place of competing ideas, the purpose of the policy brief is to convince the target audience of the urgency of the current problem and the need to adopt the preferred alternative or course of action outlined and therefore, serve as an impetus for action.
THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE POLICY REPORT
Policy reports directly reflect the different roles that the policy analyst commonly plays, i.e. from researcher to advocate. The type of report that you are writing is one from the more action-oriented, advocacy end of the continuum (but that is nevertheless based purely on evidence and not your opinion). Although there is much variation even at this end of the scale, the most common elements of the policy brief are as follows:
• Title of the Policy Report
• Executive Summary
• Context and Importance of the Problem (also called the ‘Introduction')
• Policy Options and Research
• Conclusion
• Policy Recommendations
• Reference Page