Corrections_Today_November_December_2021_Vol.83_No.6

nEWS&vIEWS

–– Creating incentives for ongo- ing innovations and creation of evidence-based programs and practices. Program trainers can improve training by: –– Developing training materi- als for evaluated and rated programs. Researchers can improve justice programming and become more informed on criminal justice research by: –– Consulting CrimeSolutions evi- dence standards to strengthen evaluation designs. –– For programs rated “Promising” by CrimeSolutions, focusing on using rigorous evalua- tion designs to build the body of evidence and potentially increase confidence in program effectiveness. –– For programs or practices rated “Inconclusive” by CrimeSolutions, researchers may have an opportunity to build the program evidence base sufficiently for a sub - sequent CrimeSolutions evaluation to establish, with the requisite degree of scientific certainty, a program or practice is promising or effective or has no effects. –– Improve the available body of knowledge: Where an existing program or practice has been rated “Promising” by Crime- Solutions, there is incentive for independent researchers to conduct additional evaluation

istock/Sezeryadigar

The distinct value of CrimeSolutions for different professional audiences Having objective scientific evalua - tions of available corrections programs and practices can offer immediate benefits for a variety of stakehold - ers, including academic researchers engaged in program evaluations, prac- titioners, policymakers and trainers. Some of those CrimeSolutions benefits, by audience group, are: Corrections professionals may be able to improve program or practice effectiveness by one or more of the following actions: –– Familiarizing themselves with rated and evaluated programs in their field. –– Replicating a program or prac- tice found in CrimeSolutions. –– Adapting a program or practice from CrimeSolutions. Policymakers can shape funding decisions by: –– Creating incentives to use evaluated and rated programs and practices.

The so-called gold standard of evaluation methods is the random- ized controlled trial, or RCT. In RCTs, participants are randomly divided into treatment and control groups. Carefully controlled and measured division of participants en- sures that, to the extent possible, the only difference between the groups is one receives the experimental treatment and the other does not. As an evaluable method, the ran- domized controlled trial is uniquely capable of isolating and measuring the effect of experimental treatment. Beyond randomization, RCTs must be well-coordinated, with provisions to ensure, for instance, there is no contamination between the treatment and control groups. In some studies, a rigorous com- parison is either not feasible, or not needed to establish the answer to the scientific inquiry. A randomized trial would not be feasible when, for example, denial of the treatment to a control group would be unethical, or the subject of a study is retro- spective. And generally, RCTs rely on relatively large sample sizes to demonstrate measurable effect.

work, using a more rigor- ous scientific design where

14 — November/December 2021 Corrections Today