The article discusses the difference in opinions about the efficacy of criminal justice between criminologists and the public. According to the literature, the public masses feel like criminal justice policies are too lenient for particular crimes and advocate for tougher punishments such as death penalties and mass incarceration for grave criminal activities (Griffin et al., 2016). However, criminologists argue that criminal justice policies and punishments regarding particular crimes are relevant since they consider all issues presented in court before the final ruling (Griffin et al., 2016). Therefore, the public should be aware of all factors that justice courts consider before a ruling to convince the public of their verdicts.
The article reviews various works of literature on the perspectives on criminal justice between criminology scholars and the general public. The authors discuss controversial issues regarding criminology policies, such as the degree and nature of particular crimes according to public opinion and experts’ views. After reviewing various literature on the topic, the article draws up three hypotheses to verify the controversies and their implications on the justice system. The authors conduct their research through surveys using questionnaires and existing data to discover the general public and criminal experts’ views on criminal justice policies. The authors summarize and conclude their findings, which conform with the hypotheses. Lastly, the article recommends further discussions on academic expertise in criminal justice policy formulation and publicizing academic relevance to influence general public opinion.
This article attempts to verify the controversial arguments regarding criminal justice policies between the public and criminologists by comparing and contrasting different opinions from civilians and crime experts. The article also intends to bridge the controversial gap by discussing conclusive facts that cause the opinion differences to create an approach that provides a consensus in opinions between civilians, criminal experts and public policy.
The research uses a survey study approach through online surveys using google forms. The researchers emailed instructions and questionnaires regarding the study to 585 faculty members in the field of criminal justice (Griffin et al., 2016). Participants were selected through purposive sampling on the assumption that experts in the field would provide relevant information. Data from Public opinions were extracted from previous surveys documented in Criminal Justice Statistics sourcebooks by replication the exact findings into electronic survey forms. Data analysis involved comparing public opinions and expert options using the Chi-Square test analysis.
The article uses three hypotheses to guide the study. The first hypothesis states that criminology experts are against death penalties more than civilians. The second hypothesis suggests that criminologists argue that death penalties do not reduce heinous crimes like murder (Griffin et al., 2016). Lastly, the article assumes that criminology experts have more liberal views regarding justice than the general public.
The authors concluded that criminal justice experts have more liberal views regarding crimes and punishment than the general public. Apart from crimes, criminology experts are also more open-minded on legal issues such as legalizing marijuana than civilians.
The authors recommend future examination and analysis of the role of academic expertise in formulating crime policies. Consequently, the article suggests formulating methods that can publicize the information to influence public opinions on criminal justice.
Reference
Griffin Timothy, Pason Amy, Brace Brittany & Wiecko Filip. (2016). Comparing criminologists’ criminal justice policy review. 29(5). Web.