Principal investigator: Viviane Pires Ribeiro
Paper Title: The Limits to Evidence-Based Policy: Evidence, Emotion and Criminal Justice
Authors: Arie Freiberg and WG Carson
Location of the Intervention: Global
Sample Size: Not specified
Main theme: Economic Policy and Governance
Main Variable of Interest: Evidence-based policy
Type of Intervention: Identifying the limitations of evidence-based policy.
Methodology: Literature review
Given the relevance of affective approaches to law and order policies that resonate with the public for penal reform, Freiberg and Carson (2010) argue that criminal justice policies are more likely to be adopted if, in addition to collecting and presenting evidence, they recognize and address the roles of emotions, symbols, faith, belief, and religion in the criminal justice system. The authors also acknowledge that evidence alone is unlikely to be the primary determinant of policy outcomes and that the successful creation and implementation of policies also require broad engagement and evidence-based dialogue with stakeholders and those affected.
Evaluation Context
While 'evidence-based' or 'rationalist' approaches to criminal policy may appeal to technocrats, bureaucrats, and various academics, they often fail to successfully compete with affective approaches to law and order policies that resonate with the public and appear to satisfy deep psychological needs. These approaches often fail to recognize that “policy” and “politics” are related concepts and that debates about criminal justice take place in arenas broader than academia, department, or agency. To be successful, criminal reform must take into account the emotions people feel in the face of crime. Furthermore, successful reform must consider changes in the public's “mood” or emotions over time and be sensitive to different political and social cultures.
Intervention Details
In a legal context, “evidence” refers to information provided to establish a fact or point in question. More broadly, it can be any “information selected from the available stock and introduced at a specific point in the argument to persuade a specific audience of the truth or falsity of a claim.” In this sense, Freiberg and Carson (2010) argue that, while evidence is an important element in the policymaking process, it is only one part of the persuasion process and rarely determines policy outcomes.
The impression predominantly conveyed by the literature is that a model based on a direct linear relationship of rationality is not adequate for the task of making sense of the role that evidence and more general knowledge can or even should play in policymaking.
Thus, the authors cite some previous studies that reproduced a fivefold typology of the relationship between politics and knowledge, analyzing several alternative models:
- The knowledge-driven model in which research leads policy. This model contains an element of scientific inevitability, with the expert 'at the top' and, in extreme cases, the abdication of political choice in favor of science;
- The problem-solving model in which research follows policy, and policy issues shape research priorities. Experts are 'on tap' rather than 'on top,' and specific pieces of research (evidence gathering) are used to assist in policy formulation and implementation.
- The interactive model where research is one of many factors in a "much more complex and subtle set of relationships between decision-making and research";
- The political/tactical model is one that "views politics as the result of a political process" and also drives the research agenda in a politically instrumental way;
- The Enlightenment model posits that research influences how issues are framed. Instead of research directly serving political agendas, the benefits are indirect. Research and the evidence subsequently derived from it do not address the decision problem itself, but the context in which that decision will be made.
However, Freiberg and Carson (2010) argue that of these five models, only the Enlightenment model, properly expanded, can constructively embrace the intrinsic characteristics (emotion and affect) of the evidence/politics domain.
Methodology Details
In the first part of the study, Freiberg and Carson (2010) trace the growth of the contemporary evidence-based policy (EBP) movement and, in particular, the 'imaginary' of an idealized linear/rational model of scientific policymaking that seems to persist. While the authors do not disregard the place of evidence in policymaking processes, they suggest that the development of evidence-based policies should not be seen merely as a process, however complex and confusing, of the inexorable march of unqualified rationality in public policymaking. Instead, it should be seen as a step in the evolution of a model for the development and implementation of reflexive, recursive, and multifactorial policies.
In the second part of the article, Freiberg and Carson (2010) expand on the model, highlighting that affective or emotional arguments have a legitimate, if not vital, role in public policy discourse. Indeed, the authors claim that the failure to appreciate the role of emotion may partly explain why so many official and academic reports remain unimplemented in the metaphorical government drawer. Next, the authors discuss a series of models of the relationship between policy and evidence and argue that to account for both evidence and emotion, a model incorporating broad democratic engagement and dialogue with stakeholders is necessary. An understanding of the process of collecting, presenting, and explaining evidence – the procedural aspects of reform and policy – may be as important as the substance of those policies.
Results
The Enlightenment model emphasizes the importance of creating informed discourse within a broader democratic front; one envisioned as an “evidence-based society in which debate is grounded in and takes into account (contested) evidence available to many, not just a few.” It also propels evidence into the broader arena of affect, possibly supporting the unfamiliar, if not illogical, notion of “emotion-driven evidence.” Furthermore, it posits a centrifugal process of evidence diffusion rather than a narrower, centripetal process of instrumental evidence gathering, albeit with dignified consultation, for policymaking purposes. Evidence circulates back into the policymaking process through a communicative, discursive, or dialogical approach that seeks to democratize knowledge and its use; to deliberately inject values and emotions into the decision-making process; and to avoid the depoliticization and managerialization of knowledge production and utilization. This would involve rejecting scientific claims to sole authority and "inserting a more accessible and democratic discourse into the very heart of the scientific endeavor."
Adopting the evidence-based policy clarification model would also imply a renewed commitment to openness on the part of organizations designed to maximize the impact of evidence in policymaking. More obviously, perhaps, they would have to be open in the sense that they should be permeable to the input and participation of other parties in a more active and collaborative role than is connoted by traditional concepts of consultation, engagement, or expert advice. Stakeholder groups and advocates become an integral part of an informed process of public debate on data and evidence. Practitioners, users, and other stakeholders (who are not without their own emotional and value positions) become part of an iterative process within which their knowledge, feelings, needs, and perspectives, while not having unconditional primacy or privilege, are integrated into problem identification, evidence analysis, and the formulation of relevant policies.
Lessons in Public Policy
The public policy model suggested by Freiberg and Carson (2010) does not require abandoning evidence for intuition or reason for emotion. The authors attempted to distinguish between the “evidence” element in evidence-based policy and the policy component. While the evidence base for policy, insofar as it is empirical or quantitative, should be scientifically rigorous, the application or translation of that evidence into practice, particularly in relation to the criminal justice system, should be informed by broader considerations, such as emotions.
Therefore, the authors suggest that recognizing emotion and affect within a dialogical and open policy-making process would not only generate a better evidence-based policy model, but also a greater likelihood of such policies achieving their stated objectives.
References
KARIMI, Saeid et al. The impact of entrepreneurship education: A study of Iranian students' entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity identification. Journal of Small Business Management, v. 54, no. 1, p. 187-209, 2016.
