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25 J. Res. Crime & Delinquency 3 (1988)

handle is hein.journals/jrcd25 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITOR'S COMMENTS The themes addressed in this edition of the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency are among those most frequently appearing in it in recent years and perhaps in the general field of criminological research as well. They include policy research; in this case, the issue is not what the most desirable public policies are, but what occurs when they are implemented. Another article is devoted to theory testing, while still another to decision research and the existence of inappropriate discrimination in sentencing. And finally, there is a study of a criminal justice agency, the measurement of its output, and its community interrelationships. Similarly of interest are the variety of methodologies displayed in these articles. One employs sophisticated quantitative methods familiar to social science research, another a model developed in a setting removed from criminal justice, and a third statistical techniques, also developed in other settings and elegantly applied to a traditional area of criminological research. Finally, one article uses qualitative methods entirely, reflecting a growing interest in the social sciences for techniques that allow researchers to generalize more broadly than typically allowed by the rigid canons of quantitative methods and to deal more effectively with the contexts in which phenomena occur. It is the first article in the Journal which employs the nonquantitative approach. Here, Bordt and Musheno trace out the sequence of events as a department of corrections establishes an inmate grievance mechanism to obtain certain articulated goals. The writers observe how that mechanism is increasingly transformed over time to serve quite different ones. Rather than providing a neutral forum where the views of prisoners and administrators enjoy relatively equal standing, the grievance mechanism in the end is made to serve primarily the needs of the agency rather than a dispute resolution function. In recent years we have seen a number of reforms in the criminal justice setting become the vehicles by which other agenda within the criminal justice system are expressed and made to serve ends far distant from those intended by its originators. This article reminds us that there is much more involved in the successful implementation of policy than good intentions and self-contained rationality. It requires as well an understanding of the factors at play that will allow it either to be 3 from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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