Importance of Criminological Statistics Essay

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Using statistics in criminal justice leads to evidence-based policy and practice. Criminal justice leadership can rely on statistical data to understand which policies are working and why, and how to change policies that are not yielding desired results. Leaders who rely on statistics are less likely to base policy decisions and judgments regarding criminal justice practices on politics rather than on achieving specific goals such as crime rate reduction. Therefore, criminal justice statistics can help improve organizational efficiency and integrity, allowing leaders to focus resources on policies and programs that yield demonstrable and significant results.

Statistical data helps criminal justice policy makers divert resources appropriately to fund studies that yield measurable results. Moreover, statistical research can help promote new techniques, tactics, programs, policies, procedures, and technologies that can help reduce rates of crime and create safer communities. According to the United States Department of Justice (2017), “research is critical to the development of sound criminal justice policy, as well as to the development of advanced technologies that support the work of law enforcement agencies,” (p. 1). Evidence-based practice seems like common sense, but has not always been fully integrated into criminal justice policy. As Bouchey (2016) points out, stereotyping and bias factor strongly into policy decisions in criminal justice. The Bouchey (2016) study finds, “state governments are more likely to adopt innovations that extend benefits to strong, popular, and powerful target populations or that impose burdens on weak and politically marginalized groups,” (p. 198). The failed war on drugs is a prime example of how criminal justice policy has been based too long on superstition, bias, and political whims rather than on statistical evidence.

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Increased reliance on statistical data can prevent public policy from being biased, so long as the research itself is conducted ethically, reliably, and validly.

Another benefit of relying on evidence-based practice, policy, and procedure in policing is that it allows diverse jurisdictions to implement programs that directly impact their own communities. Criminal justice policy can be based on data that is not necessarily generalizable to different population groups. Therefore, science literacy helps criminal justice policymakers to advise local departments of how to interpret results of research in credible and ethical ways. Statistical analysis can show, for example, how to create an optimal community policing model in a rural neighborhood or in a neighborhood where the majority of people do not speak English as a first language. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS, 2017) “collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates information on crime, those who commit crime, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government,” (p. 1). Using unbiased raw statistical….....

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