Any government's policies play a major role in carrying out its duties and conducting its business in order to accomplish specific goals.
Similar to this, policies play a significant role in the area of criminal justice. Examining and describing the future of criminal justice policymaking as well as the various variables that may have an impact on it are the main goals of the current article. The theory on the path and future of criminal justice will be presented, and the future of criminal justice policy will be examined, in order to achieve this goal. The paper will then draw attention to some of the shortcomings in the formulation of criminal justice policies and offer a workable answer to deal with the consequences of those policies. Criminal justice policy making is a complicated and involving procedure. The current and existing policies in criminal justice system will change in future to ensure that they remain effective and relevant in adjusting situations.
Thesis Concerning the Future of Criminal Justice Policy Making
According to research, majority of the United States citizens obtain much of their criminal justice system knowledge and perceptions through the media (Boda, & Szabó, 2011). Based on these facts, it is clear that in the future criminal justice system would undergo various changes to suit the societal needs. Criminal justice will need to conduct research and primary study of the features characterizing the social, civil law enforcement and legal system. The media, including print, broadcast and social media have an essential role in shaping the social perception of criminal justice policy (Surette 2014). From these descriptions by the various media channels the public would develop either positive or negative attitude towards the criminal justice policymaking. Such perceptions influence the policy-making decisions and implementations within the criminal justice system. (Johnson et al. 2008)
Future of Criminal Justice Policies or Issues
Parole guidelines were the first primary policing initiatives on the sentencing reform movement, despite the fact that it also covered for the individualization logic of indeterminate sentencing. The initial objective of the parole board was to increase and maintain procedural fairness by publishing standards of release and minimizing gaps in the time served by those found guilty of comparable crimes. Moreover, the board also seeks to establish the relationship between release decisions and the empirical evidence on prisoner’s probabilities of successive felonious acts. To improve the effectiveness of parole guidelines and policies, the board will consider replacing in each case presumptive sentencing guideline policies that will facilitate the achievement of better procedural consistency and fairness.
Policymakers have realized that the current federal drug policies implemented to achieve drug control objectives is a difficult and complicated task. Therefore, in future, the drug policies to be implemented will be those that try to show that enforcement and deterrence form the priorities. Moreover, these policies will be designed to offer marginalized support to health and social programs aimed at balancing and protecting limited impact with promises of new crackdowns and initiatives.
The presumptive sentencing policy was enacted to establish a specialized administrative agency that had the authority to promulgate presumptive passing judgment procedures. The primary objective of this policy is to reduce disparities and unfairness (Kramer & Ullmer, 2008). In future presumptive sentencing policy will become the most reliable approach towards jurisdictions that would reduce or avoid any incidences of unwarranted sentencing disparities, and advance budgetary and policy planning.
The future of policy-making will involve intense evaluation and analysis of a range of policies. Evaluation plays a significant role in guaranteeing the success of the creation and implementation processes. Through the use of technology, research and data gathering activities would be easy to execute. Given the continuous innovations and developments in technology, data collection methods would advance greatly with time. Majority of the existing criminal justice departments collect data using technology surveys, for instance, Survey Monkey.
Limitations
Several factors affect criminal justice policymaking. Technology has emerged as one of the major limitations. Criminal justice policymaking needs to keep up with the rapidly evolving and advancing technology. Criminal justice has used technology to facilitate progressions for the courts. The major problems are with agencies that create policies for protective purposes to the courts and later being informed that some policies violate the Constitution because technology has yet to be comprehensively defined.
Over the recent years, criminal justice policies have much been affected by social media. Some social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have been misused against agents of criminal justice fields. For instance, officers have been cautioned to be careful with whatever they post on social media platforms since it could be led to disciplinary actions. The development of a criminal justice policy founded on the principles of procedural justice is not efficient in all cases.
Solution to Anticipating Policy Consequences
The most effective approach to anticipating the outcomes of policies would involve setting up systems that are evidence-formed at each stage of policy development (Bogenschneider & Corbett, 2011). Evidence-based policy making is a not a new concept that is supposed to facilitate policy making greatly. However, it is difficult to implement such approach or put it into practice.
An evidence-informed system would help anticipate the outcomes of developed policies because of easier management. Rigorous professional and public debate should have access to the evidence to guarantee the success of the policies. Successful integration of evidence-informed system in policy making would require obtaining good evidence. The process of obtaining useful evidence entails collecting and gathering data and valid research. Moreover, it also requires involving policy makers equipped with adequate skills to distinguish between reliable and useful evidence from the presented pool (Bogenschneider & Corbett, 2011).
Conclusion
Criminal justice policy forms the structural and functional basis of the criminal justice system functions. Research on criminal justice policy is conducted with the aim of providing an analysis of crime by considering relevant strategies to mitigate the problem. However, the use of criminal justice research in policy making has over the recent years received less attention. It is a requirement for every State to maintain a criminal justice policy planning strategy for it to have federal funding disbursement. The local enforcement agencies, state, judiciary and non-profit organization obtain funds and recourses through criminal justice planning agencies to help fund and sustain criminal justice activities. Consequently, the research conducted on criminal justice policy by various researchers could be utilized by the relevant criminal justice policy makers in analyzing politics power and the dynamics of policy making that govern how such agencies operate. The future of criminal justice policy-making could take into effect the use of the conducted research in the field in developing and formulating policies. Therefore, more research in this field in future would be encouraged and supported greatly.
References
Boda, Z. & Szabó, G. (2011). The media and attitudes towards crime and the justice system: a qualitative approach. European Journal of Criminology, 8(4), 329-342.
Bogenschneider, K., & Corbett, T. J. (2011). Evidence-based policymaking: insights from policy-minded researchers and research-minded policymakers. Routledge.
Johnson, B. D., Ulmer, J. T., & Kramer, J. H. (2008). The social context of guidelines circumvention: The case of federal district courts. Criminology, 46(3), 737-783.
Surette, R. (2014). Media, crime, and criminal justice. Nelson Education.
