Evaluating the Quality of Critical Public Policy Scholarship Article Review

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Public Policy Scholarship

Despite significant progress in addressing institutionalized racism and other public policies that operate to the disadvantage of oppressed and marginalized groups, the recent upsurge in race-related incidents across the country underscores the fact that much more remains to be done to eliminate these oppressive and inequitable policies from American society. This paper provides a critical review of the assigned readings to assess the extent to which the concepts, assumptions and arguments that are presented are an example of public policy scholarship and a critical assessment of the extent to which the arguments presented in readings reveal the social justice impacts of public policy on groups that are excluded and marginalized. Finally, an explanation concerning how the argument that minority inclusion programs are ineffective in really assisting black women in the oil and gas sector based on the readings is followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning assessing critical public policy scholarship in the paper's conclusion.

1. Critical assessment of the extent to which the concepts, assumptions, and arguments presented in the readings are an example of critical public policy scholarship

Although public policy scholarship can involve a wide array of social, economic and political issues, Smith and Larimer (2013) maintain that critical public scholarship must be focused on the types of major problems that are currently having a positive or negative impact on society. In this regard, Smith and Larimer (2013) point out that, "The research questions at the heart of the subdisciplines that make up the field of policy studies are big ones, with large, real-world consequences. If there is, or ever is going to be, such a thing as a field of policy studies, those important questions have to be pushed to the forefront" (p. 15).

From this perspective, then, the readings can all be regarded as critical public policy scholarship given that they were all focused on these types of "important questions." This varied focus and use of different conceptual models to develop a better understanding of public policy issues, however, is highly congruent with the primary goals of engaging in public policy scholarship in the first place. As Smith and Larimer (2013) point out, "Public policy is such a diffuse topic that it is hard to even imagine a single, broad conceptual model that all policy scholars could practically adopt and apply" (p.16).

The readings made it clear that power can be applied in ways that marginalize women and minorities, including the draconian sentencing laws that have incarcerated a significant percentage of an entire generation of African-American males. For instance, Roberts (2004) reports that, "Penal institutions have historically been key components of social policy aimed at governing marginal social groups" (p. 1298). In fact, among the several readings, the journal article by Roberts (2004) stands out as an exemplar of public policy scholarship because she specifically focuses on these types of important questions and supports her assertions with hard evidence. A good example of this can be discerned from her observation that, "The extraordinary prison expansion involved young black men in grossly disproportionate numbers.

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Achieving another historic record, most of the people sentenced to time in prison today are black" (p. 1272).

Indeed, Roberts (2004) stresses that at any given point in time, almost 33% of young African-American males are actively involved with the criminal justice system in some capacity, including incarceration or community-based alternatives such as probation or parole, an increase from a still-alarming one-in-four rate in 1990. Not only does Roberts (2004) provide recent statistical data concerning incarceration rates for African-Americans, she explains how the war on drugs has been used to target this segment of society in ways that have vastly enriched an entire criminal justice system, including private prisons and a growing horde of criminal justice lawyers. For example, Roberts (2004) points out that, "The percentage of drug arrests that result in prison sentences has quadrupled, resulting in a prison-building boom the likes of which the world has never seen" (p. 59).

Yet another good example of this level of public policy scholarship was the article by Alexander (2010) who reports that following the launch of the ill-conceived "war on drugs" in the U.S. during the end of the 20th century, law enforcement authorities failed to receive any training that would facilitate their identifying drug suspects versus ordinary citizens but the training they did receive "guarantees precisely the opposite" (p. 69). During the 30-year period in which the war on drugs has been prosecuted, the number of African-American males that have been incarcerated has skyrocketed by more than 1,100%, and it is clear that the purported goals of the war on drugs have operated to unjustly target these minority members. In this regard, Alexander (2010) reports that, "Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the war on drugs" (p. 69). More troubling, the vast majority of young African-American males have been incarcerated for drug-related crimes only, and fully four-fifths of these were for possession only (Alexander, 2004).

The implications of these disturbing trends have been profound and broad-based, and as noted above the adverse effects of having an significant percentage of African-American males incarcerated or otherwise involved with the criminal justice system at any given point in time extend to their families, friends and entire communities. The fact that these trends have been allowed to persist for so long and to become even more pronounced clearly indicates that additional critical public policy scholarship of this type is required in order to address the underlying causes which extend far beyond sentencing practices

Some of the other readings, however, made it clear that mainstream American society tends to largely ignore or disregard these types of oppressive public policies, especially those that are longstanding or insidious, particularly when they are not personally affected by them. It is a fairly straightforward matter to understand how many white Americans might not be especially troubled by the massive incarceration of young black men whom they already view as a potential threat, and it is even easy.....

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