Reshaping and Modeling the Criminal Justice System through Science, Technology, and Systems Analysis

本项目使用总统执法和司法委员会（1965-67）的档案材料，并对委员会工作人员进行访谈，调查使用系统分析的经验科学和技术来合理化和重塑传统的刑事司法实践。由于创立了资助刑事司法研究的联邦机构，因此被视为组织刑事司法和犯罪学的一个决定性时刻，但委员会的其他贡献却不太受重视。包括它对刑事司法教育的影响，因为它创造了一个不同于社会学的刑事司法学科领域，并利用系统分析来创建刑事司法过程的模型，将其作为一个综合系统，其各种组成部分协调一致，以实现控制犯罪的共同目标。该项目将对犯罪委员会进行首次持续分析，调查在委员会工作期间以及在委员会工作结束后其他团体是如何提出、谈判、包装和颁布预防犯罪和刑事司法的不同愿景的；知识生产是如何通过委员和委员会九个工作队小组的工作人员之间的组织动态形成的；以及科学技术特别工作组的具体影响，它将系统分析带入了“民防”和“打击犯罪”领域。该项目对科学和技术的关注为将委员会解释为以简单的方式扩展大社会议程提供了微妙的挑战。它探讨了最初委员会对贫困和社会因果关系的关注如何从委员会的刑事司法过程的映射和模型中退出，预测和塑造随后的方法和政策，并有助于阐明刑事司法技术随后扩展到日常生活中。对长达16个月的大量会议记录的分析增加了我们对科学咨询报告结构的理解，显示了对科学目标和政治利益的不同理解是如何为感知到的受众进行谈判和包装的。该项目也是保存委员会工作人员对司法实践的记忆和当代评估的最后机会，这些工作人员的职业生涯始于犯罪委员会的可能性，并见证了刑事司法实践中前所未有的转变。该项目基于对三种类型数据的实证收集和分析。首先，本研究将使用当代科学研究的工具，对犯罪委员会的公开文件进行仔细的文本分析，将这些技术报告解释为公共表演，通过这种表演，科学的可信度得以沟通和维持。第二，对官方帐户的分析将辅以对NARA各地点收集的内部帐户和相关收藏品的分析。据信，这些档案包含各种相关文件，包括委员会会议记录、咨询小组的说明、内部信件和备忘录、报告草稿以及刑事司法程序的早期地图和模型。公共文档和内部文档都将使用类似的编码机制进行编码，从而可以出现更大的主题和开发。第三，调查人员将设法联系与委员会有关的所有工作人员，并对他们进行录音或录像采访。这些访谈的目的是收集犯罪委员会中跨多个组织角色和立场的行动、愿望和紧张局势的总体观点，这些观点可以与档案文件和其他访谈交叉引用。调查人员还将设法记录和获得参与者对正在提出的系统模型与刑事司法和犯罪学的后续发展之间以前未被认识到的联系的见解，以及他们对后来发展的解释和评价。该项目将设计一个课堂使用的互动网站。该网站将使用科学和技术研究的技术来翻译该项目的中心主题，涉及科学和刑事司法系统的起源。在对美国大规模监禁政策的高度关注和批评以及对种族不平等和民众抗议的制度化刑事司法反应的时代，该项目和网站作为一个重要的“现在史”，它将犯罪学科学和刑事司法实践的当代配置如何出现，并阐明了未采取的替代路径。该研究还培养了一批本科生进行档案研究，组织和分析原始文献，以及在专业会议上发展和展示研究成果。

SES-1557082Bruce HoffmanOhio UniversityThis project uses archival materials from the Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1965-67) and interviews with commission staff to investigate the use of empirical science and technologies of systems analysis to rationalize and reshape traditional criminal justice practice. Regarded as a defining moment in the organization of criminal justice and criminological science due to its creation of federal institutions to fund criminal justice research, other contributions of the commission have been less appreciated, including its impact on criminal justice education by creating a disciplinary field of criminal justice distinct from sociology and its use of systems analysis to create models of the criminal justice process as an integrated system whose varied components were coordinated towards the common goal of crime control. This project will conduct the first sustained analysis of the Crime Commission, investigating how diverse visions of crime prevention and criminal justice were introduced, negotiated, packaged, and enacted over the course of the commission and by other groups in its immediate aftermath; how knowledge production was shaped through organizational dynamics between commissioners and the staff of the commissions nine task force panels; and the specific impact of the Science and Technology Task Force, which brought systems analysis to the field of "civil defense" and the "war on crime." The project's focus on science and technology provides a nuanced challenge to interpretations of the commission as extending Great Society agendas in uncomplicated ways. It explores how initial commission concerns with poverty and social causation dropped out of the commission's mappings and models of the criminal justice process, anticipating and shaping subsequent approaches and policy, and helps illuminate the subsequent extension of criminal justice technologies into everyday life. The analysis of extensive transcripts of meetings spanning a sixteenth month period adds to our understanding of the construction of scientific advisory reports, showing how diverse understandings of scientific aims and political interests are negotiated and packaged for perceived audiences. The project also serves as the last opportunity to preserve the memories and contemporary evaluations of justice practices by commission staff whose careers that began with the possibilities of the Crime Commission and witnessed unprecedented transformations in criminal justice practices. The project is based in the empirical collection and analysis of three types of data. First, the study will use the tools of contemporary science studies to engage in a careful textual analysis of the public documents of the crime commission, interpreting these technical reports as public performances through which scientific credibility is communicated and maintained. Second, the analysis of official accounts will be complemented by the analysis of internal accounts collected at NARA sites and related collections. The archives are believed to contain a variety of relevant documents, including transcripts from commission meetings, notes from advisory panels, internal letters and memoranda, drafts of reports, and early maps and models of the criminal justice process. Both the public documents and internal documents will be coded using similar coding mechanisms enabling larger themes and developments to emerge. Third, the investigator will seek to contact and conduct audiotaped or videotaped interviews of all available staff connected with the commission. The goal of these interviews is to collect general perspectives of recollected operations, aspirations, and tensions within the crime commission across multiple organizational roles and standpoints, which can be cross-referenced with archival documents and other interviews. The investigator will also seek to record and gain participants' insights into previously unrecognized connections between the systems model being set forth and the subsequent development of criminal justice and criminology, as well as their interpretation and evaluation of later developments.The project will design an interactive website designed for classroom use. The site will use techniques of science and technology studies to translate the project's central themes concerning science and the origins of the criminal justice system. At a time of heightened interest and criticism of US policies of mass incarceration and institutionalized criminal justice responses to racial inequality and popular protest, the project and website serves as an important "history of the present" that contextualizes how contemporary configurations of criminological science and criminal justice practices emerged and illuminates alternative paths not taken. The study also trains a team of undergraduates in archival research, the organization and analysis of primary source documents, and the development and presentation of research at professional meetings.