NCJ Number
180785
Date Published
1998
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This review of research on correctional reform focuses on the currently fragmented approach and formulates an analytical approach that merges the sociohistorical style of one body of penal reform research with the empirical-practical style of another body of penal reform research.
Abstract
Penal reform has become the focus of much criminological research during the past two decades. However, decidedly different analytical styles and priorities have emerged from this research. One body of research has been theoretical and has centered on interpreting the origins and social control outcomes of national penal reform movements. The other body of research has been policy oriented and has centered on the effectiveness of individual program efforts. As a result metaphors that reflect punishment's necessarily questionable functions or statistics that provide empirical data without understanding have dominated penal reform research. The need for penal reform research that adheres to neither extreme is apparent. The approach proposed here assumes that multiple factors shape penal reform and that penal reform is a process defined by the interconnectedness of origins, operations, and outcomes. This approach does not aspire to impose or isolate specific cause-and-effect relationships in the penal reform process. Instead, it identifies relationships better characterized as somewhat linear, intermittent, and varying in degrees of priority. Nevertheless, researchers can weave together the information gleaned from this approach to tell a program's story in a way that is meaningful to theory and policy. Such an integrated approach accomplishes Sherman's proposal that pure research develop more specific foci for its general theories and that applied research develop a broader view of the local problems it studies. Notes and 63 references (Author abstract modified)