Editorial: Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice: A More Feasible Nomenclature?
| Author | Paul Senior |
| Pages | 1-6 |
1
EDITORIAL: EVIDENCE-INFORMED POLICY AND
PRACTICE: A MORE FEASIBLE NOMENCLATURE?
Paul Senior, Director, Hallam Centre for Community Justice, Sheffield Hallam University
I recently spent time in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and of course the UK where I
gave a number of addresses1 on the impact of 'What Works?'2 and more recent theorising
on reducing re-offending, particularly the impact of desistance ideas.3Each address was to
policy-makers, managers and practitioners across the criminal justice system working in
prisons, the community and the voluntary and private sectors. The overall objective was
to provide insights from research to influence policy and practice in reducing re-offending.
It is a typical way in which academics and researchers can contribute to what is generally
referred to as evidence-based policy and practice (EBP). The popularity and 'taken-for-
granted' notion of EBP, often taken as axiomatic in these exchanges, is described as the
'objective, balanced, and responsible use of current research and the best available data
to guide practice decisions, such that outcomes for all are improved'4 but often carries
with it two implicit guarantees which are at the very least challengeable:
·that research is the prime material for conducting and determining policy
changes; and
·that policy will be driven by the findings of research.
Tonry (2003) couches the challenge in these terms:
[…] the important question [...] is whether policy making gives good-faith
consideration to the credible systematic evidence that is available, or
whether it disregards it entirely for reasons of ideology or political self -
interest. 5
Indeed we have a proliferation of databases on websites6 that purport to give managers
this kind of systematic evidence though whether that amounts to policy-makers being
driven by this is worth further reflection as does the way such sites might undertake their
selection of pertinent evidence. Criminal justice policy occupies a crowded terrain in which
the claims of different actors vie with each other for precedence and primacy in policy
deliberations. In no particular order (though arguable that there is an institutionally
determined order of power and influence) this includes the views of governmental
British Journal of Community Justice
©2011 Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield
ISSN 1475-
0279
Vol. 9(3): 1-6
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