Randomized experiments in Scandinavian criminal justice: Reviewing the past and looking to the future
| Author | Jordan Hyatt,Synøve N. Andersen |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1477370818788015 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2018
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2020, Vol. 17(2) 224 –244
Randomized experiments
© The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
in Scandinavian criminal
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370818788015
DOI: 10.1177/1477370818788015
journals.sagepub.com/home/euc
justice: Reviewing the past
and looking to the future
Synøve N. Andersen
Statistics Norway, Norway
Jordan Hyatt
Drexel University, USA
Abstract
Randomized controlled trials are reported on with increasing frequency within the criminological
literature. This development, which is commonly seen as being a part of a global shift towards
evidence-based policies, relies heavily on reviews of American research. However, other
regions face distinct challenges and employ distinct policy solutions, potentially undermining the
uniformity of this trend. In particular, the Scandinavian nations (Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
with distinct penal philosophies, may offer a counter-narrative. Here, we conduct a multi-lingual
systematic review of crime-related experiments in Scandinavia. Findings show that only eight
experiments with an offending or delinquency outcome were published before 2015, six of which
focused primarily on medical or psychological treatments. We suggest this distribution is driven
by unique, regional epistemological traditions and conclude by outlining distinctive opportunities
for experimental criminology in Scandinavia.
Keywords
Evidence-based policy (EBP), experiment, randomized controlled trial (RCT), Scandinavia,
systematic review
Introduction
Within criminal justice, researchers and agencies have increasingly directed their atten-
tion to the development and implementation of crime prevention programmes that are
Corresponding author:
Synøve N. Andersen, Department of Statistics Norway, PO Box 2633, St. Hanshaugen, Oslo 0131, Norway.
Email: synove.andersen@ssb.no
Andersen and Hyatt
225
supported with empirical evidence. This reflects a counter-reaction to the ‘nothing works’
ideology that characterized much of criminological and criminal justice scholarship dur-
ing the 1970s and 1980s (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001) and an embrace of rigorous evalu-
ation methodologies (Mears, 2007; Sherman et al., 2002).
Crime prevention programmes are often implemented in complex environments and
among challenging populations. To establish whether a given criminal justice policy or
intervention produces the desired outcomes, it is essential to disentangle the effects of
the programme from other factors that also influence criminal behaviour. Accordingly,
randomized controlled trials (RCTs), long recognized as a keystone of evidence-based
treatment in medicine, have taken on a more prominent role in criminal justice (Boruch
et al., 2000a; Campbell, 1969; Mears, 2007). In many situations, both academics and
policy-makers now expect evidence of programmatic impact derived from more rigorous
scientific methodologies (Sherman, 2009).
Existing reviews show that the rate of randomized experiments in criminal justice
settings has increased significantly over the last decades (see Farrington, 1983; Farrington
and Welsh, 2005; Petrosino et al., 2003).1 At the same time, assumptions about the role
of RCTs in contemporary criminology rely heavily on American studies and may be
affected by an overall Anglo-American bias within the evaluation literature (Nelken,
2009). Past reviews suggest that the increased adoption of RCTs might be less prominent
outside the US (see Farrington, 1983; Farrington and Welsh, 2005; Petrosino et al.,
2003), but this assumption has not been extensively tested. Here, and through an exami-
nation of Scandinavia (that is, the geographical region inclusive of Denmark, Norway
and Sweden), we take the first steps in this regard.
