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

SES-1557082布鲁斯·霍夫曼俄亥俄大学本项目使用总统执法和司法委员会(1965-67)的档案材料和对委员会工作人员的采访，调查使用经验科学和系统分析技术来合理化和重塑传统的刑事司法实践。由于委员会建立了资助刑事司法研究的联邦机构，因此被视为刑事司法和犯罪学组织的一个决定性时刻，但委员会的其他贡献却不太受重视，包括它通过创建一个有别于社会学的刑事司法学科领域对刑事司法教育产生的影响，以及它使用系统分析来创建刑事司法程序的模式，将其作为一个综合系统，其不同组成部分朝着控制犯罪的共同目标进行协调。该项目将对犯罪问题委员会进行首次持续分析，调查在委员会过程中以及在委员会成立后其他团体如何引入、谈判、包装和颁布预防犯罪和刑事司法的不同观点；如何通过专员和委员会九个特别工作组的工作人员之间的组织动态塑造知识生产；以及科学和技术特别工作组的具体影响，科学和技术特别工作组将系统分析带入“民防”和“打击犯罪”领域。该项目的重点是科学和技术，这对委员会以简单的方式扩展伟大社会议程的解释提出了微妙的挑战。它探讨了最初的委员会对贫穷和社会因果关系的关注如何从委员会的刑事司法进程的映射和模式中消失，预测和塑造随后的方法和政策，并帮助说明刑事司法技术随后延伸到日常生活中。对跨越16个月的会议的大量文字记录的分析增加了我们对科学咨询报告结构的理解，显示了如何为感知的受众谈判和包装对科学目标和政治利益的不同理解。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价的最后机会，他们的职业生涯始于犯罪问题委员会的可能性，并见证了刑事司法实践中前所未有的转变。该项目基于对三类数据的经验收集和分析。首先，这项研究将利用当代科学研究的工具，对犯罪委员会的公共文件进行仔细的文本分析，将这些技术报告解释为通过公共表演来沟通和维护科学公信力。第二，对官方账户的分析将得到对NARA网站收集的内部账户和相关收集的分析的补充。据信，这些档案包含各种相关文件，包括委员会会议记录、咨询小组的笔记、内部信函和备忘录、报告草稿以及刑事司法程序的早期地图和模式。公共文件和内部文件都将使用类似的编码机制进行编码，从而能够产生更大的主题和发展。第三，调查员将设法联系并对与委员会有关的所有现有工作人员进行录音或录像面谈。这些访谈的目的是收集关于犯罪问题委员会内部跨多个组织角色和立场的行动、愿望和紧张关系的总体观点，这些观点可以与档案文件和其他访谈相互参照。调查员还将寻求记录和获取参与者对正在提出的系统模式与刑事司法和犯罪学随后发展之间以前未被认识到的联系的见解，以及他们对未来发展的解释和评估。该项目将设计一个供课堂使用的互动网站。该网站将使用科学和技术研究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。在人们对美国大规模监禁政策和针对种族不平等和民众抗议的制度化刑事司法回应的兴趣和批评日益高涨之际，该项目和网站是一个重要的“当代史”，它阐述了犯罪学和刑事司法实践的当代形态是如何出现的，并阐明了没有采取的替代道路。该研究还在档案研究、原始原始文件的组织和分析以及研究的发展和在专业会议上的陈述方面培训了一支本科生团队。

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.