Evidence-based public policy
Criminologist Don Weatherburn, Director of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in Sydney, argues persuasively for an evidence-based approach to crime prevention. Scientific research is not inerrant, but in the long run it is far superior to ideology, 'common sense' or subjective experience as a basis for sound public policy.
Prison policy too should be evidence based. The Australian Government argued, in defence of the treatment of a prisoner at Parklea Correctional Centre in 1999, that housing him in solitary confinement without a stitch of clothing, blankets or pillow and under 24-hour artificial lighting was an effort to prevent him harming himself. Common sense might suggest that removing means of inflicting harm will reduce harm, but one might equally conclude that such undignified, inhumane treatment could increase an inclination to self-harm. In this case, the UN Human Rights Committee also found it to be an abuse of human rights. Culturally sensitive psychological research should help inform what does reduce self-harming behaviours in prisons and what does not. Best guess and good intentions (if we are to give the Government and the prison the benefit of the doubt) are not good enough.
Paul Hunt is another fan of evidence-based public policy, in particular, policy that promotes human rights. This Kiwi-born lawyer is UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. He sees an important part of his role as demonstrating how the right to health can be realised in all contexts, within all budgets. Research should be conducted and consulted to decide how to best deliver the right to health for all, including those living in poverty. "A right to health approach brings rigorous analysis – you might say discipline – to national and international health policy-making."
Neither Hunt nor Weatherburn advocates public policy based exclusively on research. Ethics and human rights are also critical factors in policy formation. Evidence would suggest, for example, that we could reduce recidivism in juvenile offenders by locking them all up until the age of 40, but such mandatory sentences would be grossly disproportionate to the gravity of most juvenile offences, and offend our sense of justice.
On the subject of human rights policy, you can't go past the International Council on Human Rights Policy, a small research NGO situated near Geneva. It exists to conduct applied policy research of "practical relevance" to organisations working in the field of human rights. Its publications, available in English, French and Spanish, for free download or on-line purchase, cover such subjects as the human rights obligations of local goverment and the business sector, military intervention into humanitarian crises, and the rights implications of news reporting and, as it happens, crime prevention. Dr Weatherburn should approve.
[…] In an effort to advance the MDGs by means of evidence-based policy, Sachs is overseeing a 5-year UN experiment in 78 villages in Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Malawi. The Millennium Villages Project has already had proven successes in tackling food insecurity and malaria. The Project is said to differ from development efforts of the past by trialling integrated interventions directly linked to the MDGs, with the participation of village committees as well as district and national governments. […]