Criminal Justice Policy and Planning: Planned Change

Unlike other textbooks on the subject, this book presents a comprehensive and structured account of the process of administering planned change in the criminal justice system. The authors detail a simple yet sophisticated seven-stage model, which offers students and practitioners a full account of program and policy development from beginning to end. Within these stages, students focus on performing essential procedures, such as conducting a systems analysis, specifying an impact model, identifying target populations, making cost projections, collecting monitoring data, and performing evaluations. In reviewing these steps and procedures, students can develop a full appreciation for the challenges inherent in the process and understand the tools they require to meet those challenges. To provide for a greater understanding of the material, the text uses a wide array of real-life case studies and examples of programs and policies. By examining the successes and failures of various innovations, the authors demonstrate both the ability of rational planning to make successful improvements and the tendency of unplanned change to result in undesirable outcomes. The result is a powerful argument for the use of logic, deliberation, and collaboration in criminal justice innovations.

This readable volume is ideal as a primary or supplemental text in criminal justice policy-related courses, and also serves as a useful reference for practitioners in the field tasked with strategic planning for policy change.

Wayne N. Welsh is a Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice at Temple University. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Criminal Justice and Behavior, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Crime & Delinquency, and Criminology. Welsh served as Deputy Editor of The Prison Journal from 1993 to 2000. He has conducted research in two broad areas: (1) applications of organizational theory to criminal justice and examinations of organizational change and (2) theories of violent behavior and intervention/prevention programs.

Philip W. Harris is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University, where he taught courses and conducted research on juvenile justice policy, organizational development, and program and policy analysis for thirty-five years. Prior to arriving at Temple in 1980, he served as a professional services administrator for a private juvenile correctional agency in Montreal, where he was responsible for assessment services and staff training. Harris is the 2001 recipient of the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Government Service Award, given annually by the American Evaluation Association, and was awarded the 2005 Marguerite Warren and Ted Palmer Award from the Sentencing and Corrections Division of the American Society of Criminology.

Bradley D. Edwards is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at East Tennessee State University, where he teaches classes primarily related to policy analysis. His previous publications include the areas of policing, corrections, ethics, corporate misconduct, and rural crime. He has also served as the author or co-author on several previous Routledge books. These include Introduction to Criminal Justice which is currently in its 10th edition and Justice, Crime, and Ethics, which is in its 11th edition.