Scandinavia is the focus of this empirical enquiry for two main reasons. First, these
countries have demonstrated support for evidence-based crime policies driven by scien-
tific knowledge, evaluations and programme accreditations (see, for example, Estrada
et al., 2012; Hansen and Rieper, 2010; The Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police,
2008; The Swedish Prison and Probation Service, 2016). At the same time, they belong
to a distinctively different penal tradition than the US and most of continental Europe
(Györy, 2015; Pratt, 2008; Pratt and Eriksson, 2013), with both the low number of crime
researchers located in these countries and the critical and qualitative focuses of
Scandinavian criminological scholarship setting them apart (Lyngstad and Skardhamar,
2011: 640). How the goals of evidence-based policy (EBP) have been approached, and
whether RCTs have been accepted as the ‘gold standard’ (Farrington, 2003b; Sherman
et al., 1998; Weisburd, 2003) of evaluation research here too, are open empirical ques-
tions. Second, these nations are widely cited within the international literature as having
some of the most effective criminal justice systems in the world (Lappi-Seppälä, 2012;
Pratt, 2008; Pratt and Eriksson, 2013). Therefore, and in light of the general, potentially
global shift towards empirical policy evaluation, claims of Scandinavian penal excep-
tionalism should be considered in light of both the distinct philosophical goals of those
justice systems, as they commonly are, and the ways in which EBPs are developed,
implemented and evaluated.
We begin our enquiry by providing a brief overview of the role of RCTs in informing
evidence-based policies and outlining the historical trajectory of RCTs in criminal jus-
tice. Here we consider trends within the overall literature as well as the conclusions of
226
European Journal of Criminology 17(2)
previous systematic reviews and supplement them with an overview of all experiments
published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology (JoEX, Springer) between 2010
and 2015. Although not representative of all publications, this journal is an outlet specifi-
cally devoted to experimental research, and a survey of its contents illustrates the most
recent development within the sub-discipline. Next, we present a systematic review
designed to locate and identify all crime-related RCTs that have been conducted in the
Scandinavian countries. Conducted in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, this
review represents the first organized effort to identify all Scandinavian experiments in
criminal justice. Given the paucity of criminal justice experiments identified in this
review, we then propose some potential explanations for why an experimental tradition
has not become an integrated part of Scandinavian crime research. Finally, we briefly
explore the potential for a Scandinavian experimental tradition in criminology and con-
sider the policy and pragmatic contexts that are a prerequisite for exploiting this latent
opportunity.
On the role of RCTs in evidence-based crime prevention
The relationship between criminal justice research and public policy has undergone sev-
eral significant shifts in recent decades. In the US, and beginning in the 1970s, changes
in the availability of federal funding and a renewed academic interest in criminal justice
resulted in the proliferation of potentially policy-relevant applied research (Tonry, 2013).
Although the actual impact on policy was variable (see, for example, Reuter, 2013), this
embrace of rigorous methodologies and support for EBP based on the ‘highest standards
of science’ (Welsh and Farrington, 2012: 129) laid the foundation for further increases in
the rate, scope and methodological rigour of criminological research over the next dec-
ades (Farrington, 2001; Sherman et al., 1998; Visher and Weisburd, 1997). Randomized
experiments quickly became the ‘gold standard’ of evaluation research (see Farrington,
2003b; Sherman, 2003; Weisburd, 2003), as well-designed RCTs provide rigorous evi-
dence of between-group equivalence, internal validity and the limitation of biases
(Boruch et al., 2000a; Farrington, 2003b; Weisburd, 2000, 2010). Failure to use RCTs,
Sherman (2003) argues, may therefore undermine conclusions about the efficacy of pro-
grammes and mislead the processes through which policy-makers select programmes for
implementation. Thus, some have argued that the decision to conduct an experiment is
more than a methodological preference and that criminologists have a ‘moral imperative’
to randomize wherever possible (Weisburd, 2003: 350).
Despite obvious methodological strengths when well implemented, RCTs are not
without both practical (Boruch, 1997) and ethical (Boruch et al., 2000b) hurdles. A ‘gold
standard’ experiment requires more than simple random assignment; limiting attrition,
maintaining between-group independence, delivering consistent treatment and collecting
data from the field are essential, yet sometimes hard to achieve in practice. For instance,
service providers may object to randomized designs when they believe that a beneficial
programme is being withheld (for example, Cook and Payne, 2002) and RCTs can be
expensive and time-consuming (Weisburd, 2000).2 It is also important to acknowledge
that causal estimates may not always be neither necessary or sufficient to test predictions
from theories or influence public policy (Sampson, 2010; Weisburd, 2010) and, in in
Andersen and Hyatt
227
Table 1. Number of RCTs published in Journal of Experimental Criminology, in total...
To continue reading
Request your trial