Evidence Based Practice In Criminal Justice

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The use of evidence based practices is becoming more prevalent in criminal justice today. An example of evidence based practice in use in the society today is probation. For instance, in Travis County, probation has led to a transformation that has significantly changed and strengthened the internal culture and processes of the county to enhance evidence based practices. Texas probation departments have been characterized by a rising service demand and expectations that probation should minimize recidivism effectively. Probation as an evidence based practice has been an effective tool. Its use has made many departments to shift towards evidence based practices that entail the change of operations to casework having begun from paperwork (Aos,…show more content…
The first results of the impact of this evidence based practice showed that there were significant reductions in costs, probation revocations and new arrests to the county. For instance, a report released in May 2009 shows that the CSG reported that more than $4.8 million in incarceration costs were done away with because of the minimized revocations (Cole, Smith & DeJong, 2014). Due to these figures, it can be argued that probation is an example of an evidence based practice that is a more effective tool than good police work or gut instinct. They are more effective tools because they can: end the risky trial and error approaches, build on the past lessons, enhance the wise investment of resources, promote consistency to attain desired results, ensure stakeholders understand practices and decisions, optimize the probability of offender success. These benefits increase accountability thus improving the chances of minimizing…show more content…
Police are often the first to contact offenders. This influences the decisions regarding what will happen to them. The main decision that they make, perhaps, is the initiation of an alleged journey of an offender through the US criminal justice system. Moreover, the police take part in various duties; include both the proactive and the reactive roles. The reactive duties they serve occur after a crime has happened, and it is at this point that they are exposed to the courts since they have to report the crimes to the court in order to facilitate trials and justice administration (Neubauer & Fradella, 2013). The evidence they collect and the transport of the suspect to jail further make them to interact with correctional units and the courts. This is significant because it sets precedence towards the administration of justice. They also testify at several pretrial chamber hearings and during trials to enable the court judges to make decisions about the cases presented to

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