Question

How do criminological research and experimental criminology impact social policy

Answer 1

On the basis of their structural evidence, criminological researchers hope to influence social policy. Near the end of the 20 the century, experiments such as the three strike law had become popular amongst Legislature. The three strike law requires that felons receive lengthy prison sentences following their third felony conviction. This law was built on the notion that punishing repeat offenders and putting them in prison for long periods of time should act as a deterrent and reduce the crime rate and the possibility of returning to the prison of the offender. The most comprehensive study ever of crime prevention, which was a wider-based study, ‘found that “much of the research on prisons was inadequate or flawed, making it impossible to measure how much crime was actually prevented or deterred by locking up more criminals.” Thus the formation of policies on criminology as based on research findings.

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