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American Criminal Justice Policy: An Evaluation Approach to Increasing Accountability and Effectiveness, by Daniel P. Mears. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 321pp. $34.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521746236.
Expensive criminal justice policies tend to be quickly developed, implemented, and funded (over and over again) in response to controversial arguments and "facts" about the nature of crime and offenders. These policies, moreover, are rarely appropriately evaluated before being put into place; and, even though many of the criminal justice policies are extremely costly, they are seldom evaluated and revised once they have been implemented. Daniel Mears' book, American Criminal Justice Policy, represents a critical step forward in clarifying the need for and promises of using an evaluation approach to frame discussions surrounding U.S. criminal justice policy.
Mears sets out three overarching goals for his text: (1) to offer an evaluation research framework to enhance criminal justice policy, (2) to illustrate that accurate, reliable, and evidence-based foundations do not underpin many, if not most, of today's criminal justice policies, and (3) to argue that an evaluation research framework can and should be a more integral component of developing, implementing, and maintaining U.S. criminal justice policy. These goals are quite competently met throughout the text. Mears takes the reader through a convincing and well-researched set of arguments (with clear examples from the "real world") regarding the astonishing lack of foundation upon which many of our most well-known criminal justice policies rely. Further, Mears presents an unusually well-organized and empirically sound approach for understanding and improving a wide range of criminal...